Skip to main content

Covid19 Journal Entry 5


March 26, 2020
Driving West again, my return to Iowa on the Mississippi River and my students.

Today’s Image - 96.5 degrees F. - that is my temperature today.  I am asymptomatic, feeling fine. Like millions of others, I search myself for telltale body sensations, ones I’ve read about and heard of - a scratchy throat grabs my attention, a cough after eating a dry snack without a washdown raises my heart rate for a moment.  I’ve been unable to stop touching my face - nose itches and I must scratch it, saliva pools at the corners of my mouth, sometimes drips down a fine crease off my lips if I am extra juicy and I have to wipe it away; sometimes an eye waters for no good reason and needs dabbing too. I am prone to rest my cheek bone or chin on my palm or thumb when listening at a table. The vectors of transmission grow long and unkind. Sure, as I get more aware of my interminable face handling tendencies, I compensate by chronically cleaning my hands, even using my wrist in a sleeve to relieve such simple and lifelong urges, turned menacing.  It they take me down, I supposed they will take me down.  Still, spending this part of my shelter in place days in the Appalachian woods and rural town settings has given me a gift - mindful refuge from the hysteria storm beyond me.  I have held witness to the accounts from hot zones worldwide, feeling as if I am standing on the shore of a brown turbid spring river watching the danger flow by and  realizing I could soon be entering the heat myself.  Who knows if it will be as victim or volunteer?

Today’s idea - Here is an extraordinarily teachable cascade of moments.  What an extraordinarily fortunate time to be a teacher!

Today’s observation - I have returned to the Nolichucky Gorge Campground community in Tennessee to spend one more night and morning with my son. Before I pull in to his space, I indulge myself stopping at the park picnic park and boat launching site beside the Nolichucky River to write and just watch it roll by.  It has a vigor that echoes all around me in the vibrancy of the blossoming trees, the fat green pillows of moss carpeting rocks and dead fall; in the robin, sparrow and Rufus-sided towhee cacophony overhead; in the chorus of spring peppers behind me. A kayaker has just paddled up to the takeout and pulled his boat from the river; passing me we exchange greetings, and my Westie yips for recognition too out the back window, as he stops with his gear at the maroon Ford Econoline van beside us.  There are kids climbing across a line of boulders, who pause to watch him load his vintage blue Perception onto the racks and tie it down. They are barefoot and shorts clad, it’s 5:30 on a Thursday evening.  The feel of vacation days from school rolls out of their chatter as they leaf frog each other across this sunny afternoon, reminding me it’s best to simply live in the moment too.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

2020 Pandemic Journey Day 44

May 4, 2020 Today’s idea – What has the fog of our modern conveniences begat? I read an article last night published in 1950 by Berton Roueche’ titled The Fog . In October 1948, a toxic smog settled on the borough of Donora, PA. This town is tucked away on a meander of the Monongahela River in the Allegheny Mountains.   During that time, it was home to three huge mills, a steel plant, and a zinc and sulfuric acid plant. The towering factory stacks of these industries pushed out thick plumes of coal smoke all day and all week. Also, given the town’s proximity to the river, boats and trains added their emission to the cocktail. To seal the deal, Donora sits in the topography of secluded bluffs and hills that allow for little or no wind to carry the smoke and fumes out of town.   So the place was known to be a smutty, smokey mess, tolerated by residents who referred to the sulfurous stench as the smell of money. On this weekend in October, a thermal inversion put a tighter li...
Post a Comment
Read more

Covid19 Journey Day 20

April 10, 2020 Today’s idea – Maybe we’ve needed this for a long time.   To be stopped so we could take a long moment and assess what is alive in us and what is mere rote living, what is unnecessary and what really matters; what we carry by empty habit. To know that busier doesn’t make us more worthy- a good work ethic is not to be confused with constant motion.   We’ve needed this to   learn how to be together as family again, to sit together in conversation, to listen to one another, to play and read together, help solve problems even do homework together, cook together, sit around a table again. And to say to each other, here are boundaries, this is okay and that is not okay because we do that for the ones we love. We needed this to understand that isolation can be hard on some people sheltering in place, the abuser with the abused,   those that must shelter alone, those who need consistent home care for a chronic illness or condition, the family receiving h...
Post a Comment
Read more

Covid Journal Entry 14

April 4, 2020 Today’s image – Exploring social cohorts. So, on campus now there is a small village of us living together, the remnants of those in residence this year.   We are an international population: seven from the US, six from Vietnam, five from China,   four from Morocco, one from the DR and two dogs/three cats.   We share four large buildings where we live, take our meals, study and exercise, on a five-acre campus. The rest of the two hundred and sixty or seventy odd community members are sheltering in their homes; some of the teachers and administrators dropping by during the week to work in their offices.   We have had little or no contact with them so far.   Our chef and his crew of two come in by rotation to prepare and serve the daily meals, a maintenance duo tend to the essential tasks and repairs, the city services haul away trash and recycling, the postal service, UPS and FedEx still deliver mail and packages.   It’s Iowa and the gove...
Post a Comment
Read more