Stories that Matter in the Time of Covid

 I haven't been writing much during Covid, because I don't feel like writing about trivial things. And these days, everything that isn't a matter of life and death--or survival--are trivial things. 

The stories that bear telling are not my own. 

My friend Rita (not her real name), her experience of Covid is worth telling. 

Rita, recently divorced, is the single parent of a six-year-old boy. 

In December of Jan 2019, Rita received her degree in Marketing, which she completed while working as the manager of a new, high-end fast-food restaurant. 

She had overseen its opening--she hired the staff, worked with Chef on the menu, lined up suppliers...the whole thing, soup to nuts. It was the second opening in a planned chain; there were plans to open a third restaurant, and plenty of room for Rita to grow her career. 

And then Covid. 

For months, Rita's restaurant struggled to adapt, but the setup involved six or eight people coordinating the preferences of a moving line of customers: Quinoa or tabouli?  Brown, basmati, or jasmine rice?  What type of protein? What ethnic spin? Customers could choose from a menu, or customize their own layered meal. 

The restaurant adapted to social distancing by offering pick-up and drive-thru options. There was socially distant seating, at first; and then there was no seating. 

Rita experienced the stress and fear of potentially contracting Covid and losing a job that was more than a job: It was her career. It was her bright future.

The usually brisk foot traffic of a popular upscale shopping center gradually ground to a halt. 

When the father of one of the kids in her son's daycare came down with Covid, all of the daycare kids were considered exposed and were supposed to go into quarantine. 

Rita explained this to her boss. He told her to come into work, regardless. 

Rita explained, this meant she didn't have childcare. Her son had been exposed to Covid. He was supposed to be in quarantine.  He was far too young to be left alone. 

Rita's boss told her to bring her son to work with her, and try to keep him socially separated. Which was impossible.

Soon after that, Rita quit her job at the restaurant. 

Soon after that, the restaurant closed. 

Rita felt the stress and fear of having to find enough shift work or gig work to pay the bills. 

After her son returned to daycare, Rita picked up shifts at a local restaurant.

In the fall, Rita's son started school. It was just a few in-person hours a week, but it gave Rita enough time to work gig jobs.

But then cases of Covid surged, and her son's school went entirely online.  

Now Rita had to figure out how to look after her son full-time and find work that she could do entirely from home. 

Someone suggested that Rita file for unemployment. Someone else told Rita that they had filed for unemployment many weeks earlier, and still hadn't received their first check. 

What is Rita supposed to do?  

What are single parents with young kids supposed to do?  What are parents of young kids supposed to do if they are essential workers?  What are parents of young kids supposed to do if they are medical care providers? 

How are parents supposed to keep themselves and their children safe, educated, housed, and fed? 

Before Covid, I worked from home. During Covid, I work from home. I have dogs, a teenage son who doesn't need babysitting, and a husband who can work from home.

I will not insult people who are struggling like Rita by writing about my ennui. 

The Terrible Nothing Between Somethings

On  Tuesday, Nov. 3, I paid as little attention to the election as possible, knowing that more Republicans than Democrats would vote in person, that there would be a "red mirage," and it would feel like 2016 all over again. If I watched, I would go to bed with a heavy sense of dread and foreboding. 

So, I refused to pay attention and ignored it all, until the next morning, when I peeked at the results as reported in the Times.  

And for the next four days, until Pennsylvania called it for Biden, I was hooked. I kept a steady vigil of watching the incremental changes in fractions of percentages of votes in the battleground states of Arizona, Nevada, Georgia, and Pennsylvania. 

When Biden won, those for whom it signified a renewal of hope for the soul of the nation and the survival of the planet were elated. 

I felt enormous relief, and a joy that seemed to bubble up from out of some dusty old bin where it had been safely stored. My threadbare joy, smelling faintly like mothballs.

Of course, I didn't literally expect Covid to lift like a fog, just because Biden won the election.

Or maybe I did. 

For a few glorious days, everything seemed brand-spanking new.

Until it gradually sank into consciousness  that I would have to wait until January 20 for Biden and Harris to be sworn in before they could actually take office. 

And though I wasn't among those fretting that Trump would succeed in his bid to overturn the election results, I have never suffered gladly at any time in my life what I refer to as the nothing between somethings. 

In 10 weeks, there will be something, but for now: nothing. And that nothing has come at the worst possible time. 

I have never been patient with the nothing, but this is the worst one yet. 

In Wisconsin, as elsewhere, the number of hospitalizations and deaths due to Covid are so alarmingly high, there is talk of hospitals having to triage healthcare for everyone. People who feel sick enough to go to the hospital may have no choice but to stay home. 

The nothing gives space to denial, and to the yawning gaps in understanding and consideration. It gives space to misplaced anger. Space for disinformation and lies, in place of anything substantive and real.  

A negative response, unresponsiveness, absence of responsibility. 

The know-nothing, knuckle-headed, nonsensical nothingness of nothing. 

Watching Covid numbers is the opposite of election results slowly reversing course over a few days. 

Nothing opens up to a microscopic thing that steals our breath and sets people against each other, like a parasite of the brain. 

There is no number too great to fill the vast open space of nothing. 

Hospitals fill up, morgues fill up, days get shorter, nights grow longer; as we wait for something to begin.

A Day with Betsy

13-year old Betsy is dying of bladder cancer. 

I took the day off from work. I work from home, so I’m not not going to work; I simply am not doing work, though I have a lot of it to do--which is onerous, daunting, and most of all, a blessing. 

In some respects, I'd rather work—to focus my attention elsewhere. To block out everything. 

Work can be a wonderful distraction--with the built-in justification that I am making money as I work, no matter what else I may neglect at the same time. 

Working provides me a sense of control (on good days) over things that have a beginning, middle, and end (sometimes). 

Everything I work on has, like, a built-in timer--a due date. I juggle due dates. They determine my priorities, how I spend my time. All summer long, due dates have been bunching up. Work has been a high priority. 

I sometimes (often) feel relieved that COVID provides an excuse for me not to have to plan family vacations. We haven't gone anywhere or done anything in ages. I take care of the dogs, cats, and horses. I shop and cook and work. 

Occasionally, but not often, I go into a house-cleaning frenzy where I have the motivation, time, and energy to vacuum and do laundry. But, if I don't have the motivation or the energy, I have my fallback position: I don't have the time. And that's never untrue. 

When I work, I'm super focused.  I'm supposed to catch mistakes that other people overlook. I'm not supposed to introduce new mistakes of my own. Moreover, I'm supposed to point out other people's mistakes with such aplomb and good humor that they readily forgive me for doing my job. 

But not today. Today, I am in bed in my room, which is also Betsy's room. Betsy is the dog who is dying of bladder cancer. 

She is lying over there on her old-lady-dog bed. 

When Betsy was young, she could not have a dog bed.  She eviscerated every dog bed I ever bought her, as well as the other dogs' beds. 

I bought the old-lady-dog bed last winter, when I noticed how often she had to get up to change position because the floor was hard. 

Now, I am very cheap when it comes to many things, but I spent good money on the old-lady-dog bed. It was worth every cent. Betsy lay right down on it and didn't move again until she had to go pee.  

The vet says it could be a matter of days, or weeks, possibly months--depending on how fast the tumor grows. The tumor takes up 50% of her bladder. It is positioned in the back, where it may obstruct her ureter. 

When Betsy can't pass urine, I'll know it's her time. 

This type of development--an old dog who has lived a good life having an end-of-life disease--does not seem particularly important these days. I am not inclined to write an epitaph for Betsy, even though the loss of a beloved pet remains, even in COVID times, relatable. Possibly more so now, when many of us cleave to dogs for solace, hemmed in and isolated as we are in the shadow of contagion. 

I'm taking the day to free up my mind to think about Betsy. And now I find myself thinking about New York City, and what disease has done to that city. Can New York still pee? And for how long?  

I'm taking the day to lie in bed with cats. How old are the cats? How much longer will they live? 

Since 2014, I have lost a horse, two dogs, and two cats. 

I replaced the horse with a much smaller horse. I used to have three dogs, and then I had two. Soon, I'll have one. 

And four cats. Recently, we came close to losing a cat--a great favorite in the family. We paid a small fortune to bring him back from the edge. But for a week, he still seemed too close to the edge--not right on the edge, but not a safe distance away from the edge, either. But another week passed, and he came all the way back to center. Now he seems no worse for wear.  

I have a horse that gets younger every year. He came without papers. The first year, the vet said he was 12 or 13. The following year, she said he was 11. The year after that, 9 or 10. The year after that, she said he was 9 again--and that's when I expressed doubt. (I am an editor, after all; this is the sort of pattern of error that I am trained to catch.) I pointed out the unlikely event of my horse growing younger year by year. The vet took photos of his teeth to compare against a chart. Now, he's supposed to be 17, but the vet still says he looks younger.

I took the day off to think about Betsy, sleeping on her orthopedic bed. She has had a good life. It started out badly: We found her in a pitifully underfunded rural shelter in Richland, Wisconsin. She was a five-month-old puppy without a name, sharing a barn stall with one litter mate. She had outgrown the collar tight around her neck. There were dozens of other dogs in the drafty old barn, including a doe-eyed beagle-mix with a half dozen nursing pups. 

Betsy, a black Border Collie-Lab, was fearful and totally unsocialized, but she didn't growl or bite. She recoiled, but didn't growl. She threw up in the back of the jeep several times during the 2-hour drive home. She wasn't an affectionate puppy. But she resembled the dog I had recently lost (Sam).

Bart, our surviving dog—a 105-lb, black and tan, super handsome, Rotty-Lab-Shepherd mix—sniffed Betsy (I named her Betsy on the drive home), summed her up, and gave her his space under the dining room table, where he felt safe and spent most of his indoor time. Having relinquished the table, he hung out with us in the TV room, an uninsulated add-on that Bart had never particularly enjoyed. 

I viewed this magnanimous gesture by Bart as a truly shining  example of canine altruism.

It took 10 months for Betsy to adjust to domestic life, during which time she destroyed our cell phones, CDs, my son's toys, and much else that I've forgotten. 

Bart passed away a year later. We eventually acquired two more dogs, Gretchen and Hank. Betsy became our best-behaved, most well-adjusted dog. It wasn’t a very high bar.

Today, we have Betsy and Zarya ("Z").  Gretchen and Hank passed away two years ago. 

Z, Doberman-Shepherd, reminds us a lot of Bart. At 90 lbs, she's built like Bart, has flying-nun ears, a pencil nose, and the geometry of a reconstructed wolf. She's gorgeous. She's smart. She's human-centric. She's perfect (except for the recurrent bouts of diarrhea). 

So, in a way, Betsy has come full circle, having started with Bart and ending with Z. 

Bart taught her to guard us. And Betsy taught Z to bark at anything that moves. She has tried to teach Z to attack other dogs, but Z remains stubbornly friendly.

It's satisfying to see Betsy so recumbent and comfy, there on her old-lady bed. 

I think I took the day off just to look at her.

 

  

Paddling Through COVID-19

Covid is the current in a Warner Bros. cartoon, drawing our collective canoe downriver toward the inevitable waterfall.

Except it is more cartoonish: We know there is a waterfall up ahead, but some of us are paddling toward the shore, some are paddling upriver, and some are not paddling at all--which is why, at this point, we cannot keep ahead of the current.

Those who are paddling upriver have grown very tired of paddling against the ceaseless current.  Those who have stopped paddling are saying the falls are not really that big and the strongest among us will surely survive it.

But what about the people who can't swim, have heart conditions, are out of shape, or were never given life preservers for some racist reason?

Well, say the non-paddlers, "Maybe they shouldn't be in the canoe in the first place."

But the canoe is life, so, we are all in the canoe. None of us has a choice about that.

I'm more sympathetic to those paddling upriver, against the current, though we won't survive that way. I understand that they want the economy open because they need to earn money to eat and pay rent.

I have friends who had good jobs and bright futures before Covid, but who no longer have jobs now. Their bright futures in the food industry have capsized.

I have retired friends who don't have to worry about money, but they have nightmares about being on a gurney in the corridor of a hospital, struggling to breathe, or being told that they will be put into a medically-induced coma and might never wake up.

I have friends whose senior year of high school was lonely, not at all what they had dreamed it would be.

Even I, who was awkward and shy all through high school, had a lot of fun my senior year. I had crushes, kisses, friends, adventures, and late-night parties on the beach. I laughed and sang and danced. We drove my friend's convertible with the top down, wind in our hair on a warm summer's evening. I wasn't into sports. I barely remember the graduation ceremony. I wasn't a kid who looked forward to making a graduation speech, or to being recognized as an honor students or an athlete. But a senior year is a moveable feast, and I piled up my plate from a narrow section of the buffet. And it was, surprisingly, delicious.

I have friends whose kids were looking forward to going to college, their first time living away from home. At best, they will have an abbreviated semester. They will be limited to a small social group. And the instant Covid breaks out on campus, as it probably will, all in-person everything will be scrapped. Student life to be postponed.

I know people who have experienced Covid first hand are offended by the idea that it all feels kinda Old Testament. It seems to imply that they or their loved ones or those in their care were God's chosen cursed. But collectively, in as much as we've all had our noses pointed at screens for so long, and the aspects of reality that we still enjoyed are being relegated to technology; and in as much as Trump, in my eyes, is a fine stand-in for Pharaoh (apologies to Yul Brynner), would anyone really find a plague of frogs surprising ?

I find the Black Lives Matter movement shines the brightest light on this whole benighted year. The rise in social awareness of what plagues our country (other than the Covid virus) gives me hope for a brighter future--Post-Trump, if not post-Covid.

I am hopeful that Trump's reign will come to an end, and this dilapidated democracy may yet prove "yar" (sea-worthy).

But how to avoid the waterfall that is Covid seems far less clear. We're a citizenry used to paddling our own boats. We don't know how to paddle together.

Trump's Sword of Damocles?

The emergence of the word "officials," now ubiquitous in the news, reminds me of its recurrent use  in Fukushima's Stolen Lives: A Dairy Farmer's Story, a memoir by Kenichi Hasegawa (translated by Amy Franks).  As its editor, I spent several months immersed in what happened to the Village of Iitate in the wake of the 3/11/11 Japan earthquake and tsunami, and the subsequent nuclear meltdown at the Fukushima Daiichi Nuclear Power Plant.

As the scope of these several disasters unfold, it soon becomes  clear to the author, Kenichi Hasegawa, that a fault line is opening up between officials and citizens, and between minor civic leaders and more senior leaders (aka, officials) and government ministers (also officials).

Kenichi Hasegawa, a civic leader who has long enjoyed a close friendship with the mayor of  his village, finds himself on the outside looking in, as layer upon layer of officials begin circling the wagons in an effort to control information about the extent and ramifications of the disaster.

State officials send national experts on nuclear energy to Hasegawa's village to assure residents that the level of contamination is not harmful to their health.

Hasegawa notices that the geiger counters used around his village top out a certain level. When he borrows a higher-grade dosimeter from an international journalist, he discovers that the actual rates of contamination are much higher. In some places where Hasegawa observes children playing outside and laundry hanging out on lines, he measures levels of radioactive contamination that absolutely pose an immediate danger to the health of the residents--and especially, to the children.

Alarmed, Hasegawa rushes to the Village Hall to tell his old friend, the mayor. But the mayor doesn't want to hear that the village is contaminated. The mayor is focused on preserving the hard-won prosperity of Iitate, which is his legacy as mayor of five years.

Iitate's economy and prosperity--and the mayor's legacy--hang in the balance.  The friends argue bitterly.  Hasegawa points to his dosimeter readings, and the mayor points to the fact that official experts from the ministry of nuclear energy have assured him that the levels of contamination in Iitate are not harmful to the health of residents.

The mayor refuses to initiate a systematic evacuation plan. Week after week, villagers (those who hadn't decided to evacuate on their own) remain exposed to high levels of radioactive contamination.

It is not until international media cast a light on the full extent of contamination throughout Fukushima that officials at the highest levels of government in Japan suddenly reverse course, and initiate plans to evacuate all contaminated areas of Fukushima--in direct contradiction to what they had been telling citizens: that they had nothing to worry about.

I was working on Hasegawa's memoir in 2016, when the scandal about Flint, Michigan's contaminated drinking water broke in the American press.

For two years, lead had been leaching from the city's pipes into Flint's water supply, exposing thousands of children to dangerously high levels of lead.

High levels of lead in children cause significant and irreversible intellectual deficits and behavioral disorders.

Citizens in Flint noticed that the drinking water smelled foul and tasted odd. Officials told them not to worry.

"It's a quality, safe product," said the mayor of Flint. [https://www.theguardian.com/news/2018/jul/03/nothing-to-worry-about-the-water-is-fine-how-flint-michigan-poisoned-its-people]

Today, in response to COVID-19, the highest official in the land makes wild speculations on TV about possible cures for the virus: hydroxy chloroquine, disinfectants, UV light.

Some local officials, like the mayor of Las Vegas, Carolyn Goodman, decline to implement "safer at home" policies that spell disaster for the local economy--and potentially save hundreds of lives.

I am grateful to Governor Evers, of Wisconsin, for closing schools here on March 16, and swiftly implementing a "safer at home" rule--successfully averting a severe spike in cases of COVID-19.

Challenging Evers' authority to take these measures, Republican legislators are suing him in the state's Supreme Court. A Republican judge is set to hear the case on Tuesday via videoconference.

Also happening this Tuesday, in a desperate bid to prop up the country's economy, Trump will shift the focus of his address from COVID-19 to "Returning to Work."

Without current federal guidelines in place for COVID-19, without adequate numbers of tests for COVID-19, with hospitals (at least, here in Dane county) continuing to solicit donations of home-made masks from area residents, and with no cure or vaccine in sight, our president will encourage Americans to go back to work.

Will going back to work restore prosperity to the country? Will it drive up the Dow and Nasdaq for a few days or weeks?  Will it get millions off of unemployment benefits, at the risk of their health?

Will "Going Back to Work" give rise to a subsequent surge of COVID-19 infections and deaths?

We live in the era of Trump: of lies and propaganda, of misinformation and disinformation...

It comes to us through our phones, computers, and tablets. It comes to us as social media, as news, as the passionate rants and hand-wringing whines of shapeshifting robots and mercenary trolls.

It is tweeted and retweeted, posted and reposted.

It plays on our heartstrings, outrages and depletes us.  It nudges and prods, seduces and tickles us. It whispers. It screams.

It hides in plain sight.

But the thing about COVID-19 is, it can't be spun or repackaged to be made more appealing.

Ignoring it brings predictable consequences.

COVID-19 may be Trump's Sword of Damocles, dangling over his presidency.

Yes, Trump is toxic and powerful, but is he any match for COVID-19?

Journaling Through: 4/16/20

It has been over a week since I journaled, reflecting the fact that I've learned to insulate myself from the COVID-19 situation. I've been spending less time following the numbers.  You know what numbers I'm talking about: Confirmed cases in the world, in the US, in my state, in my county--and the corresponding numbers of deaths.  The morbidity rates from country to country and state to state.
The 20 million people abruptly out of work, filing for unemployment, waiting to receive their first checks (an unemployment check, or the promised support from the federal relief bill).

I'm not watching Trump's daily variety shows.

I'm not watching Cuomo, either, though many find his leadership comforting.

For weeks, I had been laboring under a sustained flight-or-fight response--the brain's normal response to danger.

Concentration was often impossible.

The projects, people, schedules, and action items that comprise my work, normally arrayed in my imagination and memory like CIA agent Carrie Matheson's walls that visually depict targets, assets, subjects, relationships, hierarchies, and the directions in which money flows; as indicated by photographs, a color-coded cat's cradle of yarn; heavily inked arrows, circles, Xs; and scrawled names and designations, like "Bambi: Cleaner."  

The logic and order of my mind-wall had been steam-cleaned by my flight-or-fight mode of brain. 

This forced me to rely only on my notebook, an endless list of memory clues, with asterisks to demarcate action words (something that needs to be done).

I'd stare, shell-shocked, at the list in my notebook, desperately working to connect a few words to their larger context. Each notation was a key to one of many doors, to one of many rabbit holes that pepper the landscape of my work life.

Over 20 years ago, a publisher told me that what he liked best about our market was the fact that it was a small and finite universe, one that he could know it in its entirety.  He could hold it cradled in his mind.

My uncle describes this phenomenon as "surrounding the subject."

I never thought, back then, that I would absorb that same universe in anything approximating the measure to which the publisher had absorbed that universe.  But, over 20 years, quite a bit of that finite world gradually crowded onto my radar.

But the fight-or-flight (or flight-or-fight) response devours the familiar landscape like a storm.

I tried to refocus my mind by attempting to tackle some of my own small problems: A raccoon taking up residence in the loft, and a fat pony that could wriggle out of a grazing muzzle like Houdini could wriggle out of fifty yards of nautical chains in handcuffs.

By Sunday, the result of my quest to relocate a raccoon was that I had managed to live-trap a cat.

All problem-solving efforts ended in defeat.

On Tuesday, the vet came to vaccinate the horses (this is done every spring).

As part of the service, the vet scores each horse's body condition on a scale from one to nine: One is starvation-skinny, and 9 is morosely obese.

The two big horses got 5s, which is good.

Cooper, the pony(slash)mini-horse, got a NINE. (9.)  

Frankly, I think that's a little unfair.  I mean, it really depends on whether you view Cooper as a mini-horse or a Shetland Pony.

I view him as a Shetland Pony, which ponies have pot-bellies and weigh significantly more than mini-horses.

For a Shetland, Cooper is not unreasonably chubby.

For a mini, okay, he's a 9.

Anyway.  The new grazing muzzle arrived yesterday. It is supposed to be the very last word on grazing muzzles: Pony-proof.

I spent an hour yesterday adjusting it to his face and making various alterations.

Finally, he would tolerate it.

Finally, it stayed on his face.

They say it is comfortable and light.

But he looks like Hannibal Lecter.

I discovered another small problem this week: While I was not paying attention, my son's online education ran off the rails.

My 16-yr-old son's productivity these past several weeks approximated my own dysfunction and incapacity. He had gotten absolutely nothing done. Nada.

It was these personal challenges that refocused my attention: away from the numbers, the stories, the unfolding tragedies, the lives set adrift, any imminent danger....

I am vaguely aware of what's going on in the world, but I am not following it as closely as I was.

I am not following it, but I know where it is. I take a quick peek, occasionally.

This is how I am acclimating to the weird new world: by looking at it through half-closed eyes--by squinting, shielding my view as if reality were a disturbing, gross, or violent scene in a movie I'm watching on Netflix.

I am proactively parenting.

I am checking on the pony to make sure that his muzzle is properly on, has not become wedged between his jaw and his mouth.

During my evening barn chores, I listen for any tell-tale signs that the raccoon is still in residence, or has packed up and moved out.  With the scrambling of small claws, a fluffy tail disappears into the hollow of a corner of the barn's sloped roof.

A squirrel?  I'm hoping it's a squirrel.

It would be nice for it to be a squirrel.

I make up my mind that it's a squirrel. Another problem solved.

Journaling Through: 4/6/20

I found it hard to concentrate this morning.  Impossible, really.  So, I took the day off to focus on all this other stuff I've been putting aside: Vet appointments.  Grazing muzzles.  Raccoon.

Because it happened: A raccoon moved into the hayloft.  Last week, I had just fed the horses, I was mucking out Fire's stall, and I heard a commotion overhead--maybe a coyote, or something of similar size, running madly back and forth above our heads (the horse's and mine), in hot pursuit of what sounded like a cat desperately hissing and screaming.

I hurried up the steps to the loft, but by the time I peeked my head above the floorboards: silence.

I watched for any movement. I listened for the expected gasps and whimpers of a victim, which, I hoped with mounting urgency, was not my favorite cat.

Seeing and hearing nothing, I hurried back to the house to count cats.  All five cats were indoors. I was greatly relieved to see Big Fuzz, a Maine Coon. He is a great favorite in our family. He is also the cat most likely to lose a fight with a rabid raccoon.

I returned to the barn, to my chores.  After a few moments of the horses' contented chewing, the commotion resumed.

Was it outside? I walked outside. No, but it was in the southwest corner of the barn.

Back in the barn, I saw the perpetrator poke her masked face down between the rafters and the floor boards.

"Hey!" I said.

She withdrew.

I put my headlamp down over my forehead (very fetching) and ascended to the loft a second time.  I shone my light into the southwest corner: straight at my overturned canoe: her abode.

After a moment, she emerged from behind the canoe: quiet, steady, maybe even curious.  My lamplight glowed in her eyes.

And this is where my story pauses, because OH MY GOD, I REALLY DID NOT HAVE ROOM IN MY HEAD LAST WEEK FOR THIS PROBLEM.

We'll put a pin in this, I thought. We won't let the cats out at night until we take that pin out.

So, today, some days later...(My perspective on time has changed: Days feel like a week.  Weeks can stretch out into eternities.)  But today, I thought:  It might do me good to focus on problems I can solve.

First, the old problem: the pony's grazing muzzle.  He keeps rubbing it off, the muzzle intended to prevent him from overgrazing--so he doesn't develop laminitis or metabolic disease AND DIE.

It's not an insignificant problem.

Cooper's ears are small (and so cute). It is no great effort for him to pull the strap off over his little ears, even despite adjustable velcro straps.  (When I find the muzzle lying in the pasture, the straps are still intact.)

Yesterday, in the spirit of solving small problems, I attached a small bungee cord to the strap behind Cooper's ears and I braided the other end of the cord into Cooper's thick mane.

I thought this was genius.

The concept was deceptively simple: Prevent Cooper from pulling his halter off over his ears.

It worked.  It worked right up until Cooper came into the barn at the end of the day, when he dumped the whole apparatus on the floor with such a smooth gesture that I couldn't even tell you how he did it. But still, he had left it on all afternoon.  I considered it a win.

But then, as if to prove how superior he was, the pony, Cooper, he grabbed the top board in his teeth (I'm referring to a horizontal oak board, one of two parallel boards, that separates the horses from the humans in my barn.  Each board weighs approximately 35 pounds, possibly more.)

Cooper grabbed the top board in his diminutive jaws.  (You really can't believe how small and cute his mouth is.)  He grasped the board, six feet long, and lifted it eight inches, right out of its medal cradles on either side. Then he dropped it at my feet. (In front of my feet, not on my feet.)

And then, as I stooped over to pick up the felled board, this pony--32 inches high at the withers, approximately the size of a Saint Bernard--picked up the second 35-pound oak board in his dainty mouth and let it clatter to the floor, too.

At which point, I stood back and looked at them.  Fire was there too, a much taller horse, standing to Cooper's left (my right).  I am sure that Fire was proud of Cooper at that moment.  Fire had probably never been more proud of another horse in his entire life.  Fire was definitely bursting with pride, because he, an obnoxiously brilliant Arabian, had undoubtedly taught Cooper everything he knows about besting me.

Tanner was in his stall, watching, because even though he weighs 900 pounds, he is the number 3 horse in this herd of 3. He is covered in something resembling acne scars--gratis, Cooper.

Fire, at 1000 pounds, is  number one.

Cooper, at 450, is #2.

Cooper and Fire are standing in front of me, making no move to step over the fallen boards.  It is like something out of The Irishman, which I have not yet seen in its entirety.

They are reminding me that the whole relationship that we have, this whole arrangement, is by mutual consent. Nothing happens to them that they don't choose to go along with.

Cooper knows he has a metabolic issue.  He's aware that he struggles with his weight.  But if I think I can impose upon him this ridiculous-looking gimmick, and spend the whole day celebrating how clever I am...

He's going to point out my mistake.

And one more thing:  You gotta deal with the raccoon problem.

---

My neighbor Laurel gave me a live trap to borrow. She suggested using cat food for bait.

I sat in my van, at an appropriate social distance, while Laurel's husband, Greg, demonstrated how the trap worked.  I hadn't seen them socially in months.  Laurel never changes, never ages.  She is always beautiful.

I feel sad for the raccoon.  I figure, she's an expectant mother.

I'd like to find an article online about how this arrangement could work out for us: for the raccoon, for me, and for the horses and cats.

But there is no article like that, quite the opposite.  This is an oppositional relationship.

She will have her babies and become territorial and perturbed.  The cats will not be safe.

There will be pungent raccoon shit everywhere.  The barn will cease to smell like fresh hay, it will reek of a toxic, pungent, profoundly unpleasant stench.

The kindest thing I can do is to live-trap and drive the raccoon 20 miles away, to "public lands" (which I take to mean a park of some kind...?).

I figure I'd take her to Donald Park, pretty far from here, a lovely drive. Actually, it's my favorite park. I could have my ashes spread there.

Like cats and dogs, and wolves, and homing pigeons, and I-don't-know-what-other animals, raccoons have a homing instinct: She may try to hike all the way back to my barn.

Poor pregnant creature, that awkward raccoon gate, humping all that way like the Hunchback of Notre Dame, across all those county roads. But, I must steel myself, because the problem will only get worse if she has babies in the loft. And Donald Park is so nice, maybe she'll like it there.

It's where I would want to be if I were a raccoon.

So, tomorrow, reluctantly, I take the raccoon for a drive.

And then I guess we'll see what happens.

Journaling Through: 3/29/20

Yesterday, I made split-pea soup, meatballs, and two different kinds of quiche.  Today, it is not quite 4:30, and I have already cleaned the barn twice, excavated and inventoried several Kodak carousels of slides from my childhood, taken the dogs to the dog park, practiced piano, did Duolingo Spanish, began to read from a very bleak novel about the young women who were abducted by Boko Haram, began to watch Narcos (Mexico) with Spanish subtitles, began to watch the fifth installment of a 12-part lecture series about the bubonic plague; and then, well, I found myself at a loss for how to occupy my time.

Eating mixed nuts all afternoon didn't seem like a very good idea.

It wasn't quite raining out, but I told myself that the ground was too muddy and soft to train Tanner, my Quarter Horse in spring training.  But then I thought of the EMTs in NYC, what they're going through, and felt ashamed that I allowed my goal of training Tanner to be obstructed by a little rain and mud. I entertained the thought of pushing through, pushing myself harder, to honor a moment in history that called for endurance, perseverance, and self-sacrifice.

I would go out into the drab, blustery, blech weather and carry on, make progress, and do what I set out to do.  This would be my way of embracing a little discomfort, making a little effort, etc, etc, etc,.

None of this spiel motivated me toward action, alas.

I decided that the ground conditions and weather were not the sort of thing worth pushing hard against.

My poor 17-year-old horse would slip and go lame.  Then the vet would have to come out on a Sunday, and I wouldn't be allowed to assist her (because of COVID-19).  I'd have to leave Tanner out in the pasture for the vet to catch (in the mud) with her own sanitized horse halter. (That would suck for her.)

I was looking forward to sunny weather tomorrow with greater than normal anticipation.

I would like to have watched something on TV. The Irishman, perhaps, for three hours.

But I didn't. I watched the news, instead.  I watched the latest YouTube videos on COVID-19. I read the latest in the New York Times, the Washington Post, and the BBC--all, apps on my phone.  I stood motionless, staring at my phone until every muscle in my body had petrified.

I didn't think about COVID-19 this morning, while fishing among the Kodak carousels (that I had brought up from the basement for the first time since we'd moved) for any old slides of interest.

I didn't think about COVID-19 when I discovered photos of my childhood dog, at 10 weeks old, an imperious and adorable Saint Bernard, with great big paws  undifferentiated beneath legs as  solid and imposing as Greek columns.

I did not think about COVID-19 when I found the best picture I ever saw in my life of Susie, the proud rescue dog, with me, ersatz Heidi of the Alps, nestled in the opulent fur of Susie's majestic chest.

I did not think of COVID-19 when I found a rare photo of Dad,  Mom, and me, vertically assembled like a short stack of dominoes.  I put that one on the short stack of slides for my husband to make prints of later.

While walking the dogs, I wondered if displaying that particular photograph of my pre-divorce family was such a good idea.  It was a rare and lovely photograph. It was also a painful photograph to see.

It's like this: If you had read my blog posts from 2017 to now, you'd know how trying the last few years have been--both for me, and for the country at large. But if you look at my photographs on Instagram of the past few years--at the hundreds and hundreds of photographs I took--you'd think I lived a charmed life (and take way too many photographs).

Both these things are true. The last few years have been horrendous, and I do live a charmed life.

That is how it is, in good and terrible times.



 

Journaling Through: 3/27/20

So I got an "Emergency Alert" on my phone, the kind I associate with tornadoes and dangerous electrical storms. It said, "COVID-19 is in your community...If you leave home, assume you were exposed to COVID-19."  

Now, I'm not saying that sending out alerts like this is a bad idea, but I do have a few questions.

First, when they say "your community," what exactly are they talking about?  Dane County?  The Town of Oregon?  My neighbors up the street?

As I frantically searched online for the origins of this alert, one thought occurred to me: Maybe this was how the authorities alerted individuals to the fact that they had come into contact with someone who had tested positive for COVID-19.

They're supposed to track down all of the people whom an infected person might have in turn infected.  Had I come into contact with someone in my community who was infected with COVID-19?

I became super-aware of the back of my throat, suddenly on the verge of discomfort.  But my research distracted me from fabricating more symptoms, and I soon learned that that wasn't it. The alert was not for me, specifically, as a chance victim of a chance encounter with some infected person.

The alert had gone out to everyone in all of Dane County, because the number of infected people has increased in the past two weeks from 1-3 confirmed cases to several hundred.

And now I understand how some of my friends feel when they receive my instant messages with "helpful information" about COVID-19.  We're all following the news obsessively, but on the odd occasions when we're not, we may be diligently trying to focus on our work. We may be attempting to carve out a little time to not read about COVID-19 on a phone app or watch it on TV.

I was at my desk trying to work when I received the Emergency Alert.  And obviously, as outlined above, it took me several close readings and layers of online research to figure out exactly what it was saying to me.

For one who was already sheltering in place at home, as instructed, it was an Emergency Alert saying, DON'T FORGET TO PANIC!

But I get it: Everyone interprets state, federal, and CDC guidelines according to their own biases.  Everyone has to weigh that specifically COVID-19 sense of urgency against other countervailing pressures, which can also weigh heavily in the balance. COVID-19 has a lot to compete with for people's absolute attention and fealty. Officials need to put the fear of God into all of us, to make each of us bend the knee.

And I get that's why officials feel they need to scare me half to death with a vaguely worded Emergency Alert. But I hope this Coronavirus PR doesn't give me a freakin' heart attack, since, God knows, it's driving up my blood pressure.

Once I had figured out that nothing had changed at all for me since before I'd received the alert (besides my elevated stress level), I decided to start my weekend early.  I took a long hot shower to wash that COVID-19 right out of my hair.  And then I sat down to write this, a towel wrapped around my head, because this is how I journal through.

Journaling Through: 3/24/2020

Everything about this virus situation is weird.  

It's weird that we're all confined to our homes or out on the front lines. 

If you're on the front lines, you could be a cashier at a KwikTrip, gloveless and face to face with the public.  Or you might be stocking shelves at a supermarket. Or you might be on the staff of a hospital, inadequately protected and directly exposed to the virus.   

Whether you're at home, or one of the essential workers, you're probably stressed out. The sources and the levels of your stress may be different, but stress is running high. 

And that's weird. It's weird for everyone to be stressed out at the same time. 

But given that we're all stressed out at the same time, it's probably best to be at least ten feet apart. 

Social media is getting even more touchy.  

I forwarded the same informational item to a dozen people. I received several thank you's and a few "please don't send me anymore stuff; I'm looking after my mental health."  Fair enough.

Note to self: Communicating by buckshot is not ideal when everyone's so stressed out.  

I'm sheltering at home, so I have less to worry about in terms of exposure to the disease.  My family is sequestered here with me.  And, we're introverts, suited to a limited habitat.  

But, last week was long.  Subjectively, insanely long: the way the seconds drag out when you're doing chin-ups.  

I think I'm breathing less--like the way animals, attuned to some particular sound, pause in their breathing in order to hear it better.  When I'm processing what's happening, my breathing is shallow, as though I need absolute silence to think.    

Earlier, I felt ready to draw order out of chaos.  I had several puddles of chaos to mop up, and a narrow window of time in the day when my mind is clear enough to tackle it:  

• Over half a dozen emails describing the concern, resources, and bewilderment of administrators, counselors, and teachers who have to find new ways to feed, equip, and educate the youth of our community.  
• The platforms, passwords, and class codes for planned online learning (confounds me)  
• The lists of missing assignments that reach back to February!  (What the heck?!)

I printed out reams of orchestra music and wished I owned a stapler. 

The puddles disappear, but the chaos continues to drip, drip, drip.

My brain reached an impasse when I started writing this blog post.  

The overarching theme of illness touches all, even the most ordinary things. 

Am I not supposed to drive to the dog park after the governor decreed that all non-essential workers should shelter in place?  Isn't there always a dog walk exception?

  

On the way back from the dog park, I stopped at the KwikTrip for gas and milk. With bleach-soaked handiwipes, I wiped down everything before I touched it: the gas nozzle, the key pad.  I shoulder my way through doors and gates.  For the second time, I wipe down the steering wheel, the door, the door latches.  At home, I take off my boots, hang up my jacket, and make a bee-line to the sink to wash my hands, (though I'd already sanitized twice in the car).  

It feels germaphobic and slightly mad, and at the same time, inadequate--which is weird. 

Life has gotten very weird.

Journaling Through, A Space Odyssey: 3/23

Funny, the songs that pop into your head.  Here are two that popped into mine:

--

"Space Oddity" (David Bowie)

This is Major Tom to Ground Control
I'm stepping through the door
And I'm floating in a most peculiar way
And the stars look very different today
For here
Am I sitting in a tin can
Far above the world
Planet Earth is blue
And there's nothing I can do [...]

--

"You're Gonna Make Me Lonesome When You Go" (Bob Dylan)

[...La, la, la...]
You're gonna make me wonder what I'm doin'
Stayin' far behind without you
You're gonna make me wonder what I'm sayin'
You're gonna make me give myself a good talkin' to

I'll look for you in old Honolul-a
San Francisco, Ashtabula
You're gonna have to leave me now, I know
But I'll see you in the sky above
In the tall grass, in the ones I love
You're gonna make me lonesome when you go

--

Today, while walking the dogs, having placed a plastic poop bag over my gloved hand to handle the gate latch upon entering the park, I realized, I have an amazing opportunity right now to pen a song for these times.  Because the times have changed, and all times need songs.

So, imagine these lyrics as sung by Bob Dylan. Not that Bob Dylan would ever sing these lyrics, but just play along.

--

I'd do anything for you
wash my hands and Purell too
I got sanitizer
with your name...(on it)

My love for you is highly rated
Don't wanna see you ventilated
Remember you are always in my heart

One day we'll hold hands in the dark
display affection in the park
Eat food with our fingers
lick it off

We'll drink in our favorite bar
if it's there
and we still are
Remember, you are always in my heart

But for now it is our fate
socially to separate
Please babe, don't perseverate
the cost!

I'll see you on the Internet
so wash your hands and don't forget
I love you when your hands are soapy wet

You know I would die for you
but why should I
as long as you
observe basic precautions
won't you do?

And if you go to work today
don't come home, babe
stay away
Send me sexy pictures from your phone

Cause baby I would die for you
but wash your hands and Purell too
Why should Mom get sick because you won't?

I'll see you on my phone tonight
Don't worry babe, it'll be alright
I am just the type that needs my space

If you love me, stay apart
hold me close inside your heart
ain't no point us catchin' STDs

I'll see you in a dozen apps
and chat with you and email too
You sure look your best six feet away

Now, missing you is all I do
but this is how we'll make it through
something we could not anticipate

One day we'll hold hands in the dark
display affection in the park
Eat food with our fingers
lick it off

But for now it is our fate
socially to separate
Remember, you are always in my heart

Journaling Through: 3/21/20

Today, we were supposed to drive to Chicago O'Hare and take a red-eye flight to  Reykjavik, Iceland.

We had an apartment booked for tomorrow night in Reykjavik, where we planned to spend Sunday  seeing the sights, going to museums, scanning menus to decide where and what to eat.

On Monday, we were to drive to Silfra, wriggle into dry suits and snorkel in the deep rift between the North American and Eurasian continental plates, where the water is so clear and deep, you can get vertigo if you forget that you're swimming and imagine you are falling--very, very far, as off a building or a cliff.

I am afraid of heights, so, to be honest, I had mixed feelings about this adventure.

On the one hand, super cool to swim between tectonic plates. On the other, freezing face and terrifying vertigo.

It was my son's idea, which is surprising, given that my son is not known for being a great adventurer.  I don't believe he has ever for a moment enjoyed that youthful sense of immortality that one hears about.  He is anxiously cautious, and his skin is so sensitive that he can't swim in a chlorinated pool or take a warm shower without being very itchy afterwards.  He takes cool showers only--a cruel twist of fate, if you ask me, because a hot shower is one of my life's great pleasures.

Anyway, it was Josh's idea to snorkel, and his father, who has NEVER swum in open water even once the whole 20 years I've known him, was quick to agree that this was a really great idea.

And that's the thing about travel: It fires up the imagination to such an intense heat that no vision, no matter how fantastical, appears entirely implausible.

We envisioned ourselves enthusiastically squeezing into (smelly, rubber) dry suits and snorkeling with exposed faces in very cold, very deep  water in the very steep, very narrow junction between two ever-shifting continental plates.

We made a reservation, typed in the numbers from a small plastic card, and voila!  That very odd and unlikely vision of ourselves suddenly became almost inevitable.

On Tuesday, we were to ride Icelandic ponies on a black sand beach in Vik ("veek"). Obviously, I chose this activity, but Phil and Josh were game to ride.

Here, too, I note a disconnect between what we do not enjoy in our daily lives and what we imagine enjoying very much as adventurous travelers.

Because we have three horses at home, and Phil and Josh will have nothing to do with them.

At first, when we planned to get the farm, they both took riding lessons.

Phil, a natural (but indifferent) athlete, showed promise, but he soon lost interest.

Josh found it physically uncomfortable to bounce around on a saddle.

Neither of them were ever into the horses enough to work through their natural fear of them. And that's understandable: If you're not irrationally drawn to horses, the prevailing instinct is to appreciate them from a safe distance.

Nonetheless, we all signed up to ride outdoors in the Icelandic winter on robust ponies along a black-sand beach.

By the way, the sand is black because it's volcanic. And there's an active volcano near Vik that's overdue to go off.  I'm just saying. We all signed up for this with great enthusiasm. Such is the psychotropic effect of planning a trip.

One popular tourist activity we were not especially keen on was the geothermal resort near Reykjavik.The problem there was they have these sentinels in the shower area whose sole job is to watch you clean yourself before entering the pool area.

To clarify, they watch to make sure that you do a very thorough job, and if you don't, or they don't think you have, if they think you've missed a spot, say, then they would communicate their disapproval.

Everyone says it's no big deal and totally worth it, but I can only picture the last prophetic ghost in Dickens' A Christmas Carol raising its arm and pointing with that long, skeleton finger toward my personal private parts.

I cannot picture my adventurous alter ego passing through that gauntlet of humiliation without many hours of anticipatory dread that culminate in utter desolation.

And neither could Phil.

But Josh was game. Unfortunately, we just didn't seem to have enough time built into our itinerary for that.

We would have had a good time, I think, way over there in Iceland, far outside of our comfort zones.

But instead, we're home. Well, at least we are together.

I wish I felt inspired to come up with some activities that we  three could do together, and which would give us many hours of entertainment that we could look back on fondly years from now when we might think about the plague.

We are each naturally independent and introverted, so we see little of each other even though we are all sheltering in the same house.   I walk dogs, type words, clean barn, train horse.  Phil works upstairs, bakes bread, and runs on the treadmill in the basement.  Josh, at 16, is upstairs in that horrifically messy room carving out a life for himself that excludes his parents by design.

But someday, definitely, we will go to Iceland, snorkel between the continents, ride ponies beside an active volcano, and maybe even soak in a geothermal pool at some godforsaken resort.  

Journaling Through: 3/19/20

Yesterday, I was smug about how easy it is for me to socially separate, because I live on a farm, I work from home, and I'm an introvert.  It's not hard for me to distance myself from others.  It often takes some effort to do the opposite.

But today, I feel unfocused, as though my brain has blown a fuse.  I can barely find the words to write a sentence.

It's a complaint of the privileged, I know.  Feeling generally and profusely muddled is far better than having an acute, specific worry--like not having enough money or food or shelter to get through the next few weeks.

My neighbor, a retired doctor, wrote in a text to me last night, "I hope you are all able to stay safe during this difficult time and that you have plenty of food on hand which will last weeks. Things may get a lot worse before they get better. It is possible we will all be quarantined for some time. That will really be tough if it happens."

And I realized: we did not have enough food on hand to last us for weeks.

So this morning, after breakfast, rather than sitting at my desk and poring over a manuscript that needs to be transmitted to production, I did some well considered panic shopping.

I thought about renewing my Costco membership online and making the Coronavirus pilgrimage to the great warehouse of bulk items.  Maybe the lines wouldn't be too long, at 9:30 in the morning, a time when most people are at home or at work.

But standing in line would afford very little control over how much separation I could have from the people behind and in front of me. And if I was going to stand in line for ten minutes or longer...

Suddenly, Costco seemed like the last place I wanted to be.

I could go to Bill's, our local supermarket. There wouldn't be much of a line there--maybe no line at all.  I know where everything is at Bill's.  I could be very efficient.

On the other hand, Bill's was smaller than Super Target, and I would feel badly about taking too many boxes of cereal and other staple items.

Target definitely had more inventory, at lower prices.  And since I was preparing to shop for several weeks' worth of food and sundry, lower price points were not irrelevant.

The fact that I had to think this decision through to this degree conveyed a peculiar gravity upon the errand.

I felt like Sarah Connor (in Terminator) or Carrie Matheson (in Homeland), driving north on South Fish Hatch and turning west on M toward the Target.

It would have been obvious to anyone glancing at my cart (which I had wiped down with bleach solution) that I was shopping for the zombie apocalypse.

The prices of things that people needed had been kept deliberately low, which made me feel warm and tender about humanity, and more profoundly scared.

It's the little things that start to sink in, like what kind of Godzilla must this be for the House and Congress to amicably pass enormous rescue bills, practically overnight?

Mitch McConnell is going to agree to send every American citizen a check for $1000 not once, but twice?  Andrew Yang was my #1, but who would have dreamt that Basic Universal Income would be approved by this Republican Congress?

And the news: Italy. Their mortality rate spiked to 9 percent. Nine percent. Nearly one out of 10 people infected die.

That was the tipping point, I now realize, rolling the numbers around in my head. Too many dead to properly bury.

I had to pause from my daily work to sit with this new information and let it sink in.

I know, we all must carry on as best we can.  We all have our jobs to do, and I'm very fortunate to be able to do mine from home.

But I also need to make time to not be socially separate.  Life goes on as normal in my own bubble world.  But when I tune in to what's happening out there in the world, and especially to people at the epicenter of the unfurling disaster, I have to stop, and pause, to take it all in.  

Today, it's overwhelming.




  

Journaling Through: 3/18/20

I seem to be wired like my guard dog, Zarya. With nothing to worry about, Z can get edgy, even hysterical for no reason.  But give her something to worry about, and she is all business, focused like a laser.   I am similarly like a frayed electric wire on an ordinary day.  But, in the shadow of the Coronavirus, I become appropriately alert, vigilant, and focused on confronting whatever form danger takes.

Last Thursday, book club gathered at Anita's house.  I explained in an email to our group that I thought it was not a good idea for all of us to gather and break bread in someone's home, under the circumstances.  But that was six days ago, when the situation was still subject to interpretation, and  a scant handful of confirmed cases had turned up in Wisconsin.

I understood that my book club friends would think I was hysterical.

Last Monday, I sent my 16-yr old to school.  A couple hours later, the nurse called.  Josh had come to her complaining of stomach pains.  I was relieved to bring him home. I called the high school the next morning and for the rest of the week to make his excuses.

But every morning I wondered, was I being hysterical?  Was keeping my son out of school the wrong choice?  Could I keep him out of school for the entire two weeks before spring break?  What about after spring break?

What if I continued to be in the minority of parents who were appropriately worked up about the Coronavirus?

Meanwhile, earl last week, the high school was still making plans to call off school Friday for the purpose of bussing all interested high school students to the girls' state basketball championships.

I couldn't believe this was happening.

I felt I had to do something, and quick. So, I threw a meme up on FB, an ostrich in defiance, with a caption that mocked the school district for its Coronavirus Response Plan: to transport the entire student body by bus, packed like sardines, to another school where they would sit side-by-side, stacked like fire wood on bleachers, and shout at the tops of their lungs, spraying germs all around like confetti.

A more mature person might suggest I ought to have written a respectful email to the superintendent, or made an appointment to have a word with him.  But if my book club friends who know how occasionally insightful I could be about a novel that I managed to read had dismissed my concerns, why would the school superintendent change his mind?

No, it had to be the social media equivalent of a cocktail Molotov, which protest surely had no real bearing on the superintendent's decision last Wednesday or Thursday to cancel Friday's event. But cancel it he did, to my immense relief.

By Thursday, the governor of Wisconsin determined to close all public schools, starting on  Wednesday.  Would I send Josh to school on Monday or Tuesday?  No, I would not.

By Saturday, the governor decided not to wait so long. All public schools would be closed immediately.

Our new luggage arrived yesterday. Three hard-shell suitcases in distinctive eggplant--small, medium, and large. I knew when I ordered them that we most likely would not be going to Iceland for spring break 2020.  But, on the slim chance that we could, we would need suitcases. And, I figured, we could get a nice deal on luggage about now.

A big box of luggage rests a few feet from the door. None of us has the heart to unpack it.

Ordinary Photographs

My son accuses me of posting way too many photos on Instagram. He points out how much the quality varies--from pretty good to nobody cares, and enough with the trees already.

Occasionally, I go back and delete the ones that do not spark joy, but I still have over 3,000 photos on Instagram.

Before Instagram, I uploaded photos to Shutterfly.  Last week, I went through those photos (hundreds) and ordered prints of everyone and everything I love, including people, dogs, cats, and places where I've lived and worked.  But mostly people, dogs, and cats--in that order.

150 prints, of which about 135 are really good.

I also have photo albums that reflect my usual level of overzealousness. Today, I paged through several albums and ruthlessly culled the wheat from the chaff.

In the process, I found many dozens of photos that hadn't interested me much when I took them, but they're treasure to me today:

Two photographs of  K, in her 20s and glamorously turned out for B's wedding.

Today, in her mid-40s, K is in a hospital, fighting to recover from an unexpected medical disaster.

I IM'd the photos to K's partner, probably sitting by K's bed or in the hospital cafeteria, staying strong and taking encouragement from K's every incremental advance toward wellness.

I found a photograph of my friend M, in her early 30s with her daughter L, then two. I sent it to M, who was driving home with her husband when she received it after visiting L(now in her 20s ,and living in NYC) for the weekend.  M hadn't planned to go see L this weekend, but she had been missing L so much, she decided they just had to go.

I sent a photograph to P and L from 20 years ago.  "We don't look like that anymore," P texted.  "To me, you do," I texted back.

I found a photograph of my uncle G and his wife A. I suppose neither ever looked better than they do in that photo.  Anyone could be forgiven, looking at them, for experiencing a twinge of envy--not just because they are so attractive, but also because they are so evidently in love.  They are not newlyweds.  They have been married for over 10 years, have two teenage boys.  They had had several dogs and a few homes.  They have been through good times and bad.  And yet, there they are, gorgeous, and absolutely bonkers for one another.

G passed away unexpectedly from a DVT related to a tennis injury at 58.

I sent A the photo. She said she had never seen the picture before, and my timing was perfect. (I suspect my timing would have been perfect no matter when I sent it.)

I sent a photo of myself to my best friend in California.  I have crazy thick auburn hair grown out past my shoulders, and I am wearing a sleeveless jersey.  You can see that I tried to wash off the ink drawings cover my entire right arm, but the drawings are in deep and fading slowly. My bff had drawn all of them.

I sent her a photo of herself, too.  She's at Philip's Beach, with windswept hair from an Atlantic breeze.

"We had so much hair!" she texted.

"We did!"

I also sent her a photo of the kitten that is now 18 years old, curled up in a basket on my desk.

I sent another friend photos of her daughter and my son from when they were three and one year old, respectively.  The 35 mm photo hasn't aged an hour.  You might think that our children, now 18 and 16, could still be many years away from flying.

Photos of my father happily cavorting with my then-four and five-year old son will prevent J's memories of his grandfather from fading.

The only photo of my Basset-Lab  that accurately depicts the odd charm of her peculiar anatomy: a  Black Lab on short legs, with big, turned out muffin paws.  (How I loved her!)

Photos of me with my step-mother, step-sister, and step-brother--whom I continued to see after the divorce, but not nearly as often as I'd like.

Photos of F with my mother that reveal the great depths of their attachment, that developed without benefit of official social designations.

The list goes on, but these are the highlights.

Of course, my son doesn't appreciate how precious and important ordinary photographs can become, over time.  Nor would I want him to feel such a bittersweet affection for photographs, at only 16.

Andrew Yang: Not Just Your Teenage Son's Favorite Candidate

Andrew Yang is my family's #1 candidate.

Last weekend, my son and I drove three hours to Waterloo, Iowa to see Yang in person.

In a brew-pub, Josh and I were happy to stand (having sat in the car for three hours) to the side of the rows of chairs, just a few yards from where Yang was about to deliver an eloquent stump speech.

Now, for context, let me tell you that I have been working around law school books for about 20 years.  When I was hired as a temp in 1994, the publisher gave me a list of names and told me to call everyone on the list and explain that I represented the publisher, we were exploring the idea of a new Law & Policy series, and what did they think of that?

One of the names on the list was US Supreme Court Justice Stephen Breyer. I had only the vaguest knowledge of the US Supreme Court.  It did not extend to the names of every judge on the court,  only the most high-profile judges whose names turned up regularly on the evening news.  (We had evening news then.)

Justice Stephen Breyer kept a pretty low profile.

I dutifully called him.

There were gatekeepers, of course, but I used the prestige of the publisher as a battering ram, and bashed my way through every gate, one by one.

At last, I had Justice Stephen Breyer on the phone.

I explained how the publisher was contemplating a new Law and Policy series.  What did he think of that?

He talked about the intersection of law and policy. He gave no indication that his time was super valuable.

I type fast, and tapped out every word on a loud typewriter, a constant patter in the background of our chat.  The smarter people are, the faster I have to type.

Most people on that list had, at most, one or two opinions on the subject of law & policy, but they might keep me on the phone for 30 minutes.  I'd only type those two ideas.  I wouldn't type every word, why would I?  Sometimes, I'd just stop typing, and listen, politely.

But a Supreme Court Justice--that's hecka typing.

Sure, I shouldn't have bothered the man--jaws dropped when the editors learned what I had done, though the publisher was greatly amused.

And while my chat with Breyer was extraordinary, speaking with smart people became a normal part of my job.

This is a round-about way of saying, I am not so easily impressed.

Andrew Yang impresses the heck out of me.

In that brew-pub, within reach of the first row of seated Iowans,Yang spoke for twenty minutes  without a single "uh" or "um." And yet, he didn't seem smooth or smarmy.  He came across as extremely focused, with a perfect command and mastery of the facts.

Sure, it's a stump speech, and he's given the same talk in various permutations a hundred times or more.  But it didn't feel that way.  It felt fresh, energized, and earnest.

The Q and A was the same. No uhs or ums.

A woman who had started a for-profit local newspaper asked, How might the federal government support local news outlets struggling to survive?

Yang (I'm paraphrasing) talked about matching grants with enough detail to show that he had given this some thought and wasn't making it up on the spot.  Local journalism is the key to a healthy democracy, he said, citing the alarming trend of local newspapers failing and disappearing in towns and cities across the country.

You may think Yang's proposal of a Universal Basic Income, or the Freedom Dividend, is a fringe concept.  But really, the problem is that it is a solution to a problem that many of us don't have yet.  A lot of Iowans have it, but a lot of my FB friends do not.  And that problem is that many jobs in retail have disappeared, thanks to Amazon; and more jobs will disappear over then next decade as AI replaces humans in customer service.

Where you think Yang is crazy, I think he's visionary.  I think Yang has a more sophisticated understanding of technology than other candidates.  He knows how technology is being developed around the world for business interests, and he can follow its trajectory through the next decade.

Andrew Yang is the only candidate anticipating what AI will mean for jobs in customer service--where people can expect to lose their jobs to AI robots just as people in manufacturing and retail have lost their jobs to automation and Amazon, respectively.

(Since I started in legal ed publishing, the jobs of composition--setting book pages--and printing & binding have all been moved to India.  In 1994, those jobs were all done in the US.)

It's useful to know which way the wind is blowing, to be prepared and adapt to the foreseeable future.
Of all the candidates, Andrew Yang seems to be the only one thinking and planning with real vision and foresight.

While Uniform Basic Income (UBI) would help to alleviate poverty immediately, and provide not only a safety net but a better quality of life for all Americans, most people dismiss it as Andrew Yang's pipe dream.

When we consider the thousands of jobs that have been and continue to be eliminated by a handful of tech companies (that are making ever-greater profits), and when we recall that our personal data is being amassed by those same companies and sold and resold for billions of dollars (of which we see not a penny), finding ways to tax these behemoths to fund UBI kind of snaps into focus.

For a thoroughly researched and compelling argument for UBI and other proposals--on climate change and a host of issues--please go to Yang2020.com.  There, you'll discover the real Andrew Yang, the one with whom the post-debate fact checkers from the Washington Post cannot find fault.

What Is A Cup of Water

Mothering is "the act of bringing up a child."  It is also "the act of being like a mother," especially, according to the Oxford Dictionary, "to be caring, protective, and kind."

Fathering, on the other hand, is the paternal act of begetting progeny.  It is also "the act of bringing up a child as a father. " But what "as a father" means, the Oxford dictionary does not endeavor to explain.  We can only assume that the act of being a father cannot be described--it simply is. One might say, fathering is the fact of being a father.

Another way of looking at it is that younger generations may decide how they want the act of fathering to be described in future editions of the Oxford Dictionary.

Currently, I think of "mothering" as acts of nurturing and caring, and I think of "fathering" as animal husbandry.  With regard to humans, the word "fathering" is seldom used--perhaps because the definition is incomplete.

Semantics, you say?  Don't underestimate semantics.  I need only spend a few hours on Duolingo to see how language reveals culture.

French Duolingo:
"This cheese is superb."
"Everyone knows that his uncle is in love with her."
"Not that blue dress, please; the other one."

 Spanish Duolingo:
"The soccer game is this Saturday."
"Soccer is my favorite sport."
"That blue dress is too expensive [or cheap]."
"Juan, do you want to eat a sandwich?"

I haven't studied English as a second language, but I've studied it as my first language.

My English Duolingo:
"I'm going to the dog park."
"I'm going to feed the horses."
"What does today's weather look like?"
"Josh, have you done your homework?"
"I haven't thought about dinner."

Yes, semantics is a bullshit major, but language does have a way of reflecting something of our cultures and selves.

My mother lives 1200 miles away.  I miss her a great deal. I miss her jokes, laughter, and company. I miss her face. And I miss being mothered.

I live with my husband, who fathers my son--and sure enough, none of us are quite sure what that means.

And I live with my 16-yr old son.  A teenage boy is neither fathering nor mothering.

But when my son was little, if he found me feeling ill or distressed, a beatific expression would come over his dear little face, and he would offer me a cup of water.  Then he would bring me a cup of water.

I think he picked this up at school.  Students who become distressed or ill in school must receive concern in the form of a cup of water.

I remember thinking that it was a sweet impulse that my son had to bring me water, but I also wondered, Why does my son think that water cures everything?  Why did he associate every health event with dehydration?

But now, I realize: It wasn't the water, idiot! It was the mothering. It was the gesture of caring that was important.

When you think about it, this is as pure an act of mothering as there is--roughly equivalent to picking up a crying babe and applying it to one's breast.

My son went to school and someone taught him this beautiful act of kindness, which he learned to exercise reflexively, on every appropriate occasion. Mothering.

He's forgotten all that now. At 16. he's as befuddled as his father when it comes to TLC.

And, I'll admit it: Lately, I've needed a lot of TLC.

In November, I had a toothache, followed by a painful tooth extraction, followed by a painful condition called "dry socket."

In December, I woke up with inflamed knees--caused by sensitivity to injections of synovial fluid the previous day.  I had a few weeks of hobbling around on crutches and packing my knees in ice before I recovered.

Pain passes, but it can be a lonely and isolating experience.

And that's where mothering becomes so important.  Mothering is the cup of water, the cool hand on a hot forehead, the sugar in the medicine, the expressions of concern that make the pain tolerable, every discomfort easier to bear.

It has been a learning process, but, bit by bit, my husband has begun to understand, and to learn how to be mothering.

It wasn't easy for him to relate to my physical pain and suffering, because he is literally never sick.  Someone who never gets sick could be forgiven for believing that good health is simply a matter of strength of intention. Of mind over matter.  By that logic, the rest of us choose to become ill.  We induce illness, why?  To get attention, of course.  In that case, the obvious solution is to withhold attention.  Expressions of concern, any gesture of caring, will only contribute to the perverse motivations of the afflicted.

But even one most hardened by good fortune observes that a GI bug is not worth the chicken soup; nor does the inflammation that turns two knees into fire plugs seem a reasonable price to pay for getting out of chores.

My husband has come around.

Some might suggest that stoicism in the face of others' suffering describes the masculine style of parenting.  Where the Oxford English dictionary demurred, they might say that fathering is the training of children to become self-reliant.

But I think that relies too heavily on stereotypes of fatherhood that younger generations seem to be rejecting.

Not that there's anything wrong with self-reliance, but the act of withholding (fill in the blank: love, care, concern) is a default setting for most of us.

Just as it is easier to destroy than to create, it is easier not to nurture.  

Nurturing and concern require thoughtfulness, empathy, and action.

Mothering is always an inconvenience.

I have a friend, a young veteran whose military training taught her how to kill.  It taught her how to care for and use a gun, and how to kill another person without hesitation.  Her training changed her, she told me.  It turned her into a killer, which was something that she wasn't, before her army training.

But now, she has an alpaca.  He's silly and fun, and recently he became very ill with a meningeal parasite.  The veterinarian gave him a 50/50 chance of recovery.  Becka (not my friend's real name)  mothered her alpaca through his illness with the full burden of fear and hope that is a parent's lot.

The alpaca will recover.

In addition to the relief I know Becka feels, I think my friend must also feel the deep satisfaction of knowing that whatever else she is, she is also capable of caring and healing, even when the odds of success are only 50/50.

We have yet to decide what fathering means, but we know well what mothering is.  It is the chicken soup I bring to my friend.  It is the infrared lamp  that my friend holds over my knee. A phone call from my mother.  A cup of water from my son--the milk of human kindness.  A thing we can't live without--mothers, not least of all.