Month: May 2020

May 31, 2020

Current events are huge, ugly and devastating. To help me retain a mental and emotional balance, I am going to search this week for little things because as Kitty Kallen has sung, “Little things mean a lot.”

Here is # 1

May 29, 2020

David Brooks (NYT columnist) in his weekly appearance on Public Television exclaimed with strong emotion, “This was a terrible week.”

Indeed, let us count the items: 102,000 Covid-19 deaths in this country, the US withdrawal from the World Health Organization, the sale of military hardware to Saudi Arabia, the response to China’s crackdown on Hong Kong, and most heart-breaking of all, the death of a Black man kneed in the neck for nine minutes by a white policeman in Minneapolis.

While each of these ills have been made worse by our current leadership, I will comment personally to the Minneapolis murder. I saw the video of the policeman’s knee on George Floyd’s neck and heard Floyd say that he couldn’t breathe, but I can’t bring myself to a second look. Our nation’s race divide is larger than this one terrible death and, in fact, represents one continuing marker of this nation “under God.”

A friend has encouraged me to engage “exploratory imagination” in my quest to discover how I, as one white senior citizen, might support tangibly the healing of our nation and the restoration of regard for all of our co-citizens.

Two books have been recommended. A worthy first step. Have you more to suggest?

May 28, 2020 —— Covid-19 notes

On some days I feel positive about our collective recovery from this pandemic. The office here in the basement is my den. The garden is my sandbox. The neighbors are most cordial and caring. Our pace has slowed, a pleasant velocity indeed. We now get three or four months to a gallon of less than $2.00 gas. Our son brings our groceries. The children and grandchildren are fine.

But then there are days that feel threatening. Mind you, here in our country 100,000 people have died from the virus. Our caring neighbor lost two members of his family in ten days. A third member of the family is gravely ill. Three of our family members and/or partners work in medical services; we feel the separation from them.

Yet there is a larger crisis made the more vivid by my current reading of Albert Camus’ “the plague.” How could he know in 1947 the details of our current political/medical entanglements, the bald self-serving of the moneyed classes, the naïveté of the populace, the desperate need of common folk? “[The book’s] relevance lashes you across the face.” —Stephen Metcalf, The Los Angeles Times.

Then, as though this moment of a pandemic weren’t serious enough, on a self-constructed stage a leader with a personality disorder shouts to an adoring crowd.

Today is that kind of day.

May 25, 2020

This month has brought us skies of wonder.

And most of the skies have come with sound effects
such as the one below.

Here’s a sky that brought a husky storm.

The second half of May we’ve had blue sky mornings
and cloudy afternoons.

The clouds on occasion play games with each other.

Other times they seem to be moody.

I enjoyed this one
because I didn’t know what to expect next.

And then there are skies
that seem to want to do nothing other
than complement nature.

All of these photos were taken in May, here in Irvington.

May 21, 2020

From two friends I heard disheartened reports of this extended stay-at-home rule. Indeed I can identify with them in part. Space restrictions delimit other customary activities, many of which contribute to well-being.

Our experience thus far has not been onerous, thanks to help from our children and considerations of neighbors. Further, my wife and I each have been able to turn pastimes into fuller enjoyments. These include cooking, gardening, walking, puzzling, writing, corresponding, music, reading, meditating, writing, phoning, zooming, photography, neighboring and talking with each other. There are more options awaiting such as film study, listening to Ted Talks and Podcasts.

On that note, what were several particulars from today?

• mixing potting soil
• eating shoofly pie
• printing another twenty pages of the manuscript … for close editing
• walking Pennsy Trail to Edmonson to East Pleasant Run Parkway
• listening to Horowitz playing Rachmaninoff
• reading Chaim Potok

Tomorrow we hope to enjoy sunshine after this long rainy spell.

PS This morning I snapped a picture of this street detail and wondered how it came to be. Did somebody arrange it? Did the wind design it?

May 19, 2020 – – – – – Covid 19: Stay at home? What’s there to do?

Extend the succulent garden

Take a walk

Admire the arum

Dry dishes

Wash the tools

Channel the water barrel overflow

Read (just finished Andre Gide, “Straight is the Gate.”)

Connect with friends via blog, e-mail, Face Time, Zoom, Instagram, telephone, Facebook or six feet away.

Eat

Weed the shade garden

Comb my hair

Listen to music (presently Horowitz “Discovered Treasures”

Work on the manuscript

Feel the rain

Sit by the fire on the patio

Sleep

Vacuum under the table and in the corners

Attend to the news

Complete crossword puzzles

Take nature photos

and all the while open my heart, mind and resources
to those who suffer the throes of this virus.

May 18, 2020 ——Covid 19 comments

I am grateful to live on a street where

we are greeted by name

a neighbor offers to steady the ladder

a knock on the door might bring a plate of goodies

children learn to ride bicycle on the sidewalks

there is no litter … none

neighbors gather to chat

gay couples feel at home

a high school valedictorian is honored

lawns and gardens are cared for

seniors and newly weds can live happily next door to each other

neighbors clean up after a storm

police officers are respected

garden produce is shared

street language is not foul language

people grieve a death

life is sane and simple

May 16, 2020 —— Covid comments

Here in the midst of the coronavirus threat with stay-at-home safeguards and people protecting their neighbors by wearing masks and staying six feet apart, I have found solace — an all-encompassing beauty — in spring flowers. This year I notice them like I have never done before.

Let me show you just seven. Welcome them into your presence.

May 15, 2020 …… Covid comments

While some good folks, with nary a thought, dutifully conform to the crisis of the day, others receive the occasion as a time for reflection. A friend of mine, skilled in parsing political and philosophical nuances, considered the number of deaths from Covid-19 — indeed a large number, now more than a million — and then tried to remember the number of deaths caused by crises of the past. He looked here and there for numbers, including the web of course, and compiled a listing, not formal and official numbers, but the figures generally available today.

Loren Lind (Toronto, Canada), with your permission I share with my readers your note to me. Thanks.

NUMBERS

Everything has to be tabulated. How many total Covid-19 deaths today? How many cumulatively? All  kinds of numerical comparisons. I say to myself, if we’re into numbers, let’s do numbers. So I did the numbers. 

Annual gun deaths in the USA in 2017:                         33,636   

U.S. deaths by common flu in 2019:                              37,000 

U.S. traffic fatalities in 2019:                                           38,800 

Yearly U.S. air pollution deaths:                                     50,000     (Bill McKibben estimate)

Americans killed by Covid-19 to May 8:                        75,000 

Americans killed in Vietnam war:                                   58,000     Vietnamese killed:       2,000,000 (a low estimate )

Americans killed in Iraq war:                                             4,424     Iraqi civilians killed:         185,000 

Americans killed in Afghanistan war:                              2,400     Afghani civilians killed:      26,000 

Number killed in 9/11 attack (all told):                           2,996

Americans by Japanese, Pearl Harbour 1941:               2,403

Japanese killed at Hiroshima & Nagasaki 1944:        125,000

Americans slain in U.S. Civil War 1861-65                   620,000     (Horses and mules: 1,000,000)

Ukrainian, Kazakh, USSR famine deaths 1932-3:   5,300,000   

Number of Jews killed in Holocaust                          5,800,000

Great China Famine deaths (1958-61)                    20,000,000 to 36,000,000   

World War I total fatalities                                       40,000,000

World War II total fatalities                                      70,000,000 to 85,000,000

   ( All figures from internet sources.)

May 14, 2020 – – – – Covid thoughts while walking

I waited until the morning storm
was over.

Once a-walking I discovered
two separate experiences —
what I saw and what I had
just read.

” The United States faces the ‘darkest winter in modern history’ unless leaders act decisively to prevent a rebound of the coronavirus.” Rick Bright

“Trump threatens to ‘cut off the whole relationship with China,” says U.S. would save $500 billion. (Newsweek)

“FBI serves warrant on senator in
investigation of stock sales linked to
coronavirus.” (Del Quentin Wilbur
and Jen Habercorn)

Three million Americans filed jobless
claims last week, pushing eight-week
total to 36.5.

Big investor David Temper called this
market the second most over-valued
he’s ever seen. (Van Trump Report)

Business Insider asked over 200 CEOs about how the COVID-19 crisis has transformed their business. The coronavirus has affected everything, from how we work and take care of one another, to how we shop, pay, and entertain ourselves.

Indiana’s death toll from the coronavirus
crosses 1,500 as 26 new deaths are reported.