Day 249

 Saturday November14, 2020

In her book, Gift from the Sea, Anne Morrow Lindbergh talks of the ebb and flow of relationships. It provided fuel to my thoughts of this current time in our lives.  How we have ridden the tides of this pandemic for days, weeks and months and have implemented strategies to stay sane and secure our humanness. We have been shut in, put out and inconvenienced for so long and with no true end in sight. 

Our hopes lie in a vaccine, one not yet created, in which we will not know the impact until massive distribution is complete.  Even then, we will be unassured of complete eradication of this coronavirus which has lived among us for so long. Like the popular game Among us, each of us could be the imposter carrying the virus and infecting others.  We crewmates must navigate this tenuous earth and with each day comes risk.  Some days are safe at home while others are days we feel more exposed. 

We venture through places where others abound and wonder who is a potential carrier. Everyday is an ebb and flow of feelings. Everyday is the ebb and flow of questions. Am I being safe enough? Should I go out today? When will we feel completely at ease? Will the imposter always be among us? 

The ultimate imposter being the virus itself, a parasite feeding off human behavior.  We like to be around each other. We feel the need to gather. We long for human touch. And with this innate desire the ultimate imposter is transmitted throughout the world. In the United States the infection is rate is skyrocketing in nearly every state. New mandates regarding lockdowns, curfews and gatherings are being put in place, yet the number of infections, hospitalizations and deaths continues to rise. A recent graph for the NY times shows alarming numbers.

We as a country have reported over 100,000 cases ten days in a row. And the world is faring no better as Italy, Poland, Russia, India and other counties are seeing an increase in cases.  Efforts are being made as many schools have returned to remote learning or will do so after the Thanksgiving break. 

Governments are putting curfews and mandates in place to decrease the amount of human contact, but it seems that enough people are not giving the effort needed. Many still do not social distance nor where a mask. Gatherings, parties and events are still taking place. In India, a five day Hindu festival, Diwali, will be celebrated beginning this weekend. 

People say, "life must go on. We have to live." 

This is something we have never experienced before and having our privileges and freedoms taken from us makes many of us defensive and rebellious.

Yet it comes at a cost. And I suppose some people are okay with that. We are a population of humans who are the same in configuration of cells and organs and senses, but in our minds we are diverse and it is with our thoughts and actions we tell our story. 

We all must playout this pandemic each in our own way. And thus the ebb and flow of it is intertwined with our daily decisions. For better or worse our humanism will be both our greatest triumph and our greatest failure. Here are the words of Anne Morrow Lindbergh, 

"We have so little faith in the ebb and flow of life, of love, of relationships. We leap at the flow of the tide and resist in terror its ebb. We are afraid it will never return. We insist on permanency, on duration, on continuity; when the only continuity possible, in life as in love, is in growth, in fluidity - in freedom..."

Good Luck everyone. There is no doubt this pandemic will leave it's indelible mark on all of us.

May your god, spirit animal or universal subconscious be with you.