Today at the ranch, splitting and stacking firewood for next winter. (photo P Volker)
It is so apparent that we all have a part to play in this saga. So thank you for what you are doing right now and today and onward to make this thing happen in the best possible manner. We can do this, we must do this!
Ronaldo our Caminoheads Bureau Chief in Astorga, Spain on the banks of the Camino de Santiago. It is his turn to put up a post on this Friday, the third in our month of March. He thought that it would be appropriate to feature this wonderful new poem by Lynn Ungar. Felipé.x
Pandemic
What if you thought of it
as the Jews consider the Sabbath—
the most sacred of times?
Cease from travel.
Cease from buying and selling.
Give up, just for now,
on trying to make the world
different than it is.
Sing. Pray. Touch only those
to whom you commit your life.
Center down.
And when your body has become still,
reach out with your heart.
Know that we are connected
in ways that are terrifying and beautiful.
(You could hardly deny it now.)
Know that our lives
are in one another’s hands.
(Surely, that has come clear.)
Do not reach out your hands.
Reach out your heart.
Reach out your words.
Reach out all the tendrils
of compassion that move, invisibly,
where we cannot touch.
Promise this world your love–
for better or for worse,
in sickness and in health,
so long as we all shall live.
–Lynn Ungar 3/11/20
—
Ron Angert in beautiful Astorga, Spain
Felipé’s tips: get your thermometer up and running.
Trying to write this blog post and get on with my day. We are starting to split firewood today. It is sunny and the winds are calm. But in the house here all the phones are ringing off the hook. People have the time and inclination to BS. Meanwhile I have my daily list to accomplish. Lucky My Rebecca is here to fend off most of the calls.
So how are we doing? I was was out yesterday morning early and this morning early and the folks I saw and talked to seems cheery and cooperative. This is one of my new strategies to get out there as early as possible to do any business or shopping. Everything seems as clean as it will get for the day and few folks are out yet.
Yes, this IGA that I went into here, the one close to home, was out of TP and some sanitizing products but everything else was there. Then I went to one hardware store to get ant traps and a #392 battery. They had plenty of ant traps but there is a shortage of this particular battery because it is the “thermometer battery”. I did finally find one elsewhere but they are rare. But that is a good sign that folks are getting their thermometers up and working to monitor their families wellness.
And I have been walking here on my own at the appointed walk times. You can picture it, saying the rosary and feeding the birds as I go. Jane one of my regular walkers who won’t be here in person said that she would “make” some of my walks by walking around her neighbor at the same times. That was quite nice of her and a very creative thought.
This is a time for creativity, for some good improvisation. I love those videos of the apartment dwellers in Italy coming out on their balconies at 8 PM to make music. They also figured out a way to play bingo I hear. And on the rooftops they have been doing some version of aerobics. Better living through coping strategies!
OK, time to go for now. Don’t forget to check in with the Comments. There has been some great things happening there.
Our forsythia which My Rebecca just said was blooming it’s heart out. (photo P Volker)
siege – a military operation in which enemy forces surround a town or building, cutting off essential supplies, with the aim of compelling the surrender of those inside.
Yea, that’s the traditional idea but this 2020 version has it’s own particular twists and turns. Well, how is everyone doing so far? It’s early on, right? Lots of stuff to figure out yet but we are educating ourselves and getting the hang of hunkering down. We will come up with some creative and wild ways of coping before this is over I am sure.
The Italians with their balcony musicals are a hoot. And don’t forget their moments of gratitude for their hard pressed medical workers. We will develop our own unique style here too. So far I’ve seen a lot of helpful info on FaceBook about online line courses, tours and museum grade coloring books. OK, excellent start!
We at the ranch here have been gleaning the fields of On Demand for treasures in their free movie department. It is kind of like going to a second hand store to see what you can discover. Two evenings ago we found “Downsizing” which we had never seen. That is with Matt Damon. I always thought that it was a comedy but it is not and has some great poignant content. Not that comedy can’t be good. Yea, and free.
The theme is “staying behind” to help. Cris has been on this theme since our present virus challenge has started, that she saw opportunity in it. She sees opportunity to help others in it, that it is not all about self preservation. That’s our Cris!
Then last evening we found “The Malta Story” with Alec Guinness, black and white, filmed in 1953. It is a about the siege of the Maltese Islands by the Fascist Germans and Italians in 1943. Malta along with the British military was largely responsible for cutting the supply lines to the Axis Powers assault on North Africa forcing them to withdraw. Malta suffered massive and continued bombing and it’s supply lines were cut to nothing to a point of a few days to starvation. But the Maltese persisted like they have done through their long history, tough folks.
So back to the siege topic that we started with, if I may. We are obviously in different times with a totally different situation than the Maltese but maybe there are things to learn. Maybe helping is essential. Maybe solidarity is essential. Maybe keeping calm is essential. Maybe self control is essential. Maybe hard decisions are essential. Maybe smiles and compassion are essential.
Believe in better times. They will be back, promise! (photo unknown)
Saturday and for the first time in a long time I am not attending my Bible Guys class this morning. They are at it right now. Yesterday I for the first time really understood the social distancing strategy and have embraced it with a vengeance. Maybe I am a little overboard with it at the moment, so forgive me.
I personally am so sitting in the target zone of the population. There is my age and my being compromised health wise. But I have been living on the edge for years and this is in some ways the same.
But I am really feeling it for for the doctors and nurses who will be getting the brunt of this soon. We pray that they will not get overwhelmed. We pray for their safety and sanity. They will be the saints.
So it boils down to the fact that everything be can do today and tomorrow will make it easier for them in the coming weeks. It really doesn’t look pretty but I pray that it is doable. It is really going to take all of us to pull this off.
There is a set of information in the form of charts and graphs that was posted on FaceBook yesterday that I studied it for two hours. It was long and detailed but an education. I feel so much better informed now and that is helpful and fights the stress of uncertainty. Farmer John thought that it was good too. I will try and marshal all my tech expertise and see if I can’t come up with a link or a clue where that can be found. Off I go.
“Updated on 3/13/2020. Now reflects an update on containment vs. mitigation strategies. 19 translations at the bottom. Send me more existing translations in private notes at the bottom. This article has received 24 million views in the last 72h.” This is from that article and I am showing this to you to encourage you to check it out. This is red hot!
The better we understand this attack the better we will be able to defend ourselves, our families and ultimately our world. This is not panic, these are actions based on solid information. Please look at this and study it for your own good and mine.
Sorry, I seldom get so worked up but this is real stuff happening right in front of us in Seattle. Learn from us. Thanks.
My post this week was supposed to be about something else (sigh), but I just finished listening to Argentina president announcing that measures have been taken due to COVID-19 and we will also start a period with closed borders and social distance. I am sure each culture has its own challenges, but for us, Argentinian, the social distance is like being exiled because we kiss and hug a lot, even those we just met.
And we SHARE the “mate”.
I am sure you saw Pope Francis sipping “something“ with a straw from something that looks like a gourd or a wood cup… That’s “Yerba Mate” infusion and it is our “coffee”, we have it for breakfast, during the day, or what we invite our friends to. And yes, when in groups, we share the straw. It is part of our culture, what we grow up doing, it is probably the ultimate expression of how social we are.
And with the measures just announced commanding social distance, it seems that “our social being” is being ripped off from us.
But maybe not.
A few days ago, upon Phil’s blog reaching out to Karen, my BC colleague from England, I commented that maybe this pandemic was giving us The Best opportunity to show our humanity through kindness. What I was reflecting about when I wrote my comment was that instead of thinking that “we” could be the ones getting infected “BY” others, or that instead of complaining that “WE HAVE TO” be locked down and be mad for the concert or activity, etc. we are missing, -attitudes that denote selfishness-, we could turn that around and think that actually, with staying at home “WE ARE CARING” for the others, or that having in our hands the opportunity to make sure the others are safe, “WE ARE CARRYING IT AWAY”. These attitudes now speak about kindness.
How many times when something not pleasant is happening to us, we are grateful that we are the one having to go through it and not someone we love? Or how many times we wish we could take away the pain of someone we love and carry it ourselves? How about if we could have that “power” but actually with none of us being ill, just with small measures such as staying at home, and in the case of my folks, not kissing, not hugging, not sharing the mate, not complaining for cancel events, and so on. This is where I see that the COVID-19 pandemic is giving us The Best opportunity. By being safe ourselves, the others we love and the others we don’t even know, are safe too. I see this is a win-win situation, I don’t see any flaws on this.
By the way, the title of the post is the name of a book from Padraig O’Tuama, a young Irish poet that I like a lot. In his book, he has this phrase that sounds timely to me…
“…one night we told stories of a time when we realised ‘I will be able to measure my life before and after this moment’.”
The flowers are still doing a cheerful job! (photo P Volker)
I am back to the ferry dock after a doctor visit. I got the windows down and the sun is streaming in and I’m actually hot. The sky is half clouds and half blue.
Seattle was even emptier today than yesterday. People are staying home. Saw on FaceBook this morning that our local schools are shutting down tomorrow til April 16th. All Masses are cancelled in The Seattle Archdiocese, that just came in. Also Father David just cancelled all church activities at our local parish.
I am going to make a management decision here today and close down all activities on Phil’s Camino (walks, tapas and work parties) through March. We can see how April looks in a few weeks. Rather than having everyone calling and emailing to ask are we open we will lay low for the rest of the month.
We will so feel like opening again, whenever that may be. But for now this will protect us and protect you. Love you as always.
Well not exactly empty but the traffic this morning looked like traffic on a holiday. I’m at the Institute to see Dr Gold my oncologist. The hospital is pretty empty maybe a third to half the amount of the normal crowd on a normal Wednesday.
Everything and everyone has a strange feel or strange cast about them. Things seem slightly off at best. But the hospital itself is running along just fine. Right now I am waiting for my “numbers” to come back so I can be OK’ed for another three weeks of treatment. Then I am gone to catch a ferry.
But here I am in the maw of it all and might as well report. Cris our CSABC had a great comment today about this outbreak being a great opportunity for us. I haven’t heard that idea before. I’m still chewing on that. I think what she is saying is that it is a time for service. It is a time to be helpful to those that need it rather than going into the bunker to wait things out.
This has merit of course and makes me think of the situations of outbreaks of other diseases in other times. People in general are ignorant or uncertain about how to proceed so they generally withdraw for safety sake. But there have always been those that have gotten out beyond that to be helpful. The battle between self preservation and calling has been around for a while.
I was talking with my research nurse David. He was expressing the idea that it is an opportunity to study people and how they are reacting. He talks about the panic buying.
Well, time to go. Things are getting wrapped up for my release.
Sometimes we just need a good bridge. (photo Kelly Burke)
It seems that we are all at least a little preoccupied with the virus of the year. If we could think back to Christmas and New Years time it would be hard to imagine where we are today. Things move rapidly these days.
Karen our Bureau Chief in Cambridge, England expressed some fear this morning in her post. Well, yes we are all a little unhinged as I put it. So, I thought that I would keep her in mind as I write today to give my thoughts some direction. I will be writing mainly to her there on another continent across the Atlantic.
It seems to me that the main culprit in these times is uncertainty. The stock market hates it and it shows. We all hate it, some more than others. It really messes with our standard everyday mind that appreciates the statis quo that likes the trains to run on time.
But consider two things Karen, two reminders. One is that most all of us that are reading this have spent enough days on the Camino to understand the idea of the Camino provides. Yes? We know how that works. And we know that is with us today right here, right now still. Just a reminder that we have to remain trusting that things will work out for the best.
And two, for characters like us who have been dealing with cancer or other serious maladies we know about uncertainty to the max. Right, we already have our doctorate in this one. Remember what works for you. Maybe, quelling panic. Maybe navigating to avoid getting overwhelmed. Maybe, doing a good job at one thing at a time. Maybe, celebrating our small victories. At least those are my tricks.
And of course we have to buoy each other up in our walk. There is no substitute for this. It just is important. And as a foundation to all this is a belief that God loves us and walks with us in whatever “valley of the shadow of death” we happen to find ourselves.
This is us, we are the tough ones. This is our secret that is no big secret. This is the Way.
