1918 Spanish flu Archives - Owl Medicine: Shamanic Healing

Odd Impulse

I’ve noticed myself having an odd impulse lately and I’m not quite sure what to make of it. It’s probably nothing. But the urge is definitely there, palpable and a little bit strange.

It happened again just this morning.

I was doing the dishes, contemplating life and all its complicated intricacies. Thinking about how long the strictest aspects of this surreal situation will probably need to remain in place. Wondering what parts of our lives will never be the same again.

All of a sudden I caught myself thinking, “I need to call Mommy and see how she’s doing. I wonder what she thinks of all this.” In that moment, I could literally feel and imagine myself speaking to my mother on the phone, each of us marveling at the dramatic shifts in our reality.

An Impossibility

When I realized exactly what I was imagining, I sort of jolted back to this moment in time, my hands once again in the hot, soapy dishwater – not holding the receiver of a telephone. I recalled a similar fleeting sense of being oh-so-close to having a conversation with her having passed over me only a day or so earlier, as well.

The trouble with those fleeting thoughts lay in the fact that my mother passed away in 1991.

Perspective

I’m reminded that she was two years old when the Spanish Flu of 1918 hit our country. Surely she must have heard stories about that horrible event, even though she herself was too young to recall its effects.

And yet I don’t recall hearing even one story about that time in our country’s history.

I wonder: did my grandparents discuss the situation with my aunt and uncle, who were both much older than my mother? Did any of them wear masks when they went outside? Did they make a point to ‘stay at home?’

I wonder if that epidemic influenced my aunt, who was thirteen years old at the time of the 1918 flu, to ultimately major in microbiology and serve in Massachusetts’s public health system.

And how is this global disruption of our lives and the way we interact with each other influencing the strands of destiny of each and every one of us? How weird is it to think that the babies being born right now will never know life without this pandemic as the beginning of a new normal that we have yet to imagine?

Sometimes we just want to talk to our mothers, I guess. And now is one of those times for me.

Photo: L. Weikel

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High Rocks State Park (14 March 2020) – Photo: L. Weikel

Banging the Drum

If you’ve been reading this blog for any extended period of time, you’ve probably caught on to the fact that I love taking walks. I’ve written about how vitally important walking in nature is to my life, including the profound impact it’s had on my marriage. And now I’m banging the drum about walking even more as we all do our best to develop new coping strategies.

Gratitude

I’m feeling grateful for the weather this past week, as it was nice enough for us to walk every single day. This turned out to be exceedingly important to my mental health, as crises on the national and global stages, such as the spread of the Coronavirus, to personal issues looming large with clients and friends seemed to erupt every day.

The perspective and pleasure afforded by simply being in nature and physically moving forward reliably helped me sort out my thoughts and feelings about all sorts of matters – even things I didn’t realize were weighing on me.

Karl and I have remarked a number of times to each other already how lucky it is that this pandemic didn’t land on us in November. With the closing of all the schools and the admonition to engage in social distancing, it just seems like having to endure all of that while being cooped up in our homes would have been even far more difficult. (And believe me, I’m not thinking or saying any of this is going to be easy.)

What in the World?

So you can imagine my utter distress when I encountered this sign yesterday at High Rocks State Park. I’d also received notification via text message that Lake Nockamixon State Park was closing as well. You can check out exactly what this closure means here, and also see which parks are affected. You can also use it to keep an eye on whether they will extend the closures beyond the next two weeks or include other parks as the situation unfolds.

While I can understand closing the administration buildings and rest rooms at these parks, I am puzzled over why they are closing the parking lots. Reading the link above, it does sound as though the trails themselves remain accessible, so hopefully they’ll go easy on enforcing the parking.

It simply doesn’t make sense to me that we would be restricting residents’ ability to get outside in the fresh air and walk, hike, bike, explore nature, go birding, learn about plants, and maybe even brush up on some survival skills, especially when the schools across the state are all closed for at least two weeks!

It Does a Body Good

Here’s an interesting article I came across today. While it’s not technically about walking or being out in nature in a recreational capacity (which seems to me would be even more beneficial), it does discuss some fascinating research and conclusions from studying the 1918 Spanish flu.

And if you’re questioning why the entire country seems to be implementing more and more draconian measures to help stem the spread of this virus, such as closing restaurants, bars, schools, and pretty much everything except food stores and pharmacies, here’s an article that explains the reasoning.

All in all, it will be much better for all of us (but especially our hospitals, which may soon get walloped by unprecedented numbers of people showing up all at once) if we can stem the exponential growth now. Every single day we wait to implement these measures increases the risks for all of us. So I guess the best thing we can hope for is to look back on the very weird times we’re going to endure and say, “It didn’t get as bad as it could have.”

Because that will mean these drastic measures worked.

Stay calm, stay centered, find something to be grateful for every day, and if you can – get outside and listen to those peepers!