I haven’t written much in the last few months. No wait – that’s not true. I’ve been writing, I just haven’t been blogging. Which is weird because I love to write. I may be addicted to words. Or the sound of my own voice. Or both.
A lot has happened. 2020. What a long, strange trip it’s been…and it ain’t over yet. I think I have avoided blogging in recent months because it seems silly to write about anything other than the incredible “goings-on” in our world right now. And I don’t feel particularly qualified to blog about what’s going on.
As I write this now, it’s storming outside. Fall is in full force. A strong wind started blowing a few hours ago, and now I can hear rain pouring down. We haven’t had real precipitation since late June, early July. I love the sound of rain and wind…but I’m not ready to let go of summer and “outside” time.
Even if “outside” time this year has primarily meant going to work and going to the store. We did camp a lot this summer and I’m so grateful for those trips. Otherwise, going outside or anywhere, really, has become such a sore topic for so many of us, hasn’t it? To mask or not to mask? Well, scientists and doctors say yes, but politicians – most of whom have no scientific or medical background – say no, you don’t really need to. And people are listening to both sides and doing what they feel is right. And guess what? That’s actually the American Way. Because we don’t live under tyranny, we get to choose. And we can choose to wear or not wear a mask. God bless America. I mean that from the bottom of my heart. If the government ever starts telling me I HAVE to live my life in a certain way, I will fight back. I will not go quietly. So, really, truly, honestly: God bless America.
Except that the scientists and medical professionals have said for months that we need to wear masks and social distance in order to get rid of this illness, and for those same months, the community in which I live has in large part said no to masks and social distancing, and now ours is one of the fastest-growing effected areas in the nation.
In the last three weeks, the little family of “Joe and me” has been exposed to Covid in at least three, maybe four, ways. Some of Joe’s coworkers have family members who have it (and one of those guys just got sick in the last few days). Our good friends with whom we do most of our outdoor camping and fun with have it. And we recently had some work done around the duplex and the folks doing the work just discovered they have it. Part of me worries because we are still learning about this virus and it seems to affect different people in different ways. Everything from mild cold/flu symptoms to major organ shutdown and death. So, yeah, part of me would really like to not get it.
But honestly, at this point in time, part of me just wants to get it and be done with it.
Joe’s mom and dad are 88 and 90 respectively. They live in San Diego. We haven’t seen them since February – in fact, since right before the pandemic really heated up. We keep hoping that it will go away so we can go visit them. Again, though: Unfortunately, in the community in which I live, Covid cases are spiking radically. Of course, we don’t want to inadvertently take the virus to his folks. That part of me definitely does NOT want to get it, because nobody really knows how long you can spread it once it’s in your system. Oh, I know there are lots of opinions, and lots of those opinions are from scientists and medical professionals, but even they say, “We just don’t really know.”
For that reason, the idea that a “cure” may be right around the corner smells really foul to me. It smells like something I’ve smelled coming from Washington before…what is that…?
Oh. That’s right. Bullshit. It smells to high heaven of bullshit. And politics. And game playing. And why not play games? It’s only peoples’ lives at stake, and I truly do not believe that most of the players in Washington give a rat’s patootie about the lives of the real American people.
And right there, what I just wrote – that’s probably why I haven’t been blogging much, because I have a bad habit of going off on tangents and (probably) end up sounding like a blowhard most of the time. What do I know?
Well, I have several friends and family members who work in either health care or the military, and they all tell me the virus could probably be eradicated pretty quickly if we’d all just wear a mask (a real mask, not a flimsy gator, and if we’d wear it actually OVER both our mouths and noses), and if we’d all just socially-distance for a little while. Not forever. Just a little while. I’m a simple person. It seems pretty black and white. If you rob an organism of what it needs to live, it will die. Even if a virus is not a living thing, it needs host cells to do damage. If we rob it of new hosts, maybe it will go away.
That’s the hope, anyway. Stay safe, my friends.
1 Timothy 1:7 from the New Living Translation –
“For God has not given us a spirit of fear and timidity, but of power, love, and self-discipline.”
FroginthePot 