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 the new normal.
Walking
through the front door, I scanned the shop. There were three stylists and only
two other clients besides me. My hairdresser
was preparing his station and asked me to wash my hands while he finished up. Everyone wore masked, and the air smelled
clean, you could have eaten off the floor, well, maybe not eaten off the
floor. It is a hair salon, but all the
surfaces were gleaming. As he waved me
over, I popped down in the black swivel chair to let him do his work. I had forgotten how long it had been since another
adult human had touched me with intention.
I needed that, even if it did feel like a naughty pleasure.
We
fell into our regular chat as if I had been in only last week. Crossing the
invisible quarantine line gave an edge to the conversation, though, we felt grateful
each other had emerged okay. He loves to talk about European travels with his
wife. I like to pepper the chat with the
nerd bombs, asking his opinion on the latest COVID medical theories or how
other countries have handled their outbreaks. For now, we have little personal
experience with the disease, and we favor friendly topics, so we steer away
from politics. He is a Midwest small-town
local boy, and he voted for Trump because he has always voted Republican. I
suppose as the election nears, I will test him on his allegiance. At that
moment, I didn’t want to distract him from his task at hand (his fingers in my hair).
I
did share a story I read in the NY Times this morning. A family in Brooklyn had to experience the
new inflammatory syndrome that shows ups in kids as it ravaged their fourteen-year-old
son. Inflammation hits the blood vessels causing the blood pressure to drop so
much that the heart beats itself dizzy, trying to revive it. The doctors considered
the stress on his heart a kind of heart failure. The boy told reporters that he felt he had
fire running through his veins. This is
a mean and nasty virus!
At
school, we are living with a lot of disappointment. It doesn’t look like the boarding students
will be traveling home any time soon. The
US coronavirus news is so bad in the eyes of other nations; they have
restricted travel severely. Vietnam will
revisit opening their borders in July and Morocco, maybe in June. Their parents are rightly concerned about the
ability to return in the fall. Watching
how sanguine most of the kids have been about the news inspires me. They are right in the middle of something for
which they and their families never signed up. Today as a few of us got together to make
bread, I listened to their new normal discussions, what summer in Iowa might be
like, and what they would be taking next year for independent study classes.
On
another note, in Des Moines, some neighborhood folks have begun placing zip
lock bags full of masks in the tiny free libraries, as the state health
officials began recommendations for everyone wear masks in public. I’m witnessing about 50% participation now,
as Iowa reports three to four hundred new cases a day. I supposed that is manageable in a state of 3.15
million. There are still Iowa counties reporting
no positive cases. I find it interesting
that the highest age group testing positive is 18-42.
Across
the river in Illinois, government authorities are still trying to balance the
scales. Those Chicagoans just won’t get with the program. Mayor Lightfoot has decided to fine churches
for violating her public health’s mandate for reduced capacity numbers in their
services. Still, auto insurance premium numbers are going down, that’s progress
somewhere. But I still grin at the fact
that in the time of COVID, cannabis and liquor are the sanctioned and essential
agents of spirit, while churchgoers must suffer the mayor’s wrath.
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