Today I came home from Andy’s house. It was such sweet relief to be there with my second family for a couple days. Despite never leaving their home, it was like a vacation from these Owatonna walls. It’s amazing how being with people you care about, listening to their stories, laughing together, and spending normal quality time let’s you forget about everything for a while. This whole messy situation has made me very sentimental for my people. It has also put a lot of things into perspective as far as what I really want out of life and what’s important. I have been constantly creating this image of living up north in our cabin, with the animals snuggling, record player on, soup cooking on the stove and a fire burning. I see Andy fishing and me writing the days away. I see a simple, secure life. Duluth (my heartthrob city) would act as our escape for entertainment and good food. We would have ample access to the outdoors and so much time to do creative ventures like taking classes at the Folkhouse school and dance classes in Ely. I don’t know if all of life’s distractions have gotten in the way of me seeing this or being critical of it before now, but right now it’s exactly what I want. I kissed Andy goodbye today and felt the pain run through me that it might be a few weeks before I see him again.
I’ve been spending more time on the phone with friends as of late. Everybody is bored and concerned. It warms me right up to hear their voices and to know that we are all going through this discomfort together even while apart.
Our little cabin on the lake
Today Wisconsin locked down. New York, California, and Washington are the major hubs for the virus in the U.S. The stock market continues to pummel. A stimulus to help businesses and the American people didn’t pass the senate. They’ve announced that they cannot help people 60 and above in Italy because their resources are too scarce and the hospitals so overwhelmed. People are spewing their theories and concerns and sadness everywhere. It is an uneasy time.
But today I also noticed a shift in the news. I read an article from the Wall Street Journal titled “Risk, Uncertainty and Coronavirus.” The first paragraph:
“The government response to the coronavirus pandemic has seemed chaotic- underreaction one minute, piling on restrictions the next. It has left many wondering whether anyone is weighing the trade-offs. Do heavy-handed measures carry the benefits to justify the considerable costs? The uncomfortable answer: We don’t know.”
I thought it posed many appropriate questions. It justified the social distancing that we are doing, but also asked how far it can go. Trump said today via the tweety bird app, “WE CANNOT LET THE CURE BE WORSE THAN THE PROBLEM ITSELF.” And I think, which only happens 1/300 tweets, that that was a very appropriate thing to say. Although the number of people who have the virus and the number of people who have died are both high, when you consider them against the entire population it is small. How far can we let the economy fall before it’s not justified? I feel this slight shift happening- from panicked reactions to careful consideration of how we move forward. It has given me hope.
I’ve been thinking about this blog and what it is and what it represents for me. It’s an outlet, for sure. A space for me to release, to organize, to express. It’s also a sort of documentation. We are creating history. This is a very serious time in that way, a period that will alter how we live moving forward. It too will be something that we will tell our kids and grandchildren about someday. So I really want to have some collection of major news and how this experience is affecting me. I want to continue to use my older photos because when I look at them I feel reminded of how small this is. A blimp in time. I enjoy the visual cue to breathe easy when I see these photos, but I also want to start using photos that I take while on quarantine. They might not be as beautiful or stimulating but that’s ok too.
Today I started reading “To Shake the Sleeping Self” by Jedidiah Jenkins- there was a quick snippet that helped me realize what this blog project is:
“For me, thoughts and emotions stay cloudy until I put them into words, give them bodies to walk around in and be their own thing. That’s when they become knowable.”
I don’t have much else to report today. I’ve stayed mostly quiet to reflect on everything. I walked on the treadmill to help keep my body strong. I read for hours. I’ve been daydreaming endlessly. Planning some creative projects for the next while, working on a 2,000 piece puzzle, writing more love letters because it feels right, and snuggling my dog and cat. I’m doing just fine and hope you are too.
