What the Muses Leave Behind

May 28, 2020 This week's observations and ideas – As the economic and social flood gates slide open, I try not to get washed away.   There is a full spectrum of realities in this riptide of reentry.   I was grateful to visit the nail salon for more human touch – ahhhhh; and for the innovations that gave the salon a sense of enhanced safety and hygiene: suspended plexiglass panels hung by fishing lines between Pedi-chairs; plexiglass shields mounted on mani-tables. Masked nailists have been the norm for a long time, but I showed my respect and gratitude to them arriving in my cotton face shield too.   I was not too bothered by the naked face in the chair beside me because shields were up!   Word on the street is that restaurants and bars are packed and partying like it is 1999.   I expect that the CDC will collect more data from these science experiments. I predict that it's the servers who will newly join the "most at risk" essential workers list, right behind the m

May 24, 2020 Today’s idea – We have one more week in the 2019-2020 academic year.   Tomorrow is a holiday, then three days of classes, a remote school field day and graduation. The field day is a long-standing tradition going back decades, a friendly competition between the two houses of Imps and Tigers.   We are all sorted, each as we arrive, everyone a life long member of their house.   This time next week, graduation ceremony will be set up on the nest of lawn at the campus’s center – a small affair (one of the blessings right now of a small school) of seven graduates.   As we are in Iowa, masks are recommended but not required.   So many of us have arrived at this present moment by living large.   To pull things in is a challenge, one that feels too granular and one that presents the most viable path forward. The day after graduation, we get organized for the summer, the shape of which is still a mystery to most of us.   Our new normal demands that we look at the small immedi

May 22, 2020   Today’s image – At dusk, I watched a frenzy of swifts dance into the summer stack like a fistful of pennies whirling in slow motion around a vortex funnel.   Hundreds flew in wide noisy parabolas, and then unceremoniously dropped like feathered stones, out of sight. I tried to imagine what it looked like inside the red brick column, how each swift clung to his measure of mortar. If I could hover, owl silent above the chimney mouth, I could take in an excellent view of their box, study how their collective bodies resemble a dark cousin to the coral reefs. I would love to ask them some questions about displacement. After a hundred winters and demise has gobbled most of the chimney, where then does this frenzy go?   How many nights can the refugees make do in unwelcomed places, keeping an eye on the horizon?   Birds don’t know time. I thinned out the root seedlings in the box gardens, tucked in some annuals at the entrance bed. I’m giving more attention to small event

May 21, 2020 Today's dialectic – I’ve been thinking about the mask thing. On the one hand, they are essential for curbing the first lines of transmission. (I don’t know where people around me have been, and I don’t really want to know - TMI.)   So if one accepts the science, it is self-evident.   These nano-sized hitchhikers know how to catch a ride on spewed words and allergy sneezes, hang ten on droplets as they ride through the air following gravity, and innocently find their next host. So our public health agents have offered logical recommendations – when we go out in public, wear a mask and when you get to home base, wash your hands. It’s not rocket science; it’s epidemiology 101. But thanks to the fool in the White House, public mask-wearing has become a political game of chicken. And half of the Midwesterners with whom I now publicly circulate have taken his lead, bringing the chicken game with them. I might assume that those who opt out of masking in close public space

May 20, 2020 Today’s image – Americans love to travel.   Sometimes I think, we see our mobility as another constitutional right, the right to go where we damn well please. It’s become part of the American existential, no doubt, ingrained by our immigrant ancestors, embedded in our psyche before five like the other pieces of our implicit upbringing.   It is an intractable attitude now and probably a driver for our restlessness and discontent with the shelter in place directives.   We just can’t be still that long unless we become impaired, and then woe be the ones who have to live with us as we grouse and complain.   The travel industry and adventure authors like Jack London and Elizabeth Gilbert have fanned that sojourner flame. Maybe it’s not the motion of travel but an insatiable curiosity.   We want to experience ourselves in other geographies – what they can tickle out of us, what new moxie they demand we bring.   Then some have found their seasonal peregrination paths, vestige

May 19, 2020 Today’s idea – We are in this together -I see that a lot these days.   Billboards on secondary highways, neon-colored letters painted on storefront windows, plastic letter inserts for sidewalk signs on wheels.   It’s a good thought that rides on the back of a bigger truth. Actually, we are in everything together. Our biology has developed to be intrinsically connected to other biology around us and beyond us. The air we exchange with the plant world fans the nutrients we trade with other life, that rides with the water as it conveys through everything - sky to sea to sky to sea to sky.   The science lens continues to find more and more ways that everything has connected with everything else.   Some of the connections are up close and personal; some are subtle and extenuated.   Think about the paradox of an aspen grove.   We see hundreds or thousands of tall, slim, white trees with heart-shaped leaves that tremble in the wind.   Below the surface is one organism, the asp

May 18, 2020 So few grains of happiness measured against all the dark and still the scales balance. The world asks of us only the strength we have, and we give it. Then it asks more, and we give it. -           Jane Hirshfield Today’s observations – I did it, nervously, but I joined the soft re-entry to normal. Wait, it’s the new normal.   I took a step further into the new normal as I kept the appointment I made a month ago with my hairdresser.   It had been two months since I sat in his chair. I made the appointment as an act of good faith. As the date drew closer, I thought, it will be canceled or rescheduled -nothing to stress about. Then it wasn’t. So I juggled that in my head a bit - should I go or not?   The truth is that this little shop needed my show of confidence more than I needed to prove anything to myself. I have been helping to maintain a safe business and home environment at the school.   There must be a way to resume the community of commerce in th

We wait We push at the edges We listen to the sirens We wash our hands We feel everything too much We fear that we aren’t doing enough We make sour dough starter We simmer bone broth We eat less meat We hope it will be okay We wash our hands We push at the edges We stomp around the center We learn to sew masks We photo-bomb the family We joke around about worry We hug our kids We wash our hands We read too many headlines and tweets We watch for the champions We chase the dog We need more human touch We wash our hands We give more time to things We give more thought to things We grow impatient We ask who is responsible We want someone to blame We feed the birds We plant a garden We hope all this will be worth it We pray all this will end soon We hear it's early days yet We expect to be changed We push at the edges We wash our hands We wait,    

May 17, 2020 Today’s image – I woke with the area around my left eye swollen, really swollen, like I’d been punched.   There was an impressive bag of fluid sitting beneath it; the lid above was like a pillow.   Yesterday, a gnat bit me at the corner. I knew it was a gnat because when I swatted, my finger squashed it. A gnat! That bite itched all day.   And this morning….well here was some first-rate synchronicity—my fascination with inflammations yesterday, then my own mini- cytokine storm today.   I wondered if I should take a Vitamin D supplement, but in the end, I resorted to home remedies of a green tea bag poultice and a baking soda plaster to relieve the swelling. Another damp and chilly Sunday with the deep soaking kind of rain gives me a day to retreat and let my inflammatory response play itself out.

May 16, 2020 Today's observation- Iowa has joined the fray to commence the soft reopening of the economy beyond essentials.   The Purgatory Pub's parking lot had a sizable population of motorcycles and pickups; patrons were all inside. I passed a gregarious outdoor scene at a local café and bar, which must have been almost forty folks dining outside and listening to live music on the lawn.   The front door of a chocolate shop in a river tourist town was open, and an a-frame sidewalk sign reminded viewers that chocolate is an essential commodity.   I agreed with that, but I didn't stop. I'd loaded my kayak for a paddle, the first of the year, and I chose a launch ramp at a county park and marina just off the Rock Creek in Clinton County because it has canoe trails that network a big area.   While rental boats were not out and available, many private crafts were on the water.   And I counted my blessings to have a wide aquatic berth between me and the ticks. The trunk

May 15, 2020 Today’s medical insight – Once again, son #1 finds  the  chicken soup video or podcast or Reddit meme that brings some good medicine to a day. That doughnut and a blow job swap for a roll of TP ditty swung between guffaw and WTF.  Today the medical righteous was invited into the room – Joe Rogan interviewed Dr. Rhonda Patrick, a biochemist specializing in nutrition, aging, and disease. She was on her game!  Parsing out concise research information in a biomedical patois that made me glad that I taught biology and life science. I would have been otherwise lost in the lingo like cytokines (messengers of the immune system), macrophages (white blood cell that eats invaders) and etiology (origins). Additionally she had killer recall for data from supporting studies.  Maybe this is what it takes for a woman scientist to be seen as bona fide but then again, maybe she just loves the jargon and has a penchant for numbers and data. It was a lot to take in and her audiences are pr

May 14, 2020 Today’s introversion – The lousy news felt oppressive and odious; it's been wearing me down.   Solitaire has become a default occupation when I am not gleaning the news.   This is a bad sign.   A better choice could be to write notes to a few friends with the new cards I got from Etsy just for this moment. Some old fashion thank notes are long overdue and probably just the antidote for this malaise.   The runes that one of my dearests made for my birthday, out of cherry from a piece of the deadfall in her yard, reminded me that not only do I need to send her a note, but I also need to initiate them. And then there is my bestie who just had her thyroid removed today after years of procrastination until it almost killed her with blood pressure swings.   But instead of correspondence, I listened to the heat exchange unit as it growled and gurgled, watching the digital display dance through random numbers like a terrier after a squirrel. Then after sitting irked at that

May 13, 2020 Today’s observation – March 13 was the day the president declared the COVID pandemic a national emergency, and governors followed suit in the following week(s) to implement various economic shutdown and isolation policies.   So here we are at the two month benchmark with new habits and lifeways that we have made out of necessity or ingenuity. (This sixty-six day time frame is an average benchmark period for new habit forming behavior that was discovered in studies by the psychologist, Jeremy Dean.) So, it would appear that we have launched into our new normal , person by person, cohort by cohort, business by business, and political state by political state. My new normal is a nimble one, due to the nature of my current life as a dorm parent and remote teacher who has a casually small and very occasional social cohort. What are my lifestyle changes? How have I adapted? Definitely, my fundamental new behavior is mask-wearing and diligence for disinfection as I venture o

May 12, 2020 Today’s image – In life, there are takeaways, and then there are TAKEAWAYS. My hallowed ground, wildlife refuge trip sent me off with a significant takeaway, and one that took most of my attention today – deer ticks! Only minutes into that walk along the levee, I was commending my good providence for hiking on the slough on such a beautiful but chilly day, and glibly remarking to myself about the absence of mosquitoes.   My comeuppance arrived around 9:00 pm last night as I noticed a little tickle of something moving across my hand. I looked up from my book – augghhhh! TICK! TICK! TICK!   The red lights in my brain flashed as the sirens of my amygdala screamed.   I search my arms and legs; I felt around my scalp and armpits. I looked at my pup, and a primal nitpicking session commenced as I combed his fur and my head with frantic fingers.   Dozens of ticks had hitchhiked home on us from the tall marsh grasses. Before retiring, I stripped down and re-searched every crevic

May 11, 2020 Today’s idea – On the class agenda was economics.   The word economy originated from the Greek word “ oeconomicus ” for household management, which included consideration for the value of free men’s work in a household and that of exploited women and slaves. Later these ideas were extended from households to city-states, and later to nation-states.   The shape of its letters resembles a warren, and I added more rooms by contrasting neo-classic economics with eco–economics and doughnut economics. The word begs the question, what do I consider home? Where is my Ecos ? This existential query should be the Axis of any economics question; and its answer would be the Mundi. Unless the home is defined or described, how can we know what we are managing? A clear sense of habitat is rather essential to shape the perspective and frame the response.   This afternoon I mulled on this question as I sat on a levee beside the Mississippi River in a massive wildlife refuge. I had dri

May 10, 2020 Today’s reflection on the evidence of a durable normal and the things we do to keep hope alive. The weather on this Sunday is definitely dogwood winter, chilly, gray, damp. It provides a fine backdrop for reflections over a cup of coffee of yesterday’s quintessential spring loveliness—the perfect Saturday for outdoor living.   And t oday is the perfect Sunday for small tasks, reading, lesson prep and even baking.   Yes, I baked a French Apple Blueberry Galette for myself.   It was that kind of cook up some comfort day.  As the pie baked and the day outside skulked about, I reminisced on Loud Thunder Forest Preserve and the gifts from the Bike Man.    The preserve was a place the school cook suggested as I checked kids in at brunch.   After last weekend’s livestock experience, I was keen on finding a Saturday trail walk that would be less adored. And as I loaded a few fellow hikers into the school van, I felt optimistic that we’d find our Shangri-La.   This Illinois gr

May 9, 2020 Today’s mind experiment – this morning, I launched the thought experiment by watching a shared video called Coronavirus from Outer Space – Professor Wickramasinghe, Astrobiologist.  The channel is Green Tara Guru. The production behind Dr. Wickramasinghe’s mini-lecture was fun; his home office video was surrounded by a frame, embellished with space CGI and supporting image video clips for what he is describing at any moment, as well as, a celestial music soundtrack.  (My students would love if I were able to produce such lecture videos for them.) It was released May 1, 2020, and has a paltry three hundred fifty-nine views, one of which is mine.  After watching the video, I did my customary search about Dr. Wickramasinghe’s background.  He is a broadly publish an award-winning British mathematician and astronomer born in Sri Lanka in 1939. In the 1960’s he worked with theoretical physicist Dr. Fred Hoyle on a radical kind of panspermia (the idea that life is distributed thro

May 8, 2020 Today’s image – Yesterday had a full moon, albeit behind cloud cover.   While out that afternoon in a prairie park, I called my good friend and creative collaborator to talk about things going on.   She and I have published on a collection of art and poems and are compiling another. She paints break taking cosmic starscapes on enormous canvases, a painting wherein its viewer can get lost. She sees herself as a light work on a mission to assist with a vibration elevation that will create a beautiful ascension event that brings people into the fifth dimension. When I try to wrap my mind about what that means, I can only imagine the music group from the sixties. She has trained as a hypnotherapist, taking clients during a session that might last three or four hours back into past lifetimes to look at previous events or relationships in those lives that might be playing out still in a current lifetime.   Yes, she is an esoteric thinker, living within a very eccentric cosmolog

May 7, 2020 Today’s departure – it is a full moon, the Flower Moon in Scorpio. It is May, and my astrologer writes: The truth of your needs only helps you clarify what kind of space to prepare for the partnerships you're ready to bring in.   My muse tugs at my sleeve. I write a love poem.   (I posted it before this entry.)

I love a woman with a wheelbarrow. Her strong brown arms, maybe gardener tanned are as much sculpture as anatomy. I love how she puts her load Ahead of her, pushing it to do her bidding. I love a woman with a wheelbarrow.   I love a woman on horseback. The voluptuous stack of buttocks Stitch the air with a sweet sashay How a woman holds a mare with her knees How a mare holds a woman with her scent, How I hold them both in my gaze. I love a woman on horseback.   I love a woman on a rock face. Arms stretched, fingers gripping small lips of stone, Toes attentive to the dance that follows. She climbs as much in mind as in body She dwells as much in molecule as in being. Serenity follows the ghosts of chalk. I love a woman on a rock face.   I love a rock face challenging the woman. First impressions of peril didn’t work She trusted a deeper call and attended, now Its rough face is drunk on her perspiration, It taunts her temerity as she drags a leg Across one precipice and on to a ledge. I