March 29, 2020
At last I shelter in my own space
and with an imposed two-week quarantine because the governor says so. Yesterday, I prepared as best I could, but I
plan to make an appeal to my doctor to help me get tested even if I am asymptomatic,
given the circumstances. I want to have
access to my classroom, that is of the biggest concerns I have. I do have
remote lessons to prepare! Oh, how lucky
am I?
Today’s observation – BIG WIND
greeted me as I pulled onto campus and has pressed on throughout the night and
today. There are black vultures riding it like kite surfers on the Mediterranean
at Tarifa. As I unloaded my bicycle and
pushed it onto the porch, a huge limb crashed to the ground and shattered
behind me. Major spring cleaning by Mama
Nature! More normalcy from the big world
beyond our drama. Gratitude. Today I
hear the ghost sounds of the others who share the Carriage House dorm with me,
and my pup presses his nose to the crack beneath the door, inspecting who might
be on the other side, confused about why it is not open so he can greet the
girls as they come down to do their laundry or just to say hi. All their
check-ins with me are now virtual until I get out of quarantine. I talked with a
few of them through my window, admiring their good spirits and fortitude. Their families wait this out on the other
side of the globe, even a day ahead of us.
Here is one of the common threads I share with these kids. WE all live far away from our families while
at school. We hold space for each other
to be homesick or worried. We envy the
freedom of the birds who migrate overhead.
Today’s idea – Alliances are more
vital now than ever. A notion for rugged
individualism is better deferred for the easier times. In Queens, New York
there is a group of community activists who created an assistance alliance.
They printed flyers and distributed them on the doors of each apartment throughout
their neighborhood, asking – “what do you need?
Here is our number – just call.” Alliance cultivates such blossoms out
of the compost of all the shit. Maria Popova shared today: “Hope – and the wise
effective action that can spring from it – is the counterweight to the heavy sense
of our own fragility.”
Today’s image – My stricken
Colorado amiga has become one of the recovering from Covid19. She described her experience as swift to arrive
and brutal to endure. She first noticed,
out of nowhere, her stomach began to hurt a lot and thought, “What have I eaten?” By that evening she was in the first throes of
it – intense body aches, headache and a growing fever. She called her doctor who told her these were
clear symptoms of the virus. She prescribed something for her symptoms and told
her to go to bed. “Call 911 if you have trouble breathing.” By morning the body aches racked her with
chills and higher fever. There was
nothing she took to relieve the headache. By day three she was coughing and on
the floor with nausea as she hugged the toilet. Her doctors prescribed more
meds for someone to drop at her door and reminded to call 911 if she had
breathing complications. Otherwise stay
home in bed. She did all this on her own!!! There is an app she used to get a
neighbor to pick things up, but they were left at her door too. Gratitude to
that neighbor! After day four or five, she couldn’t remember, she felt the illness
subsiding and has been in fragile recovery since. She is joyful that she can come downstairs for
a cup of tea and a movie or a book. This
virus demands such a strong and sturdy constitution and plenty of resolve from
its dance partners.
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