Covid-19

Home Stretch – Day 777

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Home Stretch – Precious – Photo: L. Weikel

Home Stretch

Here we are, entering the home stretch of 2020, four digits comprising a year that will surely live as infamously in our collective memories as the three digits of 9/11.

Even though I sense it’s a mistake to think everything will suddenly improve once 2021 arrives, there is something to be said for ringing in a new year (or sometimes even a new month or a new week – if we’re desperate). No matter what our circumstances, it’s our nature as humans. We look for a reason to renew our hope, to believe that the tide has turned, that something – even if imperceptible – has changed.

And the truth is, things will change in 2021. As it’s been said countless times over the years, change is constant and therefor inevitable. Every single thing we look at, taste, touch, smell, perceive in any way is changing. It may be imperceptible at any given moment, but change is inexorable.

Fear of Change

Another truth? We humans tend to fear change at the deepest level of our being. How much do we fear it? We fear it so much that we’ll often opt to remain in a situation that literally hurts us physically, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, including combinations thereof, rather than affirmatively act to change our circumstances.

So these two competing concepts set us up for some serious stress. Everything changes; therefore change is inevitable. Yet we fear change, resist it, and plain just do not like it.

Coping with these internal stressors can be hard on us on a good day. But when you think about what all of us have been dealing with over the past year (and some might even argue for the past four years), including massive job loss, complete disruption of our lives on every level but especially socially, food and housing insecurity felt by people who’ve never encountered this situation before, pandemic infection rates rising exponentially, massive loss of loved ones on a scale not seen in a century. I could throw into this toxic mess the instability and fear that an unstable person in the White House who refuses to abide by the results of our election (and the appalling behavior of his enablers in the U.S. Congress) creates in the pit of our collective stomach.

It’s just all so very much to handle. We are at once being asked to duck and bob and weave the repercussions of change all day every day, while also, again, feeling like any change could lead to something worse.

Hope

And so? With change on the horizon, as it inevitably is, the best we can do is hope that it’s bringing us a better tomorrow. We have the ability to make choices that impact the change we experience.

We can choose to behave safely. We can choose to stay home unless absolutely required for our employment or survival. We can choose to be compassionate toward ourselves and each other. The person who is stressed out beyond measure in the grocery checkout line may well have just lost a family member or friend.

One in 17 of us have contracted the virus and one out of every 1,000 Americans have now died from Covid. The chances of personally experiencing the ravages of this pandemic – or knowing someone who has – are increasing at an alarming rate. Knowing this, we can choose to be kind. We can choose to respect each other and not force a choice between one person’s ‘rights’ and another’s.

We can choose to be people who engender hope – in humanity, in each other, in our future.

We’re in the home stretch of 2020. Let’s set the bar for ourselves for 2021 and stretch to meet our best selves this coming year.

The day we lose our hope, we lose ourselves.

Home Stretch – Spartacus (aka “Kissing the Bear”) – Photo: L. Weikel

(T-334)

Imperfections – Day 774

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Christmas Eve – Photo: L. Weikel

Imperfections

I’m sitting here listening to rain pelt against the dining room windows while a long, lonely gust of wind whistles through the keyhole of our front door. No need to worry about ‘closed building syndrome’ in this old house – and that’s just fine with me. I’m happy with the creaks and cracks of this home, the things some people might consider imperfections.

In fact, I’d go so far as to say I love the imperfections that make our house our home. Not all of them, of course. (Oh, for even a smidgen more kitchen counter space.) But overall? I honestly think it’s the imperfections that keep me sane.

Maybe it’s because I grew up in a house that was built in 1770. It was nothing like the houses of most of my friends. Our wooden floors were known to occasionally cast splinters as big as spears into my foot, piercing my socks and making me yelp (and causing my father to reach for the black gunky stuff that smelled like tar, that would supposedly ‘pull it out’ if it was embedded too deeply to dig out).

Christmas Eve 2020

I think many of us would agree that this Christmas in particular is filled with imperfections. Certainly, it’s far different than any Christmas most of us can recall. But I have to wonder. What will we remember most about this most abnormal of yuletides?

There are so many people enduring untold grief this Christmas. (And of course, I am using Christmas as a shorthand for all the holidays we may be celebrating at this time of year that celebrate the return of light, and encourages going within, hibernating, and reflection.) Nothing feels the same. And precious little is the same.

People are losing loved ones to the pandemic and other causes by the thousands – every single day. We’re being asked to sacrifice our traditions for the safety of ourselves and others. We’re wondering just how long this no-longer-fresh hell is going to last.

A Reminder

Karl and I were lucky enough to be able to spend a few hours with one of our sons and daughter-in-law. Because the weather is as unpredictable as it is, early this evening, it was balmy enough for us to safely sit outside in their enclosed porch and eat dinner together – occupying opposite ends of the long dinner table.

As we were driving home in the pouring rain that luckily mostly held off until we were leaving, the wind starting to whip around us, a couple of deer jumped out into the roadway in front of us. Luckily, I was driving slowly enough that I saw them well ahead of time. Turned out, though, that the three that popped onto the roadway before us were joining quite the cadre of peers on the other side of the road.

They were so beautiful and such an unexpected sight! I rolled down my window and took their photo, in spite of the raindrops splattering on my face. They were a lovely reminder of the gentleness we’re all wise to exercise with each other and ourselves over these holiday times.

I’m grateful we didn’t have an accident. And I loved the looks they seemed to give us as they stood there in the rain, returning our gaze. I realize this post probably makes little sense. But I wish all of you a peaceful, loving Christmas Day. May we all enjoy a day of respite from the insanity that has marked this year in particular.

And I’ll forgive myself for the vast imperfections of this post – not least being the fact that I just blew right through the witching hour of 1:00 a.m. (when it gets automatically sent out to my email list).

Merry Christmas. Happy Solstice. Let’s let the light shine into our hearts.

(T-337)

Fork – Day 769

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A Gigantic Fork – Photo: L. Weikel

Fork

The photo above is of a gargantuan fork that’s been in our cutlery drawer for several decades. I put a pen beside it to give context to the extraordinary size of that fork. But even with that, I doubt you’re getting the full flavor of what I’m trying to convey.

But what I may be struggling to convey in the photo is actually something I sense we’re all feeling. Something we all know, at the deepest level of our being.

“Stick a fork in me; I’m done.” Or perhaps more accurately: “Stick a fork in us; we’re done.”

That’s the sentiment I’m feeling at the moment, and it’s threatening to overwhelm me. I don’t think I’m speaking solely for myself, either. Far from it.

So What’s My Deal?

I can’t say for sure. Perhaps this is part of what I ‘do’ in the world. I pay attention to what’s happening in our shared reality and do my best to hold space in my heart for others. We can’t all be on the front lines, after all. We can’t all be reporting on it, either. Not all of us are trained for – or even suited to – engaging in what, at this moment in our evolution, feels like exacting the greatest of sacrifices day in and day out.

But even though I’m not doing it myself, I’m paying attention. I’m also paying attention (on behalf of those who are so engrossed in the day to day efforts of keeping people alive and safe) to what is going on at the highest levels of our government, right before our very eyes. There is a concerted effort, it seems, to rip us asunder while we’re all preoccupied with exponential infection rates and vertical hospitalization and death rates.

While we fight for survival, we’re being taken to the cleaners. Sold out. Compromised in the worst ways. It’s a cynical and even diabolical calculation. But it must be called out. We must each do our part to end the madness.

What’s Our Deal?

We need to stay home. We need to be smart and vigilant and take this threat to our health seriously. We would be wise to pay attention to what we have and what we cherish – and resist the temptation to lament what we’re being asked to forego for a few days, weeks, or months.

We need to stick a fork in our belligerent refusal to acknowledge the astounding suffering of so many in our country (and around the world, but especially here). It’s done. It serves no one – except, perhaps, those who are banking on our preoccupation.

Things are getting worse. All the warnings about what would happen if people ignored the warnings about gathering at Thanksgiving are coming to pass. A single county in California just logged 100,000 new cases in the past week. And yet people shop and carry on – as if nothing is happening.

We can see – right before our eyes – what will happen a month from now. Only it will be worse. Guaranteed.

We need to stick a gargantuan fork in our denial of reality because it’s killing us and distracting us. We must refuse to be distracted any longer.

We’re Better Than This

It’s time to take responsibility for ourselves and each other. If there’s a strain of Covid that’s in the UK that’s spreading at a rate 70% faster than what we’re encountering now, we need to be smart. We need to take even greater precautions than what’s being asked of us. We need to stop living in denial and realize that what they’re dealing with, we’ll be dealing with in the blink of an eye.

We need to love ourselves and each other enough to realize that we’re in this together.

We need to stick a fork in our selfish ways. Ultimately, those ways are hurting us all. They’re breaking our hearts, wearing us down, and sapping our will to be kind and courageous. And perhaps worst of all, they’re serving those who want us distracted from an unprecedented power grab that could have untold implications.

We must find our will. We must be vigilant. We must find our compassion.

And we must remember: we’re better than this.

(T-342)

Preparing For the Storm – Day 764

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Christmas Lights Before the Big Storm – Photo: L. Weikel

Preparing For the Storm

Well, no one can look at the major stories in today’s news cycle and not have the question at least cross their minds, “Huh. I wonder if it was in the stars?” Eclipse? What eclipse? Meanwhile, my neck of the woods, the mid-Atlantic and Northeast region of the United States, is preparing for ‘the’ storm that just might cap off 2020 in the manner in which we’re accustomed to being treated by this year-of-all-years: brutally.

Today was a huge day of enormous contrasts lurching from one spectrum to the other. Not least of these being the United States breaching the appalling record of 300,000 Covid-19 related deaths while on the same day rolling out and beginning administration of a vaccine for that same disease astonishingly ahead of predictions.

And of course we can’t forget the seemingly never-ending saga of the 2020 presidential election. Apparently if we didn’t have the good fortune of a solid civics course growing up, we’re being given a crash tutorial in it over the past six weeks. Sadly, I don’t think the obscure challenges and desperate last-minute attempts to thwart the will of the people will end with today’s formal Electoral College certification, either.

While we were treated to watching the broadcast of arcane but somehow reassuring legislative protocols being enacted by electors across the nation, we were simultaneously reminded that more than one of our states required said electors to be either swept into chambers via secret passages or forced to meet non-locally due to credible threats of violence against them for doing their jobs.

Yep. Must be something in the stars.

Need a Distraction

Beyond the somewhat dramatic events of the outside world, my family has experienced some of its own drama. While I’m not one to share the details of others’ traumas, suffice it to say, the day was marked by two falls and one emergency surgery. Stressful to be sure; but by all appearances, at least two out of three of these events could lead to some essential and long-awaited opportunity for change.

Not a walk in the park, though. And definitely revelatory of some long-suspected obfuscation. How eclipse-like (wink).

All of which leads me to an overwhelming desire for some distraction. In light of the winter storm bearing down upon us (over a foot of snow, perchance?), I’ve decided to revisit my culinary quest down the memory hole to Christmases past that I indulged in last year. Yes, I’m going to bake some kiffels. And this year I’m going to do it before Christmas actually arrives!

To the Grocery Store

Thus I am heading out tomorrow to gather the supplies I will need to recreate one of the best memories of Christmas from my childhood: Hungarian kiffels. I’m hoping that this year I’ll be able to dive right into turning out some decent confections. Last year entailed a significant amount of both trial and error as well as seemingly divine (if niece-conveyed) intervention.

This Christmas promises to have its ups and down, its challenges, and hopefully some unexpected moments of brilliance and love.

I want to savor as much goodness as possible. As I’ve said a couple of times in the past several days, 2020 and its after-effects aren’t over yet, and the next six weeks are probably going to be even more intense than we think we can handle.

But we can. And we will. And Goddess willing, as we weather the snowstorm barreling our way this week, we’ll at least have some kiffels to see us through.

More Christmas Lights Before the ‘Big Storm’ – Photo: L. Weikel

(T-347)

Pandemic Journal – Day 755

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My Pandemic Journal – Photo: L. Weikel

Shortly into this downhill slide our country is experiencing, I felt in my bones that something wasn’t right. Indeed, I wrote a post about what I saw unfolding in our country that, upon re-reading it for the first time this evening, has me sort of wondering at the sad accuracy of my screed back at the beginning of March (almost nine months to the day ago). And while I was finishing up the last few pages of my journal at the time, I actually started a new one on the 7th of April – and eerily enough, declared on the very first page that it would probably end up being my “Pandemic Journal.”

To quote myself and my inelegant observation that day: “The shitstorm has already started.”

Our Unique Experiences

I suspect every person who keeps a journal has some idea in the back of their head that someone, someday, may find value in the description of our mundane lives and thoughts, our descriptions of what we encounter in our daily lives, and how we perceive the slow steamroller of life’s events. It’s intriguing to me to consider that what I take for granted as everyday normality will someday read as a curiosity. Quaint, even. But that’s ok. That feels like a normal evolution of consciousness. It’s the way we are.

I nevertheless wish I could read the musings of my own ancestors. Would I find their thoughts and innermost contemplations quaint? Or would I find them even more profound than I sometimes fancy my own? (I’d like to think I would.)

Cool Opportunity

Anyway, just today I discovered this very cool project being undertaken by the University of Connecticut. It’s called the Pandemic Journaling Project. I encourage you to check it out. No matter whether you’ve contracted Covid-19 or not, lost or suffered through scary times with a loved one, lost your job, had your opportunity to contribute to society multiplied, been exhausted as a healthcare worker, organized the less fortunate for safer working conditions, or found yourself staring at four walls all day wondering who you are and what this scourge has done to your life…here is a place to document it.

Someone, someday, may discover something remarkable about our experience of the infamous 2020. We may display hues of resiliency we never dreamed possible. We may exhibit compassion or despair in equal measures, only to be buoyed by the tiniest gesture of kindness coming from a totally unexpected source.

Documenting the large and small experiences of living through these times is a gift we can all give to our progeny. If you check out this site, you will see there are a number of ways you can make a contribution. Verbally, by the written word, privately, or allow your thoughts and experiences to be shared.

Tomorrow I will share with you the blow I suffered with respect to my Pandemic Journal. It’s taken me all these months to share, but maybe now is the time.

(T-356)

Just Gross – Day 746

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Photo: L. Weikel

Just Gross

I just logged onto my laptop to write tonight’s post and was met with something that’s just gross. Call me a prude, call me old-fashioned, but I was disgusted when my computer’s calendar popped up a notification alerting me to the fact that tomorrow is Black Friday.

Really?

Black Friday gets as much of a calendrical shout out as, say, Memorial Day? New Year’s Day? Or dare I say Thanksgiving?

Why in the world would this even be something marked on anyone’s calendar? It’s not a day of honoring, celebration, reverence, seasonal significance, or even religious observation. It’s simply a day of mass consumerism.

Breaking Even

Yes, I know the importance of Black Friday is that it is a day where people go out and purchase stuff in such a massive frenzy that the dollars spent cause retailers’ balance sheets to not only break even but go from being ‘in the red’ to ‘in the black.’ Therefore, it’s a day of huge importance to purveyors of goods, mostly – although those who sell their services also get in on the scramble.

I’ll confess: I’m not a big shopper to begin with. But this year, especially, the whole concept of Black Friday feels utterly icky. I can only hope against hope that we’re spared videos or photos of people clambering cheek to jowl for the chance to barge into stores for bargains. They’re disheartening to witness any year – but now? In the year of Our Dear Lord Please Don’t Let It Get Any Worse 2020? It makes me want to take a hot soapy shower just thinking about it.

It also makes me want to cry.

From Today to Tomorrow

How do we manage to internally shift gears from spending today feeling grateful for the people and circumstances in our lives, great and small, that make life worth living – and feeling responsible to express that gratitude and love by remaining away and separated from those we love and cherish – to spending the next day potentially exposing ourselves and each other to a deadly virus just to buy stuff?

Kind of ironic, all that ‘spending.’

Maybe my cynicism is unwarranted. Perhaps we’ll all be pleasantly shocked tomorrow evening by the dearth of evidence that people threw public health and caring for friends, neighbors, and loved ones (not to mention themselves) to the wind in service to their need to acquire stuff.

I’m not in any way suggesting that if Black Friday is your day to spend lots of money and help shopkeepers breathe a sigh of relief that you should refrain from doing so. I’m only hoping you’ll do it remotely, or at the very least intelligently and compassionately. If we don’t take care of ourselves and each other, next year there will be significantly fewer of us around to buy a damn thing.

Let’s carry forward our gratitude and appreciation for each other. Stay home; spend money online, and if you have to go out, wear masks and stay far away from each other. Short term hassle, long term health and life and the opportunity to spend another day – and hopefully many more – spending.

(T-365)

Ugh Oh – Day 732

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Tree Huddle – Photo: L. Weikel

Ugh Oh

I just realized that about fifteen minutes from when I’m writing this, it’s going to be Friday the 13th. Normally, I embrace the 13th of anything – and I certainly do not ascribe any ill-fated inclinations to the number. As a matter of fact, I’ve considered the 13th to be a fortunate number in my own life. It is historically associated with women and the moon, and best yet, my eldest son was born on the 13th, albeit not a Friday. That said, when I saw that tomorrow is Friday the 13th, my first thought was, “Ugh oh.”

Let’s not forget: it may be November, but it’s still 2020. I don’t think there’s been much of anything this year that’s not had a little bit of “ugh oh” associated with it. But the next several days are going to be particularly intense.

Jupiter Conjunct Pluto

In fact, one astrological aspect that occurred today and that’s impacting all of us is Jupiter conjuncting Pluto. This is an aspect that occurs every 13 years. It’s generally associated with big death or major (Jupiter) transformation (Pluto).

The unique specialness that we’ve come to know as 2020 brought us the tremendously lovely (eye roll) opportunity to experience this conjunction three times within seven months. Why? Because both planets went retrograde this year right around when they were aspecting each other in Capricorn.

That means that Jupiter and Pluto were conjunct (meaning occupying the same degree and sign at the same time) on April 4, 2020. It may be recalled, that’s right around when the pandemic started exploding in New York.

Both Pluto and Jupiter then stationed (appeared to ‘stop’) and went retrograde (an optical illusion that makes a planet appear to be going backwards in its usual orbit), Pluto at the end of April and then Jupiter in early May. This caused the two planets to meet up with each other and become conjunct again – on June 30th. This coincided with another blip in the coronavirus spread.

And today, we just had the third conjunction of the two planets, as they both are moving forward again and have, once again, caught up with each other. Sad to report, but the pandemic is reaching crisis proportions here. Just today, I believe there were something like 158,000+ new positive cases. That’s more than 10,000 more cases today than yesterday. And hospitalizations and deaths are increasing as well, although they are, as always, ‘lagging’ indicators. (Because people don’t usually get hospitalized and rarely die the same day they’re diagnosed with Covid-19. That takes some time.)

On the Bright Side

We’ll be experiencing a new moon early Sunday morning (late Saturday evening for those on the west coast), so we might want to think about planting some fresh intentions geared toward keeping ourselves, our families, and everyone we come into contact with safer. It feels especially important to set such intentions this weekend because the next two weeks will encompass Thanksgiving. Remember: short term sacrifice for long-term gain.

There are other planetary aspects occurring over the next few days that could portend additional  likelihood of volatility, rage, and acting out. Given that tomorrow is Friday the 13th, then, it might behoove all of us to be mindful of everything that’s going on right now and just chill out.

We didn’t get a chance to walk today because every time we thought about setting out, it started to drizzle. Here’s hoping we get to walk tomorrow. Stay well, everyone.

(T-379)

Portals – Day 731

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11:11 Medallion – Photo: L. Weikel

Portals

Today, of course, was the 11th day of November. 11/11. A day of portals, doorways, openings in time and space.

A day doesn’t go by that I don’t contemplate – if every so briefly – how our eldest son, Karl, facing the myriad array of portals on that fateful evening of 11/11/11 at 11:11 p.m., decided on an unconscious level that all those doorways to utterly new experiences beckoning to him were simply too enticing.

Timing and circumstances.

A New Perspective

I’ve always been aware that Karl died on Veterans Day. He didn’t serve in any of the armed forces, so I never sensed any particular connection between his death and the celebration of this national holiday.

This year, however, my attention was drawn to the fact that Veterans’ Day used to be called Armistice Day. Somewhere deep in my memory banks I’m sure I knew this; surely I learned it in a high school history class. But the holiday was changed to Veterans Day in 1954 – five years before I was born – and in the ‘70s, it seems like there was a lot more focus on either the here and now or the future, and much less on the past. In the ‘70s, World War I seemed a distant memory, eclipsed by the fact that World War II proved it was not, in fact, the ‘War to End All Wars,’ and both the Korean War and Vietnam shunted WWI even further down the memory hole.

Perhaps because of the pandemic we’re experiencing and the coordination between Armistice Day and the Spanish Flu of 1918, Armistice Day has been catching my attention more this year. Even when our Covid-19 was just taking root here and around the world, in the first three months of 2020, I remember reading about the dangers of a ‘second wave.’

Second Wave

Of course, back in March many in our country were (and still are) in denial that a pandemic is raging through our country. The thought that a ‘second wave,’ exponentially greater than the first could hit us in the fall of 2020 and winter of 2021, was pretty well ignored. But I remember reading stories at the time about Armistice Day – November 11th, 1918 – and how people gathered in great throngs throughout the country, mostly without masks, to celebrate the cessation of fighting. Shortly after this great celebration, the pandemic spread like wildfire, killing more than had died in the war itself.

It was actually only this very morning that I realized that Armistice Day was established because the agreement to cease fire between the warring nations in WWI was formalized at the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month. In fact, one article I read this morning even suggested that it was at the 11th minute of the 11th hour.

I didn’t realize the significance of all of those 11s in the establishment of Armistice Day.

One definition given for the word armistice is: An agreement for the cessation of active hostilities between two or more belligerents. (www.brittanica.com)

This calls to mind the significance of all the 11s. The confluence of all these portals created an opportunity for the world to work together, to walk through a doorway to new ways of working together and creating a better world.

And yet…those portals also opened up the citizens of the world to the spread of a deadly contagion. Why? A big reason was a reluctance to wear masks, as if the call to do so was some sort of oppression.

Natural portal – Photo: L. Weikel

More Reflection

So much of what I’m writing right now is just pouring out of my fingertips and demanding greater reflection.

There is something to the concept of thresholds being created (or at least represented) by the number 11 and the opportunities or perils, depending upon one’s perspective, that await discovery ‘on the other side.’

Perhaps I should have started writing this particular post a bit earlier this evening. Maybe I’ll engage in further contemplation in the days to come. All I know is, I feel like there’s something bigger right now for us to be looking at and perhaps learning from history.

Are we capable of moving through the portals available to us, calling a ceasefire to the insanity we’ve endured for the past four years (or more), and choosing to embrace a new vision of a future of cooperation?

(T-380)

Stillness – Day 728

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Photo: L. Weikel

Stillness

I’ve been sitting here contemplating what I might write about this evening and the word ‘stillness’ keeps popping into my head.

I know I could use some stillness in my life. Perhaps even more than simply ‘in my life,’ I could use some stillness in my thoughts and emotions.

The past week has been a blur. And actually, when I think about what I was doing and thinking a week ago, it almost feels as though I’m remembering another year, another season at the very least. Of course, part of that feeling could be attributable to the unseasonably balmy weather we’ve been enjoying here in eastern Pennsylvania over the past four days or so.

When I think back a week ago, it was cold and rainy outside. All the leaves were getting whipped off the trees. Indeed, exactly one week ago, wild winds took out our electricity for several hours and I was forced to write my post on my phone.

Top of the Coaster

It turns out that our evening of lost electricity was just our little car reaching the top of the roller coaster. The slow tick – tick – tick – that comes with climbing to the crest suddenly gave way. Momentum whisked me forward – from seeing Kamala Harris in Bethlehem to working as an election official for just shy of 17 hours, from holding myself in rigid anticipation with the rest of the country and world to attending rallies encouraging all votes be counted – I’m only just now starting to catch my breath.

This past week most definitely felt like a rollercoaster ride. You know, how it seems to take forever to reach that very first, usually highest, peak, but then once you do, everything seems to blow past you in a blur?

And now, tomorrow, we’re going to begin settling back into a new routine. And yes, to me, it feels like our forward momentum is a bit of a paradox. Maybe that’s why I’m craving a chance to snatch some stillness for myself. I yearn to make sense of where we are before we’re dragged into the next whip-around or stomach-dropping plunge.

Need For Care

Part of my yearning for stillness is a sense that we need to take particularly good care of ourselves right now. In the frenzy of the election and its aftermath, unless we were directly dealing with someone sick from Covid-19, the existence of the pandemic may have receded into the background of our minds. Not that we didn’t continue to wear masks and exercise social distancing; I know I, and those around me, did. But we may not have been actively contemplating dealing with the illness up close and personal.

If we’ve managed to be so lucky, hopefully we’ll continue to keep it at bay in our lives. I was shocked to learn today that the rate of infection climbed in the past week to the point where it’s predicted that by the end of next week, we’ll be gaining one million additional positive cases per week. (There’s that roller coaster again.)

That’s mind-boggling. And definitely not great when you realize that deaths are on the rise as well.

Settle Back – Be Still

So in the midst of settling back into a new routine, I urge us all to prioritize our health. It’s essential that we care for ourselves and each other. A lot of people came into more contact with others than usual this past week, from interaction at our polling places, to participation in rallies, to attending gatherings of solace or celebration.

It’s time now to engage in stillness. Stop. Take stock. Step back. Breathe deep. Maybe make an extra effort to keep ourselves as separate from each other as we can. We need to to make sure we’re not infected – so we don’t hurt the ones we love.

The numbers they’re projecting aren’t really numbers at all. They’re people. They’re our neighbors, our friends.

We need to do our best to make sure they’re not us.

Photo: L. Weikel

(T-383)

Pennsylvania Delivers – Day 725

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Photo: L. Weikel

Pennsylvania Delivers

I’m sitting here on the couch, alternately falling asleep from sheer nervous exhaustion, then suddenly waking to hear yet another update on the count of the votes across the country. It would appear (from MSNBC’s uber-number-cruncher Steve Kornacki) that between the time I post this and when I wake up tomorrow morning, there’s an extremely high probability that Pennsylvania delivers the presidency to Joe Biden.

I have to say, the prospect of this is particularly sweet given DT’s sneering disparagement of Pennsylvania in general, and Philadelphia in particular.

There’s his stunningly tone deaf admission-against-interest statement when he campaigned in Erie (was that only last week?) basically admitting that he wouldn’t have been back visiting Erie if he hadn’t felt desperate.

And of course, his recent infamous statement, “Bad things happen in Philadelphia.” Hmm. I’m thinking there just might be some poetic justice coming DT’s way, courtesy of Pennsylvania.

Big Question

The question I’m facing now is whether or not I should try to stay awake to watch the call in real time. Yeah, I’m that confident. Why? Because it’s all down to the mail-in ballots. And the mail-in ballots have been yielding vastly greater numbers of votes for Biden uniformly, throughout the state. (Why? Because most people who believe in science and the contagiousness of Covid-19 and decided to be smart and vote by mail are Democrats. They also didn’t believe DT’s scare tactics about mail-in voting.)

It’s almost as if he shot himself in the foot by making all the bogus claims about mail-in voting. His scare tactics caused the vast majority of his supporters to vote in person, which then gave him a false sense of superiority and confidence on the evening of the election.

The results of the election have been blurred by the obfuscations of the current occupant of the White House. But tonight, and tomorrow, my sense is that everything is going to become crystal clear to all of us, including him.

But, as always, we must count every vote.

Photo: L. Weikel

(T-386)