Entries by tag: family
Being a doc and a dork too, I've been studying on COVID-19 since it first appeared. Still the magnitude of the crisis is shocking. This will be a life-changing event and it may last for years. I could loose both of my parents. I would not be shocked if I also were to die, but then I have been expecting to die since early in life. What surprises me is that I am still here, to see all of this. I never thought I would see the American experiment fail. I did not anticipate being alive for a pandemic. I didn't know that I'd live to see another Great or Greater Depression. But here I am, still breathing, still enjoying the sun streaming through the window and the softness of Kitten's fur, drinking hot tea, with access to internet and hot water coming out of pipes. I am waiting to see what is next. I am lucky and I know it.
Being an intravert, it is not yet a hardship to stay home. In fact, I am more connected with my family and friends because I have been making daily telephone calls. I generally avoid the telephone, preferring one-on-one in-person conversations. But now, the telephone is what I have. And the internet. I have been spending a lot of time on fecebuk. I discover more interesting articles there than I do from my own independent web wanderings. My friends are a thoughtful and intelligent bunch.
I recently read a book called Perennial Seller, about how to create and market a lasting work of art. I am a writer and a philosopher, and I have several books in the works...and I am thinking that this long period of lockdown will be a good opportunity to write. If I can persuade my dear partner to stop interrupting me with his stream of consciousness verbal leakage, I have a chance. My next hurdle is deciding which book to focus on. I shift back and forth among all my writing projects as a new idea or bit of information provokes me. This shifting--and the splitting of one chapter into two, one book into two, does not facilitate finishing anything.
Of course, because my job is at a clinic, filling doctor's orders for herbs and supplements, the business may remain open. I may be one of those who still has a job for a while yet at least. This is both a blessing (paycheck) and a curse (exposure).
He that cannot forgive others
breaks the bridge over which
he, himself, must pass.
--Lord Herbert
For all of you who aren't sure, it is possible to be gay and Christian. It's also possible to believe in God and science. It is possible to be pro-choice and anti-abortion.
It is equally possible to be a feminist and love and respect men. It's possible to have privilege and be discriminated against, to be poor and have a rich life, to not have a job and still have money. It is possible to believe in sensible gun control legislation and still believe in one's right to defend one's self, family, and property, it's possible to be anti-war and pro-military.
It is possible to love thy neighbor and despise his actions. It is possible to advocate Black Lives Matter and still be pro police. It is possible to not have an education and be brilliant. It is possible to be Muslim and also suffer at the hands of terrorists. It is possible to be a non-American fighting for the American dream.
It is possible to be different and the same.
We are all walking contradictions of what "normal" looks like. Let humanity and love win.
--Author unknown, taken from facebook on 3.12.17
The day my mother died I wrote in my journal, "A serious misfortune of my life has arrived." I suffered for more than one year after the passing away of my mother. But one night, in the highlands of Vietnam, I was sleeping in the hut in my hermitage. I dreamed of my mother. I saw myself sitting with her, and we were having a wonderful talk. She looked young and beautiful, her hair flowing down. It was so pleasant to sit there and talk to her as if she had never died. When I woke up it was about two in the morning, and I felt very strongly that I had never lost my mother. The impression that my mother was still with me was very clear. I understood then that the idea of having lost my mother was just an idea. It was obvious in that moment that my mother is always alive in me.
I opened the door and went outside. The entire hillside was bathed in moonlight. It was a hill covered with tea plants, and my hut was set behind the temple halfway up. Walking slowly in the moonlight through the rows of tea plants, I noticed my mother was still with me. She was the moonlight caressing me as she had done so often, very tender, very sweet... wonderful! Each time my feet touched the earth I knew my mother was there with me. I knew this body was not mine but a living continuation of my mother and my father and my grandparents and great-grandparents. Of all my ancestors. Those feet that I saw as "my" feet were actually "our" feet. Together my mother and I were leaving footprints in the damp soil.
From that moment on, the idea that I had lost my mother no longer existed. All I had to do was look at the palm of my hand, feel the breeze on my face or the earth under my feet to remember that my mother is always with me, available at any time.
~ Thich Nhat Hanh, "No Death, No Fear”
seeks to have the last word
and leave the rest of us in silence;
the best opens up an exchange
that need never end.
--Critic Rebecca Solnit, quoted in Brainpickings.org
Even childless I want to give something to new generations, because it seems so sad to send young people out into the world without direction or inspiration. Where parents fail, family or community sometimes steps in. I see the baseball teams training in the park and the kids there are learning something useful. Coordination. Teamwork. I see a strong young woman on the tennis court who is obviously an ace, but who is toying with her two competitors, and idly watching me who is watching her. Will she have children? Perhaps not. Today I heard the daughter of a coworker say that she won't have children. Why not? Will she regret not having children? What will be her creative work in this world, if not baby making?
In many cultures a woman is of little or no use if she does not serve to birth and raise a brood of offspring for a man. Put the food on the table. Clean. What is a woman if she does none of this?
*new tag: legacy
- Current Mood:
pensive
Minimum wage is law. No company can hire you over the table for anything less. Walmart can pay minimum wage and if people apply for and accept that job, they have made a deal with that company. If they don't like it, they can quit, get another job. If there isn't another job, they can start their own business, or be useful to a family business or take care of an aging elder. They can run for office, start a protest, try and change the minimum wage. There is no shame in doing these things. The shame is in doing nothing. I just don't know how far from nothing this petition is. Having a grievance is not the same as having a solution.
When the economy contracts, families get closer. The resources that we do have get shared with those we care about. The death rate went down in the Great Depression, perhaps for this reason.
I can't get on board with political efforts to increase "jobs" because what "jobs" means is working for large corporations which will strike the best deal they can get for everything including manpower. It's the game, and winning for the 1% means never having to worry about a job. The worker never wins. The worker is a cog in a machine that cares nothing about him and will replace him the moment he begins to crack. The safety net may ease his passage a bit, but it is easy to get caught in.
To be trapped in the safety net is to lose your self respect, to become depressed, to want to die. This may be why so many white American men commit suicide. Middle-aged white guys commit suicide more than anybody else. Perhaps the veterans are driving that statistic.
Got me started thinking about this (again):
http://vimeo.com/70534716
I had a housemate once who would become completely obsessed with a new video game and play it continuously until he had completed all the levels. It took a couple months for him to master Grand Theft Auto. He took me for a ride in it. Our virtual reality was shared in living and breathing space, and he was not a lost cause. I don't think. I hope not.
I have a friend who lives a good fraction of her life in second life. She is married in this life and has a significant other in second life. Her 2nd life SO is known to her and her husband. He has a wife and kids. They visit together, eat icecream, break ankles, breathe the same air. Second life has merged with first life.
I have a sister whose occupation is building things for the second world. That is, she obtains or develops images and sounds that she can sell for virtual money. Her reality is beyond my comprehension, except that when she is there beside me she is just as solidly herself as she has ever been, with a sharpened wit.
I have a boyfriend who barely exists on the internet. I told him how many fb friends I have now and he laughed at me. I think he is afraid that I will go where my sister went, or my friend. He likes to exercise and play his guitar and garden and read. Doing all those other things sounds far better than this. I'm outta here.
Nobody expected it to get so many hits when they put it up last year. You can look up births and deaths in the state of AZ.
and put his clothes on in the blueblack cold,
then with cracked hands that ached
from labor in the weekday weather made
banked fires blaze. No one ever thanked him.
I’d wake and hear the cold splintering, breaking.
When the rooms were warm, he’d call,
and slowly I would rise and dress,
fearing the chronic angers of that house,
Speaking indifferently to him,
who had driven out the cold
and polished my good shoes as well.
What did I know, what did I know
of love’s austere and lonely offices?
--BY ROBERT HAYDEN
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