selfishness

Two Weeks From Now – Day 531

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Photo: L. Weikel

Two Weeks From Now

Well, it sure seemed like today was a huge test for a lot of us here in the United States – even a bigger test than the special election in Wisconsin a few weeks ago. And I have to wonder what consequences we’ll be witnessing two weeks from now.

I was astonished when I drove to my office today (where I didn’t encounter a single person, by the way). But the traffic was shocking. Cabin fever, it would seem, has hit our country and hit it hard.

Not only was there a steady stream of traffic racing past my office for several hours today, but when Karl and I took a walk early this evening, our neighbors revealed what a hellacious day they’d had. Apparently people are losing their minds in the state and county parks.

Give a Little, Take a Lot

All of you who’ve been reading my posts know that I am an ardent advocate of people getting out into nature and taking walks, biking, whatever, as much as possible. In fact, when this pandemic was just in its infancy (as far as us realizing that social distancing was going to be our single best tool in keeping transmission rates down), I voiced upset over Pennsylvania’s initial choice to close the parks.

Well, I stand corrected. I had a lot more faith that people would use their damn heads if and when permitted to use our state and county parks. No. Such. Luck.

We have people parking in places that were never meant to be used as such. (Let us hope no one slips and falls at High Rocks, since there’s a huge risk that emergency vehicles wouldn’t even be able to get to the park, there are so many cars parked bumper to bumper on the sides of the roads leading to the park.)

And then there are the roving packs of people. There were groups of 10-12-14 people walking together today, laughing and having a great time together – as if they haven’t a care in the world. Not a face mask in sight.

They were given the opportunity to spread their legs and get out into nature – and they are taking too much. Those packs of people walking shoulder to shoulder up our country roads, blocking those roads with their cars, and not even seeming to care one whit about the people they’re ‘sharing’ trails with (or parking in – at their own homes), are reverting right back to the selfish ways that got us here in the first place.

We’ll See

Another example of this is reflected in the news reports that beaches in Florida and California are teeming with people desperate to ‘get back to normal’ and ‘soak in some rays.’

Well, for as much benefit as sunlight provides in killing the virus, I have a feeling, two weeks from now, we may see that sunshine wasn’t enough.

Case in point: just fifteen days following the election in Wisconsin on April 7th, 19 people have tested positive for the coronavirus.

I guess we’ll see how things fare two weeks from now. The worst part of all of this is that it’s not just people taking risks with their own lives. That would be one thing. But it’s another thing entirely when people decide to risk giving the virus to others. More and more, we’re discovering that asymptomatic people can easily be unwittingly spreading the virus like wildfire.

If you haven’t been tested, how do you know you’re not the ticking time bomb that will explode someone else’s life?

Two weeks from now will be interesting. I hope it’s not terribly depressing.

(T-580)

Asking For a Friend – Day 485

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Photo: L. Weikel

Asking For a Friend

I’m just curious.

If you’ve been reading about and following the stories of the arrival of the Coronavirus here in the United States, you must know the following FACTS:

  1. It is primarily impacting, adversely, people who are 60 years of age or older, or those who are immuno-compromised or have pre-existing conditions, such as asthma, emphysema, etc., that make their lungs more susceptible to infection;
  2. The virus can be killed by washing your hands;
  3. Don’t touch your face;
  4. The virus is most often spread through touching a surface that has the virus on it (in other words, touched by someone who didn’t wash their hands);
  5. People can test positive for the virus and be asymptomatic. In other words, they may feel perfectly fine and yet be carrying the virus to all sorts of places – wherever anyone with even half a social life might go;
  6. Most people who will test positive for the Coronavirus will only experience mild or minimal symptoms;
  7. Don’t touch your face;
  8. Unless you are a healthcare professional, you probably do not need a face mask. If you are so sick that you are coughing a lot (which is really the main time anyone needs to be wearing a mask), you shouldn’t be anywhere but in your home, where you don’t need a mask.
  9. Don’t hoard.
  10. The most aware and compassionate response to having even the hint of suspicion that you might be infected with the virus is to STAY HOME.
  11. By STAY HOME, I mean ‘self-quarantine’ yourself by dropping anchor and staying at home for 14 days. No grocery store; no drug store; no liquor store; no bakery. You need to stock up on that stuff NOW, baby.
  12. Other things to do if you have even the whiff of feeling that you might have been exposed:
    1. Stay home (said above); Stay home even if you “just” have a cough, or “just” have a slight fever; or in anyway “just” don’t feel right or think you could “work through it;”
    2. Wash your hands; (This advice is given ad nauseum. Please, for the love of everything holy, wash your damn hands as often as possible);
    3. Don’t cough or sneeze on anyone or even near anyone. It’s gross, your mother taught you better, and it won’t kill you to either do it into your elbow OR, better yet, into a tissue that can promptly be thrown away;
  13. Don’t hoard.
  14. Don’t touch your damn face!

What I Really Don’t Get

What I really and truly don’t understand is why people are being so obtuse and thick-headed. The instructions, above, really are not complicated at all. And yet? People refuse to listen.

I see all sorts of people making excuses for not following those very simple suggestions, above, and using as an excuse that ‘the flu is worse.’ THAT IS NO EXCUSE – regardless of whether it’s true or not! The bottom line is that the scientists are saying that this has never been around before – it is unique. No one knows HOW fast it spreads (but it sure would appear to be yielding positive tests on an exponential basis within a single week). That does not bode well for any of us.

And tell me: what number of deaths is acceptable? What number of deaths will it take for it to make it worth your while to stay home and watch tv or read some books and keep your potentially lethal germs away from those in our society who are most vulnerable?

It sounds like the vast majority of people are either insanely stockpiling face masks, which is cruel and selfish, or in complete denial that this is really an emergency. Face masks are most helpful to healthcare workers, and by stockpiling them in your closet, you are doing no one any good. Just being selfish. Plus, face masks are best worn by people who have symptoms, such as a cough. If you have a cough: STAY HOME!

I’ve heard people use flimsy excuses for not taking basic precautions that range from:

  1. “It’s not as bad as the flu;”
  2. “The symptoms are mild, especially for people my age;”
    1. And a corollary to the above is, “It’s not impacting kids, so…?”
  3. “It’s a hoax;”

There are a number of other really appalling excuses being bandied about for not being a good human being and fellow citizen. To all of the people making these excuses,

WHAT IS THE MATTER WITH YOU?

Seriously, I’m asking for a friend. I’m asking for your mother. I’m asking for the person in the grocery store who beat lung cancer last year but still has a bit of a struggle with his respiration that makes him a good candidate TO DIE if he catches this virus.

Am I really to believe that people are so greedy that they will hoard food or supplies or even hand sanitizer and toilet paper or so selfish that they may willingly choose to go out and about, to the grocery store, the bakery, the dry cleaner – touching counters and door handles and grocery carts – without caring one whit about the older or ill person who could be felled by this infection?

I’m not intending to harangue the people who must work in order to keep a roof over their heads or food in their mouths. But I am talking to the thousands of people who can easily comply with the suggestions that will keep this from spreading, yet willingly choose to ignore them because they INCONVENIENT.

We Need to Care About Each Other

This infection spreads because our government has been too selfish and greedy, worrying about the stock market as opposed to our lives, to provide us with tests.

Let’s not be as greedy or selfish as our so-called leaders. Let’s show them who we really are.

(T-626)

Overwhelm – Day 346

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Dark Clouds – Photo: L. Weikel

Overwhelm

I’m feeling it.

Is it just me?

I feel as though I’ve been amazingly fortunate, the past 345 days or so, to almost always discover something to write about. At least something that was not akin to what my husband Karl has more than once very unhelpfully suggested to me as he headed to bed, leaving me on the couch with laptop at the ready:

“Jack is a very good boy. Jack is a very good boy. Jack is a very good boy. Jack is a very good boy. Jack is a very good boy. Jack is a very good boy. Jack is a very good boy…”

(That’s a reference to Stephen King’s The Shining, in case you either had no idea what I meant by that or thought ‘Jack Nicholson,’ yet couldn’t quite place it.)

Stuck

Yeah, I’m feeling that, too. But no, I’m drawn to explore the overwhelm  a bit further.

While I try not to talk politics a lot in my posts, sometimes the state of our country seeps into my writing. It’s hard to ignore. It’s hard to pretend that what’s happening at the highest levels of our government isn’t having a ripple effect both worldwide and on the most personal of levels.

Worldwide

On the world stage, the stunning selfishness and corruption has resulted in us betraying our allies, which of course – aside from becoming an immediate cause of death for many – will lead to others being wary of teaming up with us in the future. We’re no longer the sure thing. We’re no longer the country that aspires to be the world leader in all things just, admirable, innovative, and courageous.

We’ve lost our moral authority. (And yes, I know; we’ve not been perfect by any means. But overall? We’ve been a beacon of hope, light, and freedom to the world.

I’m feeling a sense of overwhelming despair that this is no longer true.

There’s a naïve part of me that chirps, “But as soon as we prove that we will not tolerate such blatant corruption, that our system of checks and balances will curb the egregious excesses and abuses of power, surely the rest of the world will ‘come back’ to working with us?!”

As each day unfolds, I’m feeling a despair in the pit of my self. I’m starting to despair that we can recover our stature. And I am not the despairing type. Yet…

Our Personal Microcosms

On the most personal of levels, I’m also feeling the overwhelm that’s blanketing all of us. Every day we’re confronted with a fire hose of revelations of how more and more and more ‘norms’ are just flagrantly ignored.

Norms – ways of behaving in a civil society that we, as a culture, take for granted and therefore do not need to legislate (i.e., we don’t need to create laws or rules that explicitly state what is right or wrong) – create a fundamental security. They’re sort of the ‘everybody knows what a red light or a stop sign means’ coupled with ‘we can rely on people stopping at these.’

I’m not saying that we, either personally or culturally, should become slaves to norms. I’m almost always behind a little well-intentioned effort to shake things up now and again.

It’s the Relentlessness

But the constant, day in and day out, flagrant and deliberate flaunting of norms is debilitating to our personal psyches. It’s wearing us all out. Even the people who chant inane tropes at rallies are, if they pay attention to their lives and their mental, emotional, and physical health, being worn the hell out by the constant barrage of uncertainty and unkindness, disrespect and despair.

Norms of polite society are disintegrating. People are starting, more and more, to just do what they want. There’s a growing disregard for simply doing the right thing for the right thing’s sake.

Yikes; this got dark.

I’m hoping this ‘overwhelm’ will pass quickly. It’s beating the hell out of my normally optimistic and idealistic nature. And while I suspect many of you are feeling it too, I do have to wonder: Is it just me?

I’ll do my best to bring a better game tomorrow.

(T-765)

Homage to Duckhead – Day Sixty Five

Posted on by Lisa Weikel 4 Comments
Photo by AK

Homage to Duckhead

I’m distressed. And angry. Viscerally feeling a void upon ‘arriving home’ now that I’m no longer greeted by my sassy, opinionated friend.

No. As I sit here writing this, trying to capture what I really feel, I have to admit, ‘angry’ doesn’t cut it. What a lame word for the actual sense of outrage I’m feeling at the moment.

Duckhead, my neighbors’ gorgeously coifed Polish rooster, is gone.

He’d not even been with us a year. And I use ‘us’ euphemistically because he and his girls were my adopted chicks, with my occasional chicken-sitting bestowing upon me some sort of pseudo-status as ‘family’ (at least in my own mind and heart).

From Chick to Cock

Indeed, I feel I witnessed his coming into rooster-hood. On the first weekend that I chicken-sat, perhaps late spring/early summer, I could sort of tell which one was Duckhead, even though he didn’t look all that different from his girlfriends. But he did eke out a sort of garbled quarter-crow. It was more amusing than impressive; almost sad, actually. But we tried not to laugh. You could tell he meant it, and he had no role model, so we told him he was fearsome.

As the summer wore on, being next door neighbors, I could hear his maturity coming to fruition. I even complimented his human ‘mother’ on the fact that he was finally figuring out how to muster a passable crow. And even though he couldn’t technically see me when I backed my car into our driveway, it always seemed like he would greet me with a quick cockadoodle. And I’d often respond.

Let me assure you, everyone benefits from having an enthusiastic cock greeting them when they arrive home. It’s just, well, welcoming.

Early this fall, my neighbor warned me that he was getting a bit aggressive. So the next time I came over to release them from their sleeping quarters, clean out and fill their water, and make sure their feed was replenished, I needed to be careful. Ol’ Duckhead was starting to exhibit distinct symptoms of machismo.

Wow, she wasn’t kidding. Clearly, the hormones had kicked into overdrive. He was quick! And he meant business! And while he never managed to nail me with his rapier beak, he did make me jump and squeal out a couple of times.

Still, he would greet me when I pulled in the driveway. Although soon his voice just mingled in with the braying of my beloved donkeys residing on the hill behind our homes, as well as the various other critter noises emanating from the dozen or so sheep and handful of goats (ok – the couple of goats) who also shared pasture with the donkeys.

The Comfort of Country Sounds

Life was idyllic. Karl and I would even comment on – and laugh about – Duckhead’s vociferous masculinity. It was a welcome, lovely, country sound that we’d recently come to miss.

Our neighbors two houses away (on the opposite side of us from Duckhead’s parents) had had a much larger flock – and a couple of roosters over time – for many years. They’d recently sold their home after living in the neighborhood (if you can call five houses a neighborhood) for almost 40 years. I’d tangled with one of their roosters a couple of times. He’d half-strut, half-fly over to our back yard and try to wrangle up his chickens, who would enjoy flying the coop on a fairly regular basis.

But Duckhead, in his short life, never got the chance to round up his girls. His lovelies hadn’t escaped their sweet digs even once, as far as I could tell. Sadly, yet another adventure he’ll never get to experience.

Oh, Those Noisy Neighbors

My reason for being upset, as you have almost certainly figured out, are the neighbors on the other side of Duckhead’s home. The ones who moved in a few years ago from an urban setting and immediately erected signs on their lawn advertising their business. Even though those signs are offensive, we all hoped they were temporary. You know, just letting people know what the man did for a living. The four of us didn’t make a fuss. We wanted to be neighborly. We wouldn’t complain. (And ended up remaining quiet for far too long, obviously.)

Apparently, though, they’re light sleepers, and they just could not abide Duckhead’s natural inclinations. They complained to Duckhead’s parents, who searched out all sorts of remedies.

Alas, still feeling aggrieved, a few weeks later these people complained to the township. About Duckhead – a single, lone rooster. They actually lodged a formal complaint stating that he violated a noise ordinance (which was only recently enacted this year). And there was no investigation. No measurement of his decibels (really?). Just a nasty letter threatening action against Duckhead based upon the subjective complaint of these transplanted city-folk.

News flash: we live out in the country.

Duckhead’s parents were floored. They couldn’t believe this had escalated to a township matter. So much for being neighborly. Wanting to be amenable (we all have to pick our battles), they invested in a collar that they were told would stifle or at least muffle Duckhead’s manly declarations.

It worked – for a week or two. But one morning…

Yeah.

We’re all so incredibly sad. But more than that, I’m offended. All my life I’ve lived in the country. I grew up surrounded by cow pastures and cornfields. I want to scream when I hear people who move into the countryside complain about the fragrance of freshly applied manure, or bitch about slow-moving tractors that actually need to use the roads to get from field to field.

Maybe It Would Be Better Just to Visit

This tragic, accidental loss of a rooster is emblematic of a much larger problem. Selfishness. Ignorance. If you’re going to move to the country, you’re going to have to deal with the country. And the country means cows, goats, sheep, horses, pigs, donkeys, foxes, turkeys, deer, owls, hawks, raccoons, groundhogs and all sorts of other critters. Don’t move here and then try to change its nature. We. Are. Nature.

I’m not happy. I truly grieve for Duckhead. But even more so, I grieve for our hamlet. (That’s actually what our five houses are called on really old maps.) Are my beloved donkeys next? They bray at the weirdest times sometimes – even in the middle of the night. Let me tell you: that sound can freak you out if you don’t know what it is.

And what about their roosters? I literally heard two distinctly separate cocks crowing just this afternoon. They sounded at least as loud as Duckhead. Are they next? Better not be.

I miss you, Duckhead. RIP. (Or better yet – come back again!)

(T-1046)

Duckhead, making sure things are safe before giving his girls the ‘all clear.’ Photo by AK

Silence – Day Six (T-1105)

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Silence

When was the last time you spent some time in a place where there was no internet connection? And beyond that, no cell service whatsoever?

Karl and I are sitting before a glowing fire that’s alternately snapping and crackling then spitting and hissing as snowmelt drips down from the top of the chimney. We’re in the main room of a cabin on the bank of the Tohickon Creek. The rushing intensity of the water’s flow as it courses like roiling magma toward the Delaware from right to left just yards off the cabin’s porch is drowned out by the monotonous intensity of a cataract cascading down the rocky boulders of the cliffs across from us.

The creek is at the crest of its banks, filled to the brim from the more than half foot of snow that snuck up on our region only two days ago.

Lack of Choice Brings Liberation? Sometimes…

Darkness has descended upon the forest and when we open the wooden door to fetch more logs, the voice of the creek fills our ears, sounding as if it might carry the cabin itself into the river, as recently chilled air pushes past us to ripen at the fire.

We’re literally only five minutes from our home, but the isolation from electronics is incredibly liberating. And part of that liberation is in our lack of choice. We don’t have to “think” about it one way or another. We don’t have to exercise discipline to resist clicking to check on the latest state of our world; we don’t have to choose to put our devices on airplane mode. We can just be.

It’s an odd feeling, especially for me. I’ve been vacillating for weeks, knowing I’d rented this cabin for the weekend and earnestly wanting to share it with my friends and family, possibly even clients or readers of my Hoot Alerts, who might yearn for an impromptu Listening Retreat. I kept asking Spirit: “Should I offer another retreat? Should I gather my Ayllu*?”

Permission to Just BE

And it never felt quite right to do so. So I didn’t.

It feels a little selfish of me not to share this beauty. This isolation. This opportunity to just be. But I know, intellectually, that we need to take time for ourselves. Maybe we need to be a little bit selfish sometimes, in the sense that we put our need for silence first, ahead, even, of the amazing joy it gives me each and every time I lead a Listening Retreat or Ayllu Gathering.

And that’s where I am as I write this. The meeting of my head and my heart; the place where I allow myself to take a step back from listening to others and give myself permission to listen to the silence.

I am grateful.

—-

*Ayllu is a Quechua word for a band or group of people who share a common lineage or set of teachings and experiences, a concept similar to a “tribe.”