Coronavirus19 Diary - Epilogue

 When I started this blog my posts were memories and recounts of my travels. Over the past year I have stayed in place. Next week we will be celebrating the marriage of my niece, in person, on the west coast.

Even though I have not left home I have still traveled. I have gone from full time to part time work, a liberating experience. I have explored my thoughts and desires, a result of the private time afforded us by the pandemic. I have come through this life experience, as I have with others before it, wiser, gaining wisdom though both trial and joy.

There will continue to be lingering effects. Many are people and families are physically, emotionally and financially stressed. Others are searching for a new path, the one that they had been traveling disrupted, as was mine. Physical signs of what we have been through remain. Masks are still worn in some settings, social distancing still in place in others.

Post pandemic we will move to a new normal. One we each will need to explore, experience and find our individual place in.

Coronavirus19 Diary - A Missed Opportunity

 We had a moment, a small window, when we could have some unity. The country faced a common enemy, a deadly one for some. Even with a deeply divided country, with proper leadership, we could have banded together to fight it. 

But the country's leaders were determined to use the enemy to further divide the country. Instead of a unified front they created a patchwork of rules and regulations. Those attempted to keep their populations safe were at the mercy of those that did not. The virus had no respect for state boundaries, it spread from one place to another enabled by lies and inconsistent, callus, foolish leadership. Instead of bringing us together it drove us just a few short steps away from civil war. The hate and division stirred up by many in leadership culminated in an attack on our nation's capital. It created a mad crowd calling for the blood of those that did not believe as they did.

We have lost the moment. But, perhaps, after time and reflection, we can grow closer than before. Perhaps intelligent, measured, empathetic leadership will lead us to a, if not perfect, at least less damaged union. Maybe the historic numbers of people who voted in our last election will, despite the obstacles created to block them, continue to provide us with voices that had not been heard. Perhaps we can find a course forward and away from the whirlpool that spins us around in a circle, going nowhere.

Coronavirus19 Diary - A New Beginning?

 It was a momentous day, the CDC announcing that vaccinated people, such as myself, will no longer need to wear masks for both indoor and outdoor activities or practice social distancing. I will admit to an emotional dam inside be bursting at the news causing a few tears to run down my face. I look forward to hugging friends and family, there will be a wedding this summer in Washington that will give me the opportunity to to this in spades. It makes sense, knowing what we do. I, vaccinated, am well protected from the virus. This means that the chance of me contracting it and spreading it to others, the reason behind masking, is infinitesimal. 

Of course, it will take time for us to sort this out. Masks are still required on public transit and airplanes and, as I live in Chicago, I assume they will be required in a number, if not most, businesses for a while longer. Still, it feels as if we have reached the mouth of a dark tunnel, if not yet stepped completely into the bright sunshine outside it. 

This problem coming to a conclusion will give us an opportunity to focus on others brought to light and in some cases exacerbated by this dark era, minority discrimination, income inequality and the state of our nations crumbling infrastructure to name a few. Yet many in our country seem to be intent on obstruction instead of construction. Of continuing to use power to retain power for power's sake instead of utilizing it to better the lives of  those they were elected to serve. 

Will this change? Will this soon to be past period of social and economic upheaval make people pause and perhaps reassess their traditional allegiances and elect those who will move us forward instead of those who represent and cling to a divisive, harmful and inequitable status quo? Will we see, coming out of these dark ages, an American Renaissance? We can not know, but I, for one, am not yet willing to give up hope. 

Coronavirus19 Diary - A Right to Bear Arms

 Another mass shooting. They become ubiquitous. They lose their ability to shock. They become commonplace, a part of life in the U.S.

People speak of their right to bear arms yet fail to understand the reason for the 2nd amendment. Our new country had no army or police. Law enforcement and national defense were dependent on individuals  forming  "well regulated" militias to protect life, property and newly declared rights and liberties. They ignore the primitive  nature of firearms at the time the amendment was written. It took 90 seconds to load a single, inaccurate shot from a musket. The concept of a firearm being able to release scores of shots in seconds would have been unfathomable to our country's founders. 

Politicians offer thoughts and prayers yet no sensible solutions. We watch, powerless, as those we voted into positions of power refuse to use it for the common good. 

Self described Christians attack a woman's right to choose yet are silent regarding guns. It is, at best, a questionable moral stance. 

I have no answers. Contacting my representatives in Congress is pointless as I live in the progressive stronghold of Chicago, itself a victim of the patchwork of gun restrictions, surrounded by states with gun laws more lax than ours. 

I wonder if this madness will end. I wonder if liberty means the right to live free of fear. I wonder what it will take, or if it is possible, to restore a bullet riddled nation's soul.

  

Coronavirus19 Diary - A Few Words on Writing

 Sometimes the words come easily, tumbling out of my brain almost faster than I can write them down. Sometimes I am stuck mid sentence, I scroll through my mental dictionary searching for the words to convey my point. Sometimes the point itself seems elusive. I watch as a concept coalesces and strengthens into something that can be conveyed.

 Sometimes my hand seems to act independently. I observe in amazement as posts seem to write themselves. Sometimes words and ideas pour into the margins of the page after my initial thoughts have already been set to paper. 

Sometimes, for various reasons, sizable periods go by when I don't write. I begin to feel almost guilty, feel as if I am denying myself the structure and emotional and intellectual outlet and exercise afforded to me by writing. 

The act of writing is intriguing to me. I am curious by nature. So I write.

Coronavirus19 Diary - A Year in the Life

 It was the day before the 1st anniversary of the Illinois covid lockdown and I am in a chair at a Walgreens in Chicago's loop pulling up the sleeve of my tee shirt to receive the first shot of the Moderna vaccine. A year that proved my resiliency, that proved to myself, once again, my ability to move through the obstacles that life and fortune, good and bad, confront me with. 

I feel both hope and empowerment. I see the promise that we will move past this crisis and we, as a global society, will be able to confront the problems this pandemic has left in it's wake. Exacerbated wealth and racial inequality, job and business loss, desperation and anger. The anger searches for a target, a place to focus. In the early days of AIDs I remember friends speaking of anger, yet not knowing where to direct it. 

I understand it, I sympathize, yet I try not to carry it with me. From a glass half full perspective I attempt to turn anger into positive action. At work I attempt to assure people that we will soon be through this. That we will soon be able to put this painful, sad and debilitating moment in history behind us and move towards a future, changed from what we may have envisioned but bright with the possibilities of lessons learned.

Coronavirus19 Diary - A Field Trip

I try to reman patient. Chicago's Art Institute, a cultural and civic treasure that has been shut, opened, shut and now open again, offers an opportunity to spend a few hours renewing one's soul. Needing a field trip, a break from our current abnormal routine, I and my ex roommate from my San Francisco days masked up and bused downtown to spend some time in it's art and antiquity filled galleries. 

In the modern wing a roomful of works by Rothko, an artist I enjoy in spite of my better judgement, awaited us. Two were borrowed from private collections. I always relish the chance to see privately owned pieces, usually hid from public eyes on the walls of wealthy collectors. The soft, mottled blocks of color soothed me, transporting me to a place distant from the still strife filled times we are living through. We walked through a room of Warhols and strolled past Hoffmans and Lichtensteins. 

We moved to the gallery of ancient Roman artifacts. Inspecting a heroic sculpture depicting Hercules we discussed whether, in a pre steroid era, there were men that thickly muscled, or if the sculptor had taken the physique of an athlete or hard laborer and exaggerated the proportions to mythic levels. I have also wondered this about the caryatids adorning the Baroque buildings that line the streets of cities like Vienna and Prague. Although if the present day men we sometimes saw in Prague are any indication, they may have been sculpted from real life. 

We roamed through the museums awe inspiring Impressionist collection stopping for a moment in a gallery focusing on the work and times of Toulouse Lautrec. 

We descended the marble grand staircase and exited through the museum's massive glass doors. Bright sun and cool temperatures greeted us as we headed down the front stairs past the two iconic lion sculptures that flank them and walked down Michigan Avenue. A young man in a form fitting Spiderman costume crossed in front of us on his way into Millennium Park and for a moment, despite the masks and weariness of mitigations, I could envision the beginning of an eventual return to normal.