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Posts Tagged ‘Family’

A Glimmer of Hope

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , on September 20, 2021| Leave a Comment »

My first text of the morning was from the Bride: “Breaking News!”

BREAKING NEWS! These two words flashing across any screen used to get my heart churning, but now I just wonder what else Niki Minaj’s best friend’s cousin is up to… but wait! It’s a New York Times article – our Grands just may be vaccinated by Halloween.

“The need is urgent: Children now account for more than one in five new cases, and the highly contagious Delta variant has sent more children into hospitals and intensive care units in the past few weeks than at any other time in the pandemic. Pfizer and BioNTech plan to apply to the Food and Drug Administration by the end of the month for authorization to use the vaccine in these children.”

https://www.nytimes.com/2021/09/20/health/covid-children-vaccine-pfizer.html

What a joyous, rainy, overcast Monday. You see the Bride inherited her Father’s lungs, and kindly passed a little reactive airway disease down to the Pumpkin, who’s not so little anymore. As a baby, he would get rushed into a shower with croup late at night. It’s almost like having asthma; during allergy season he may need to use an inhaler. With children’s cases of Covid going up 250%, I was particularly worried about this little First Grader.

Bob and I decided to walk in our fancy, indoor mall yesterday after several days of rain. My medical consultant tells me I must keep moving after a fall, so we donned our Happy Masks and set out on an adventure. I’m just guessing, but probably less than 50% of shoppers were wearing masks. And each store had their own policy about masking hanging on their door. This is Nashville yes, but the rest of Tennessee helps keep our Covid numbers up; Tennessee is Number ONE in the nation for new Covid cases!

I keep wearing a mask indoors not because I’m afraid of getting sick. After two jabs of Moderna, I could easily not know I was infected, or be asymptomatic, and unknowingly pass the virus to a friend or loved one. I keep wearing my mask so that I can still hug my Grandchildren.

I keep wearing a mask indoors and don’t understand people walking through a mall with young children all unmasked.

I’ll keep wearing a mask indoors just as long as my daughter tells me to, along with my other medical consultant who will keep reminding me to bring a mask with me wherever we go. Bob has successfully passed his Emergency Medicine Boards this month, HOORAY!!! (docs have to re-certify every so many years). Hope reigns supreme at my city farmhouse. Maybe he’ll start doing remote medicine? Or Urgent Care? Or something medical?

Yesterday as we sat outside a cafe in the mall, Bob told me he’d been doing the math.

“One out of every 200 people in this mall has Covid and doesn’t know it.”

It was not at all reassuring, but that’s why I love him. He will always tell me the truth and doesn’t mince words. He knows whether I broke a hip or not. He even does the dishes. He wants us to get booster shots soon, and our flu shots today!

I’m hopeful he’ll keep making sourdough bread and keep me laughing and walking and Covid-free for years to come. And I’m hopeful our Pumpkin and Bug and all the kids in that age range will stay safe for just another month or so.

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On Balance

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , on September 17, 2021| 8 Comments »

It was a Wednesday like any other. I was having my morning coffee and noticed the mourning dove diner atop the tree stump outside of my window was empty. One lone dove stared out into space, wondering where his breakfast might be… so I threw on a rain jacket because there was a dewy mist to the air, and headed outside with replacement seeds and nuts.

Feeding the birds has become a pleasurable pandemic habit. I love watching them squabble over position and seeing a cardinal can become the highlight of my day. Sometimes I worry that I’m becoming “That Old Lady,” but at least I’m not walking out of the house in my bedroom slippers anymore.

The fancy slip-on UGG shearling slippers contributed to the mishap last Wednesday. I was wearing them as I waltzed out to feed the city’s wildlife, since squirrels take their equal share of the dove diner. On balance, I was in great shape. Thanks to Pilates, my hips didn’t ache and my knees were less crumbly. In short, I didn’t stop before climbing stairs to wonder which foot should go first anymore. A breakthrough in our quest to age gracefully!

To say I lost my balance would be wrong.

I simply turned away from the feeder and put my right foot up on the deck’s rain-slicked step. In less than a second I landed right-side-down on the deck with my right arm extended. BOOM. I wondered if I’d broken my hip. My ankle hurt a little and I yelled for Bob, “BOB!”

Thankfully he came out to examine me and deemed me very lucky indeed. My hip was fine and he put a band-aid on my ankle. I have some road rash on my right elbow – this is how fast it happened, I never put my hand down – and a bruise on the right side of my thigh that’s about to turn all shades of purple. Mercy prevailed, as the Bride was working that Wednesday morning and I really didn’t want to be wheeled into her hospital’s ER.

My pride was hurt. Still no dog walkers saw my slipped n fell routine; even our neighbor didn’t come out of his house. It was just a hump day like every other in a pandemic. We were going to pick up the Frenchie puppy for his Nana and PopBob day camp since both doctors were working.

Would this be a good time to remind you that TN has the distinction of being number ONE in the country for new Covid cases per capita?!

The latest milestone is one of several records the state has reached in the past several weeks, stemming from a spike in cases and hospitalizations among school-aged children.

Hundreds of students throughout Tennessee have been forced to quarantine or isolate due to the COVID-19 outbreak. Some schools have closed classrooms due to staffing shortages, while others have temporarily asked the state to switch to virtual learning.

https://www.usnews.com/news/best-states/tennessee/articles/2021-09-14/tennessee-covid-19-cases-climb-to-top-in-the-country

On Yom Kippur we Jews are supposed to do a performance review of the past year. Last night, Bob and I hiked to a flowing creek by a golf course to throw our sins away. He had warned me I may be feeling the after effects of a fall, and I did. Thank you God for not breaking my hip. Despite my sore back, I cooked the last of our garden’s eggplant beforehand and delivered some to the Grands since both doctor-parents were working again.

On Balance, I’d rather not give our un-vaccinated grandchildren a deadly virus. I’d rather not hear what the twice impeached ex-president has to say. And I promise to only wear real shoes while feeding the birds.

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The Problem with Hegemony

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , on September 13, 2021| Leave a Comment »

Maybe it’s because I was reading about an English photographer and gardener who pivoted her lens to her own backyard as the Covid pandemic hit the UK. I love stories of resilience like this; your life is just chugging along happily and suddenly the world shuts down… Ola Maddams captured wildlife in their own element with a heat-sensing camera. I adored her incredible shots of hedgehogs and the occasional fox!

At least I think that’s why the word “hegemony” came to mind.

“…the dominance of one group over another, often supported by legitimating norms and ideas. The term hegemony is today often used as shorthand to describe the relatively dominant position of a particular set of ideas and their associated tendency to become commonsensical and intuitive, thereby inhibiting the dissemination or even the articulation of alternative ideas.” 

https://www.britannica.com/topic/hegemony

My interpretation of hegemony is that a ruling class comes to power without a single gunshot. They spread their ideology through stories, propaganda and coercion until it seems normal. If the Taliban think that maintaining their control of Afghanistan will be easy, that killing anyone who may have been associated with the resistance or American interests will cement their power, they are wrong.

Our lasting legacy in a 20 year war of occupation will not be American schools and hospitals, it will most definitely not be free and fair elections. But what we have left is a new generation that knows what freedom feels like. Young people who know there is a culturally conservative way to practice Islam, but also a rational reform way of practicing their religion. Young women who feel it is their God-given right to be educated.

And what makes our departure different from every other colonizing force in the past? The internet can be smuggled under an abaya in the palm of a woman’s hand.

A neighbor in VA was from Iran. She once told me that women would cover their fancy Western clothes with a big coat when they went to a wedding. Self-called morality censors on the street would never bother them, or maybe they were paid to look the other way. Coats would come off at the wedding venue and alcohol would be served. Where there’s a will….

The Bride and Grands collected toiletries for the Islamic Center of Nashville on 9/11. The Imam told us they are expecting to help relocate around a hundred Afghan families to middle Tennessee. Bob and I took off our shoes and toured the mosque while the kids played on the soft, padded carpeting.

Everyone was so friendly. It felt good, even cleansing to do this small mitzvah on the 20th anniversary of 9/11. The Hebrew word does not mean a “good deed,” it’s a bit more complicated.

The definition of mitzvah: “Mitzvah literally means “commandment.”  In fact, Jewish tradition understands exactly 613 mitzvot (plural of mitzvah) to be derived from the Hebrew Bible. The 613 are listed in Maimonides‘ Sefer Hamitzvot (Book of the Commandments), divided into “positive” (things one is required to do) and “negative” (things one may not do) commandments.”

I feel a positive charge in the Fall air, except for a certain legislator from West Virginia. Maybe Manchin is just a slow poke and he’ll see the light soon.

We gave the Love Bug a butterfly kit for her 9th birthday and she received her caterpillars last week. They’ll soon be emerging from their chrysalis to be released in their garden, joining the fuzzy bees tunneling into the outlandish, pink rose-of-sharon blooms.

Let’s hope that in the coming year all the anti-vaxxers and climate deniers, anti-semites and Islamaphobes find themselves overwhelmed by the hegemony of naturalists. By a love for the diversity of humans, animals and habitat.

Photo by Ola Maddams https://www.bbc.com/news/in-pictures-58327374

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Azure Sky

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , on September 10, 2021| 2 Comments »

Blue is my favorite color. Blue like the ocean, or a cloudless sky; azure blue can be brutal and beautiful all at once. Twenty years ago today, September 10th, I walked out my front door in Rumson, NJ and looked up to see a Great Blue Heron glide across our garage, swooping down to the river. He looked to be a pale grey compared to that azure sky.

The garage at the time was home to my son’s band. There was a drum set in one corner, speakers, microphones, a rug and some old furniture. A big yellow street sign, “Hope Road,” was hung on one of the walls – later the American flag would cover the doorway.

I used to serve the boys in the band bagel dogs, chips and soda. We weren’t into “healthy eating” yet, I was still happy if the Rocker took time to eat a meal with us at all. I tried not to nag about finishing up his college applications, and wondered aloud if he really wanted to go… it turns out he did.

In retrospect, my worries seemed so small.

Would the Bride be safe in a basement apartment in DC? We had just helped her move on from college to her first job at the Federal Trade Commission. Her Public Policy major had prepared her for this paralegal appointment, I wondered if she would be bound for law school.

Every morning I’d send her a quick email – just to check in. I once asked her if my daily notes were too intrusive, and she said no, she just didn’t always have time to answer me. But she loved getting them; I wish I had archived all those notes. I tried to be poetic, and positive. So many words have been lost over the years.

On the bright blue morning of September 11th, I called her on the government’s office line. Something was happening, something monumental. Planes had flown into the Twin Towers and maybe the Pentagon. Daddy was heading to the marina in Highlands. Did a helicopter crash on the Mall? There was another plane missing. She and her co-workers left their federal building and walked to their homes, not wanting to use the subway.

Her birthday became a National Day of Mourning. Monmouth County NJ lost 147 souls on 9/11, including a neighbor on Buena Vista Avenue, the street where we lived. And a high school classmate of hers, and his father.

I never thought in my wildest dreams, that a group of home-grown, “misinformed,” stop/the/steal crazy conservative terrorists could ever breach the People’s House. Could accomplish in a few hours what Bin Laden spent years planning, only to be denied in the last hour of 9/11 by REAL patriots who died in a field in Pennsylvania.

And now these Domestic Terrorists are coming back? While Nashville celebrates Pride Weekend September 18-19, DC will host another… what? Rally, Protest to free the Terrorists, ie Traitors, an Insurrectionist Mob? Will they bring guns or rely on flag poles and bear spray again?

President Biden’s ultimatum yesterday to anti-vaxxers was long overdue. Hearing last night that the Justice Department has decided to sue Texas for their blatantly illegal heartbeat bill was also a welcome reprieve from the news of late. Have the Democrats finally found their footing? Can we turn our country into its purple-blue mountain majesty. Take this test to know where you stand:

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A Sweet and Sour Year

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , on September 6, 2021| 2 Comments »

Hello Fall and candied apples! We celebrated the Bride and Groom’s anniversary yesterday, which was better than last year since we were quarantining. Today a new year begins on the Jewish calendar.

You may think it’s 2021, but for Jews around the world it’s 5782! It’s time to gather and listen to the shofar, to dip apples in honey. But since our Grands are too young to be vaccinated, there will be no religious service to attend, not even outside.

The Delta variant and vaccine deniers, politicians and mask evaders are rejoicing no doubt.

And since Great Grandma Ada left us almost one year ago, the excitement of a new year – one that looks destined to continue a spiritual lockdown – has eluded me. Granted this holiday isn’t the biggest one on the Jewish calendar, but for me it was the easiest to accomplish at home. You could use flour, and nothing had to be fried!

September is not just for holidays, let the month of many birthday parties begin!

The first was Saturday. Bob and I drove the Grands to a first grade friend’s party at an outdoor mini-golf course. I’m constantly amazed at how young parents can deliver a safe birthday celebration for their children during our year and a half of living with Covid.

The L’il Pumpkin said yesterday, “Isn’t Delta an airplane?” And we all joined in with applause because of course it’s an airline and it’s also a kitchen faucet, and a toilet. Now the image of a Delta toilet is stuck in my mind. Being able to laugh, to make Dad Jokes, was helpful as we reminisced with the Bride and Groom about the wedding. Because my daughter and husband were married on a mountain.

They said their vows on a sunlit, crisp day in an apple orchard, under Ada’s handmade Huppah.

And since Rosh Hashanah moves around on a lunar calendar, it wasn’t until today that I made the connection – apples and honey is to the New Year as an apple orchard is to the Wedding!

There is the tiniest of chills in the early morning air here in Nashville. The oppressive 90+ degree heat has left us. As the High Holy Days approach, I’m thinking of renewal. Of strengthening ties that bind and letting go of nonsense. Of living in the present so I can recognize joy when it appears. Of creating healthier habits, of accepting the things I cannot change.

God grant me the serenity
to accept the things I cannot change; 
courage to change the things I can; 
and wisdom to know the difference. Reinhold Niebuhr

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Peach Tree

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , on August 28, 2021| Leave a Comment »

Testing, one two three. Testing. My patience has been tested like never before these past few weeks. First it was the dumpster.

Right before we flew to LA, a group of smartly dressed people began appearing in front of our living room windows; pointing up, taking pictures and generally talking about their dating lives. Our city farmhouse sits right up to the sidewalk so Ms Bean will yelp every time someone walks by.

Bob of course got the lowdown. It seems there is a major problem with the apartment building across the street. These were professional engineers and photographers and consultants who were about to investigate who was at fault – was it the building’s owners or the builders? They brought in the big dumpster, and dropped it right in front of our front door!

It would only be a couple of weeks they assured us.

Meanwhile, we turned up our classical music on Sonos, brought our cricket-chirping noise machine downstairs, and attempted to carry on all while parking our car at the opposite end of our street so we wouldn’t block traffic. I longed for my quiet Blue Ridge sanctuary as I watched a guy in a cherry picker strip siding off the apartment building and toss it in the dumpster.

Would this building collapse like the one in Miami? There was no time to worry since we hopped on a plane to California.

When we returned surprise surprise, the dumpster was still there and it had a friend – a big green cherry picker parked directly across from our garden. Before we left, the picker had left every evening, but now it must be moving in.

The black tarps down the five story building would flutter with the wind when I opened the living room shutters, and come Monday morning, a miracle. No noise! Tuesday morning came and nobody showed up, nada. So Bob had a little talk with the building manager and whatdoyaknow, the dumpster and the cherry picker disappeared…. All except the fluttering black tarps that grace the view from my window.

Instead of enjoying the relative quiet, we packed up Ms Bean and drove to Atlanta. Her car sickness is well behind her, she happily curled up in the back seat. The four hour road trip saw very few people wearing masks, and now that we’ve arrived it’s even less.

Our Big Chill reunion got off to a great start because everybody is vaccinated and our friends had just installed a pool! Our host was in Guys and Dolls with me, he’s a retired PA. I attended the Junior Prom with the lawyer from Buffalo. And Bob’s best bud came all the way from Richmond, an engineer recently single. Our history goes back to elementary school for Bob, and I was lucky to join the group of nerdy smart kids in high school.

But our host’s daughter was recently exposed to someone with COVID. So the weekend is ours to reminisce and laugh and cry over our lost brothers, Lyle, Rich, Dickie. To debate the merits of crystals. To catch up on our respective lives, good and bad.

And just as we were lounging around the gorgeous pool, we heard construction noise nearby, like right next door. A tree had fallen on the neighbor’s house and so…. Here we were in this verdant Atlanta suburb, and it wasn’t filled with leaf blowers but good ole heavy construction was going on a mere 50 ft away.

We feasted on Low Country Stew and had a yummy peach cobbler for dessert last night. I wonder if it was a peach tree.

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Bad Boys

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , on August 20, 2021| 2 Comments »

We’d been painting swatches of different colors on the drywalls of the Rocker’s new home in the hills of LA It was a construction zone; pipes and plaster everywhere. My son radiated happiness as he explained the timeline for the floors and kitchen appliances.

He’d been stripping paint off the wood ceiling and beams for weeks, when he wasn’t composing music.

Aunt Kiki was back at her studio, designing dreamy houses and hotels for the carriage trade. She’d picked the sumptuous colors for their new home and was planning on meeting us for dinner. Sushi was on the menu for sure.

I wasn’t quite prepared for the beauty of California. For the smell of oleander, the intense sun, for everybody wearing masks! Palm trees poked through the horizon as we headed back to their apartment, a one bedroom nest that was their workplace/safe harbor during COVID.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, sirens! The Rocker slammed on the brakes, turned to me and said, “It’s a car chase!”

Bob was in the front seat, we looked at each other as a grey sedan went flying by the front windshield, followed closely by a black and white police car. Within a second we heard a crash.

As we inched our way into the intersection, I looked down the street – a cop (holding onto his gun) jumped out of his car in hot pursuit of a runner (holding onto his pants). It felt like they must be filming an episode of Law and Order, only this was real. We’d just missed being tee-boned by a runaway felon. Actually, there were four guys in that first car, and the LAPD caught them all.

The Rocker swears this doesn’t happen all the time, and yet, if you Google “car chase,” The City of Angels is prompted. Later that evening, I asked Kiki if Cedar Sinai Hospital really had fine art hanging in their hallways. Thankfully she had never visited that ER. In imagining the worst case scenario, I put my own positive spin on our near death adventure.

To every war that ends, there is an aftermath. To every vaccine there is a variant. To every brilliant day in The Hollywood hills, there may be a car chase.

A view from the treehouse

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Fast and Hard

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , , , , , on August 17, 2021| 2 Comments »

I’ve been thinking about New Zealand lately. Bob mentioned something in passing that is now stuck in my brain like a never ending podcast; do you know how many COVID deaths, how many TOTAL people have died from this virus on Prime Minister Jacinda Arden’s watch? 26

TWENTY SIX

“Going hard and early has worked for us before,” Arden said as she announced another lockdown because ONE citizen in Auckland has tested positive and she is assuming it’s the new Delta variant.

We have seen what can happen elsewhere if we fail to get on top of it. We only get one chance.

https://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-58241619

New Zealand is an island of nearly 5 Million people and their public health response to Covid-19 was not only rapid, it was comprehensive including contact tracing and enforced quarantine. Now schools, offices and businesses will close for one week in any region the infected patient happened to visit.

There was no denial, no delusional thinking. There was no TRY for New Zealand, there is only DO. In a country with a mere 20% of its population vaccinated, it had been COVID free for nearly six months!

That’s one third of this pandemic time capsule, they actually had been going out, eating in and basically partying like it’s 1999, or at least 2019. It’s as if the rest of the world got sucked into a wormhole, and New Zealanders did the right and proper things to survive.

Are Kiwis just more altruistic than us? Do they not follow algorithms down meerkat holes of conspiracy nonsense? My theory is not that they are so much smarter, it s all about leadership. Particularly the orange clown show early on, the guy who wanted to end our never ending wars. Remember him? The media can focus on Biden’s handling of our withdrawal from Afghanistan, but I’m trying to muster up the courage to ‘change the things I can.’

Being married to an ER doc has its disadvantages. Bob likes to remind me that we’re all on a slow steady stream to the grave. I’m in a perpetual state of decline, my vision is getting worse and my hearing will most likely be next, either before or after some joint replacement. I have a wonderful physical therapist on speed dial, or should I say my list of favorites?

But for all his candid talk of death and dying, these COVID numbers are staggering. The USA has lost more than 622,000 souls to this disease. The US population is a little over 330 Million. We’ve lost 2 out of every thousand people.

New Zealand has lost 26 souls to this disease. The New Zealand population is about five million people. They’ve lost 5 out of every MILLION people. Relative to that island nation’s population, we have lost 400 times as many people!

So let’s not compare Afghanistan deaths to Vietnam deaths or Civil War deaths or any other totally useless wars because this COVID death count is going up again. And we squandered our chance to stop it. We were slow and stupid at first, and now we’re just, ummm, misinformed?

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Decluttering

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , , on August 13, 2021| Leave a Comment »

When you have no control whatsoever on the people at Publix who are choosing not to wear masks during this Delta surge, or the parents at a Williamson County School Board meeting, the wealthiest county in TN right outside of Nashville, verbally attacking a physician and calling him a “traitor.” Oh I’m sure you’ve seen that video by now.

“Even more disconcertingly, Tennessee journalist Matt Masters shot video after the meeting showing anti-mask demonstrators harassing doctors and nurses who had spoken in favor of the mask mandate as they tried to leave the parking lot. (The clip was later reposted on Twitter by Tennessean reporter Natalie Allison.)

“We know who you are. You can leave freely, but we will find you,” one man said, as police officers separated the crowd so the public health experts could drive away safely.”

https://www.vox.com/2021/8/11/22620254/williamson-county-school-board-meeting-franklin-tennessee-mask-mandate

Luckily the Bride wasn’t there. She was in an earlier Zoom call with other doctors that day, trying to persuade the elementary school board to mandate masks as it will save children’s lives. Imagine wanting to save a child’s life. That TV segment, on Fox news, aired one or two seconds of all the white coats on Zoom, with one doctor interviewed, followed by three angry, anti-mask parents being interviewed.

On the one hand, I’m proud of my physician activist daughter; on the other I’m worried about her safety.

When the world has just gotten so out of whack, the only thing to do is organize!

I used to bake when life threw me lemons. And I’m not a baker; I’d bake carrot cakes and banana bread. I’d deliver them to grieving widows, new moms, and the emergency department at Bob’s hospital. Anyone who needed a pick-me-up could count on my simple baking skills. I’ve also made pretty mean chocolate chip cookies in my day.

But lately, I’ve felt compelled to declutter, and the first place to start, of course, was the entry. But in this “open-concept” city farmhouse, the entry leads right into the living area and the kitchen. It wasn’t easy. The kitchen is a landmine of emotions. During the past year and a half, it has become the Pilates Zoom station, the mask-making sewing room and also the scene of Bob’s sourdough bread making experiments.

I must say that the only small appliance I was conflicted about letting go was my avocado green hand mixer from the 1960s.

It still works! But I hardly ever use the old green, steady Sunbeam. Is Sunbeam still in business? I always liked that name “Sunbeam.” There’s a part of me that loves greeting the sun flowing into my kitchen every morning and bathing my orchids and plants with light. It’s essential for my happiness to have sun beaming into my home!

But I told Bob I’d be willing to part with the mixer because it represents the “old me” – the Harvard Law School wife who met Julia Child in a grocery store. The girl who felt trapped in her first marriage, and bravely sought one of the first no-fault divorces in the country.

I still have a vintage, multi-colored Delft plate we bought on our honeymoon to Amsterdam hanging on the kitchen wall. My children can do whatever they want with it when I’m gone.

The wine rack has been replaced with an electric tea kettle. I don’t know why I’ve never had one before; maybe I was afraid it would be like a rice cooker or a George Forman grill – used a few times and tossed away. It feels good knowing where everything is in my kitchen, and being able to reach for the things I use frequently, easily. Taking a news sabbatical is also good for my health!

Today is the last day of Nana Camp! Our Grands start school next week, and yes their university school requires masks and they also require all their teachers be vaccinated. One tradition is we buy them new sneakers, which I ordered online unfortunately. The Love Bug is out of children and into a woman’s size! It’s a funny thing being the blue dot in a red state. But it’s remarkably calming to know my grandchildren will not be at risk while they play and learn with their friends at school.

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Fire and Ice

Posted in Books, Journaling, Wedding, Country, tagged , , on August 2, 2021| Leave a Comment »

My sister Kay reminded me of a Robert Frost poem, “Fire and Ice,” written in 1920 soon after the end of WWI. Supposedly, the poet was in a conversation with an astronomer about apocalyptic events – would the world end by the extinction of the sun, or by its explosion? Take heart, it’s not all doom and gloom.

I was telling Kay and Dr Jim about our thwarted house hunting plans – houses no sooner hit the market than they’re sold for 20+% over list – when she started to recite the classic poem. We’ve survived a tornado and a pandemic (so far) in Nashville; an earthquake in Charlottesville; and that ‘once every hundred year’ flood in Rumson.

We should be able to survive this real estate market, right?

Or just maybe the universe is telling us to look for that spectacular beach house somewhere in the world. Of course Bob Googled “most deadly natural disasters,” and guess what? Living in a red state wasn’t one of them, but topping the list was “HEAT!” Heat-related illness was the number one killer, wildfires were way down on the list.

Some say the world will end in fire,
Some say in ice.
From what I’ve tasted of desire
I hold with those who favor fire.
But if it had to perish twice,
I think I know enough of hate
To say that for destruction ice
Is also great
And would suffice.

https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/44263/fire-and-ice

In 1920, Climate Change wasn’t really a thing. And in 1987, we never thought twice about living on the Shrewsbury River in Rumson. But doomsday scenarios have been recorded since time immemorial. In fact, 11,500 years ago in southern Turkey, humans carved a comet, smashing into the earth, onto pillars in a temple. I prefer not to think about extinction events; though I do love a good disaster movie.

If FIRE is a metaphor for love and desire, then ICE is a metaphor for hate and indifference. This Covid virus will only keep mutating if the world isn’t vaccinated enough to confer herd immunity. Anti-vaxxers and those who are just “waiting” for a sign I guess are pushing our odds of extinction… even those among the vaccinated who refuse to wear a mask again, are showing our indifference to woman/mankind! Because the vaccinated can spread the virus to unvaccinated children. You see where I’m going.

“Major children’s hospitals in Alabama, Arkansas, Louisiana and Florida—states that have been battling a broader increase in hospitalizations—all said this week they have more children in their care than at any other point in the pandemic.“

“Coronavirus-linked hospitalizations are up 50% from their previous peak at the Arkansas Children’s hospitals in Little Rock and Springdale, the hospitals’ chief clinical officer told CNN, deeming the 24 total pediatric patients housed at their facilities as of Wednesday (which includes seven in intensive care and two on ventilators) the “worst we’ve ever seen it for kids.”

https://www.forbes.com/sites/jemimamcevoy/2021/07/29/hospitals-in-southern-us-reporting-record-numbers-of-children-hospitalized-amid-delta-surge-though-deaths-still-extremely-rare/?sh=2b035b4f5f1e

The Bride’s family is vacationing in FL with the Groom’s family, and she tells me there’s barely a sign of mask-wearing at the local Publix supermarket. If you won’t get vaccinated for yourself, do it for your children and grandchildren. We are all ice skating on this river together. Don’t allow misinformation, superstition and conspiracy theories to win over science and reason.

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