WE HAD A SCARY PARTY

Of course, within days of our Family Halloween Party the newest Covid numbers in the County were released and they are not good.  In fact, they are the worst since last March when all of this was taking us by storm.  The rising numbers are for all age groups and mostly due to "roommate, friend and/or family indoor gatherings" where mask wearing is sporadic if at all. 

So, this morning, when I felt chilled (likely because it's chilly in the house with fall temps and damp fog permeating our living space), I assumed I had "The Covid".  I assumed this with the irrational fear, and absolute conviction, that comes with being an anxiety sufferer even when we do not have a deadly pandemic hiding in plain sight. (BOO!)  I did try to talk myself down, Hub reminded me I was using worry to project myself into a future that I didn't want (ICU, ventilator, etc, etc.),  and I meditated.  All were helpful to a degree.  And still....did we make a mistake with the party?

We spent weeks figuring out how to gather safely indoors now that outdoor gatherings would be slightly miserable (cold and wet).  We decided to clean and clear our garage, hang fabric shower curtain liners over the open shelving, string party lights, set up tables and chairs at least 8 feet apart for each family unit.  We had hand sanitizer and sanitizing wipes at the ready.  We told everyone that costumes were optional but masks were mandatory.

Hub should have a degree in indoor ventilation by now with his research into, and buying of, HEPA Air Purifiers -- six of them! -- set strategically in the garage and the adjacent Game Room (pool table, darts, foosball).  He opened doors and windows and put box fans in windows opposite to draw air through the rooms, creating adequate flow to eliminate "dead air" spaces.  He tested this by carrying a lit candle around watching which way the flame bent.  

When we all gathered (Son One and his family, Son Two and his wife) we went outside to the yard to do a Candy Hunt.  Having lost Easter to Covid lockdown, I decided to create the traditional Easter Egg Hunt, but with Halloween candies inside the plastic eggs.  The grand-girls loved it.  Then we came in to the snacks I had spent all day creating.  Big hit.  Our 11 y/o granddaughter brought a dip and some cookies too -- she's turned into quite the cook/baker!  Then we carved pumpkins together, displaying the finished masterpieces.  A light supper of homemade (all from scratch, of which I am inordinately proud, since I don't normally cook) pumpkin soup, chili, cornbread, and pumpkin cake for dessert came last.  A few of us played a game of pool, some sat and visited together.  Then it was over.  Days and days of planning, two full days of work to cook, set up, and orchestrate and it was over in about 3-1/2 hours.  We were exhausted.  But we think we created a safe and memorable experience.

Still, is that what every family thinks, even those who end up with Covid in their midst?  We did remove masks to eat, to sip beverages, but masks were on at all other times...except our little 5 y/o who has such a hard time keeping her mask on and her distance from us, but I noticed she's much better with the mask if she does come close.  We did stay at least (usually more than) six feet apart.  Even with all our ventilation, was this too big a risk?  I think of all those going to restaurants, maskless, surrounded by strangers, eating and drinking, and who knows which way the indoor air is blowing, if at all?   Our party had to be safer than that, right?

I will be so grateful for the day when seeing my family doesn't include the "countdown to symptoms" anxiety that I felt this morning.  This is Day 5 post-party.  So far so good....

At least, that's the view from here...©

THE SACRAMENT: UPDATED

In October 2012 I wrote most of what follows as the Obama/Romney election drew near.  I am updating it for 2020 with just a few tweaks.  For example, then I said I didn't like the new idea of mail-in ballots.  Now I love voting at home.  And this year, with the Covid 19 pandemic raging, there will be more mail-in voting in more states than ever before.  I also thought that 2012 was a very important election, and of course it was.  They all are.  But nothing in my lifetime compares to 2020.  

The hyperbolic declaration of "the most important election in our lifetime" finally lives up to the hype.  This is definitely it.  Our United States is anything but united and our Republic is in a world of hurt, as the tether to anything resembling democracy hangs by an ever thinning thread.  The current president, elected by the Electoral College -- not the majority of the people, has snubbed his nose at norms, values, laws, precedents, and the very Constitution, abetted by leaders of the Republican party such that we are now seen as pitiable by many countries, not mighty.  Our allies have gone silent, our enemies emboldened, our people violently divided.  Many of us feel we've been living with an immature, cruel, gaslighting, lying, psychologically abusing president and those who should be there to stop him and protect us have turned a blind eye at best, aided him at worst.  Yes.  This is important.  

My ballot arrived on Friday and I voted, as I did in 2012 when I wrote the original version of this post, but this time I sent up an extra prayer to go along with my sacred ritual.

THE SACRAMENT:

We are 16 days away from the 2020 Presidential election.  Everybody is pretty much sick of politics at this point.  Me included, even though presidential election years are like Mardi Gras to me.  Spectacle, tradition, ritual, absurdity, and at base deeply important – even “religious”.  I treat voting like a Sacrament.

Our state went to an all mail-in ballot voting system in 2011.  At first I didn't like it because I had loved going to the polls on Election Day.  It was high school civics class come to life.  My polling place was the local elementary school where my boys were students.  I saw familiar kids, teachers, neighbors, and poll-workers – a true sense of community.  I loved being handed my ballot and walking to the booth to cast my votes amid the hubbub of activity around me in the school cafeteria.  It reminded me why I was voting at all.  I loved getting my “I VOTED” sticker, which I wore proudly the rest of the day, like ashes on my forehead.

Now I have a different voting experience.  My ballot arrives in the mail about 2 weeks before the election.  I don’t open it until the day I set aside for voting.  At that point I sit at the dining room table with my Voter’s Pamphlet and a cup of coffee.  I become quiet, focused, and intent on making my final decisions.  I might read once more about each initiative, the “for” and “against” arguments.  I might read once more the candidates statements.  And then I fill in the bubble next to the name of the one I’ve chosen to vote for with great care, ensuring the little oval is completely filled in with no extraneous marks.  I feel like the altar guild ladies preparing for communion.  Everything just so.  Because I want to be sure my vote will count – no errors.  Then I put the ballot in the envelope and sign my name carefully where indicated.  Instead of mailing it, which I could, I drive to County Building Dropbox downtown, to slide my envelope into the slot, ensuing my vote is delivered by my own hand.  Amen.

This may sound seriously neurotic.  To me it feels seriously patriotic.  Voting is a right, a responsibility, and above all, a privilege.  I think it is the most amazing thing, this representative form of government of ours.  It’s broken now, I know that.  Money, lies, betrayals, foreign attacks, gerrymandering, voter suppression, apathy, cynicism…it’s all in stark evidence this year.  That makes me sad for our country, for our democracy.  But I won’t give up.  I still believe my vote counts.  The only way we lose this grand experiment, this model of democracy that people in other lands are literally dying to emulate, is to stop voting.

My vote is my prayer of thanks for our nation's flawed, but visionary founders; for those soldiers who fought for independence and freedom;  for the women who marched and were jailed and tortured to win me, their sister, the right to cast a ballot alongside men; for the Freedom Riders who stood shoulder to shoulder with their brothers and sisters to desegregate the south and eventually win the right to vote for all.  Our history is about preserving – and serving – this big, messy, majestic United States of America.

My vote is also my prayer for hope for the future.  It really does matter who is in the White House and what that person’s vision and leadership will manifest.  It really does matter who is in the Congress and whether their positions on issues, which will become the laws we must all obey, are those which will benefit all Americans.  It really does matter who sits on the Supreme Court and is the final arbiter of dispute, interpretation, and enactment of those laws.  Our vote is our voice, representing our values and world view.  Who we vote for says almost everything about who we are and what vision we hold for future generations.

How can we do anything less than to cast a vote for those who are most likely to embrace the inherent dignity of every person within our borders and set policy that will respect, uplift, and benefit every one of us?  How can we do anything less than to take this right seriously, cast our vote joyfully, and shout “Halleluja!” on Election Day? 🙏🏽🇺🇸

At least, that’s the view from here…© 

Photo Credit: www.pixabay.com

FOG

I am not sure where I've been...

Well, I've been exactly nowhere since I'm still 90% staying home because turns out there is still a Covid-19 pandemic raging and the numbers are going up locally, but today I feel I've emerged from a bit of a foggy inertia that has kept me from writing here. 

Catching up:

I did a 4-part series in September on my yoga blog about the Enneagram (personality typing) and I think I'll repeat it on this blog sometime.  It's where my brain has been -- studying the Enneagram to explore my inner landscape, my motivations, habits, responses to life events.  It's fascinating and helpful and has given me valuable insight into old ways of being that no longer serve me.  All of this has come up as I continued to marvel at the various ways my friends and family are responding to the pandemic.  But beyond that I have found growth points to work toward that have nothing to do with the Covid crisis and everything to do with finding a healthier way to express my basic personality type in relationship with others.  

This all sounds rather vague here, I know.  Suffice to say, I've been lost in my books, notes, podcasts, and practices.  I love it and it's been incredibly psychologically and emotionally draining -- doing inner personal growth work is necessarily about relationships (with oneself and with others) and that makes it complex, difficult, and ultimately rewarding.  And also, yes, exhausting.  

Also in September we were visited by ten days of unhealthy air due to the smoke descending from wildfires raging in California, Oregon, and Washington.  We kept doors and windows shut tight and looked out into the yellow-gray haze of what should have been sunny, warm late summer days.  It was depressing and scary -- portents of a climate crisis future.

Once the smoke lifted, I went out to my garden.  I decided to stop waiting for help with the "heavy gardening" and just try to tackle it myself.  I spent hours digging out ten huge clumps of bearded irises that were taking over various locations and crowding other plantings out.  Each clump took me between 5 and 20 minutes to unearth, kicking the shovel under the root ball over and over, incrementally levering the root ball up from the earth, then hauling garden cart after garden cart away to the dump pile.  I did the same with four peonies that I transplanted.  I cut back the yellow leaves of my five big hostas, pruned other things back, transplanted a few perennials, mulched some transplants....I sound like a real gardener here.  I have no idea what I'm doing.  I Google everything and hope for the best.  

I feel pretty proud of my work though, and have a sense of satisfaction about taking the initiative and successfully completing hard physical work tasks that normally I might have stewed about and grown frustrated waiting for "manly muscle" help.  (See personal growth work above.)  I'm basically a genteel gardener, but I did it!  Woman!  Roar!  

We've had 4-5 days of rain lately, so I figure all of that garden work and transplanting is getting a nice soaking now and that has to be good, right?  I still have to weed and cut back last year's canes in the two 40 foot rows of raspberry patch, cover the raised beds with some compost and mulch, and generally finish the whole "put the garden (and garden furniture) to bed" chores of Autumn.  I always find it a bit depressing; winter is not my favorite season in this northland where the darkness and rain feels oppressive already.

And then there is politics.  I'm hanging on by my fingernails.  I find my ability to keep attending to the daily outrages waning.  I can hardly stand to read/watch about the latest debacle of decency and assaults on democracy.  I feel if I start writing about it here, I won't be able to stop -- and I'll likely forget something because every day is chock-a-block full of awful: Covid raging (and fights over mandated attempts to slow it); the current White House occupant behaving like a petulant child at the presidential debate; the Covid epidemic hitting the Administration (33 tested positive -- some refusing to have the test; the president and first lady testing positive, then declaring they are "cured" and that the virus is not a big deal, so don't worry about it. Tell that to the 210,000 families of Americans who have died.); a far right wing conservative nominated to fill Ruth Bader Ginsburg's seat on the Supreme Court and the GOP rushing the hearings to get her seated prior to the election; voter suppression tactics in full force; a president who is undermining the validity of the election and refusing to leave office unless he feels the election has been "fair" (with him being the decider on that).  Then there is the ongoing lying, gaslighting, ridiculing...

So, my response has been to stop checking my phone for the latest news. (I literally leave it upstairs in my bedside table only checking for updates a couple times a day.)  I have signed up with organizations working to write postcards to GOTV (Get Out The Vote) with Postcards to Voters, Reclaim Our Vote, and Moms Rising (over 200 written to date.)  I have also completed 100 letters for Vote Forward.  I took a text-banking training and know I should get busy on that too.....and I'm tired.  If I were a marathon runner I would not be one who gets a second wind....I'd be the one crawling, panting and bloodied, across the finish line.  At least the polls are looking good for our side...and then 2016 flashbacks pop into my head and I'm back wondering what more I can do.  I can't do nothing.

There is a word I've discovered for this fog of overwhelm: acedia.  Physical and emotional isolation (covid), along with a steady barrage of bad news (politics, social unrest, climate crises), creates feelings of listlessness and anxiety, which is a legitimate response to the current predicament.  Some may think this is depression, but it feels different.  It feels to me claustrophobic -- not hopeless in the same way as depression; more like impatient and agitating, with no way out.  The point is, this is a valid feeling to have and it has brought me lately to a place of inertia: "bored, listless, afraid, and uncertain". *

I hope the urge to write today means I am returning to the land of the living -- emerging from the fog with clear-sighted resilience.  No matter what happens on any of these fronts, the task is to keep moving forward, questing for a fully lived life of self-awareness, connection, growth, and commitment.  

Also, I may take a nap.

At least, that's the view from here...©

Photo Credit:  pixabay.com

*Resource: "Acedia: the lost name for the emotion we are all feeling right now", by Jonathan Zecher, writing for 'The Connection', August 2020