Skip to main content

Journey into New Normal - Day 62

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 events that build moments into days. Some days it feels like we have stepped above the fourth dimension, trying to move our narrative along at ten feet using a nine-foot grabber.  There is a bit of drift to the days.  I’ve slowed down enough to enjoy the view from the be here now window. Sometimes, my inner dialogue sounds something like this - Now, well, I feel well, maybe a host, and if the fever comes, how will I feel? Will I split my moments in half and then in half again to catch my breath?  Will I hold my head over the sink, praying, praying, praying? Will I start at the beginning? Well, I am well. This looping mirage makes me tired.  Better to be here now. Pay attention.

There are those swifts again.


Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Death Might Be Just A Holy Rend

  Death Might Be Just A Holy Rend And life a faithful pillow - a pillow to go flat, a spirit to drift off,  glaciers to melt and raise the sea. The blueprint is clear - Expect a tiny storm of mercy–  full of crows and bottle flies to debride the corpse,  to tithe the land.      And respect the putrid demise - things that fall apart make space for miracles.   Yet there persists the memory of breath rinsed in lavender and salt air. Then the dreams for blood and semen to revive, to metabolize  every tired, sad gospel into a hatch of octopus. Death confesses everything as she conjures her necrosis, as she feigns redemption, fools us with false devotion. She believes our defiance will set her free.   We must let grief to be the thread and needle to darn the rend, renew the cloth. then we can grasp the nascent green of winter wheat in spring.
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

Covid19 Journal Entry 13

April 3, 2020 Today’s idea – I want to follow a suggestion of looking at my situation through different lenses. A macro lens magnifies my considerations of things, hopefully so that I might notice what I’m overlooking. Peering through these eyes, I see life slow down and seem more intentional with the extended solitude of quarantine.   The introverted place in me is mostly fine with this state of things, until the longings for companionship or just hanging out with friends stirs up unruly emotions. These vex me because they take on the old voice of negative self-talk.   In this head space I can turn normal feelings of missing my family, particularly sons and granddaughters into an old loop of “they don’t mis me so much anyway because I’m not around like most good grandmothers are.”   I’ve even given myself a moniker, VAG, visiting aunt grandmother.   Somehow it makes me feel less consequential but still adorable.   We live out our choices and our strokes o...
Post a Comment
Read more