Darkness, Hope

Like everyone, I'm exhausted.  Minnesota has one of the highest covid transmission rates in the country and has held that position for weeks.  I've been afraid to do much of anything outside our home, other than the usual and necessary errands.

It's becoming apparent that this way of living is not sustainable.  I feel depression creeping up.  So F. and I are going out for breakfast tomorrow, early, to escape the crowds.  I hate to take the risk of getting or transmitting covid, mostly because our doctors and nurses are desperate for relief.  But depression can be just as dangerous as covid--it makes me push away those I love most. 

I'm trying to cling to the news that is most hopeful: the omicron virus is less deadly, the Pfizer antiviral pill is 90 percent effective early in the disease.  I need that hope.  For the first time I see why Jesus listed it among the top three: faith, hope, and love. 

As a survivor of childhood abuse, I've noticed a pattern: I feel my worst just before a memory or insight that propels intense growth.  I hope the pandemic is like that. I hope it precedes a world-wide  reckoning, a humbling here in the U.S., where our sense of control and entitlement has been blown to smithereens--then ushers in a new era of intense growth and innovation. 

I hope. 

Vaccine: Sam's First

Max got his first shot at Lloyd’s Pharmacy, in its temporary location.  It’s just a few blocks away from the original site, where the building burnt to the ground.

Vaccine, Finally

F. gets his first shot of the Pfizer vaccine today.

Leaving Winter's Cocoon

There are days I feel the presence and consolation of God’s protection, and days I don’t. The sinister variants are still out there. But it’s unseasonably warm here in Minnesota--that season when everything is tossed up in the air: brilliant and warm one day, a snowy blizzard the next. I feel vulnerable, a little afraid, a little hesitant about leaving my winter’s cocoon. I am not quite sure I can meet the demands of a life more exposed.

Small, Wondrous Things

I’m trying to stay positive, focus on the two little girls I’m teaching to read, getting Max through his two courses. Hoping for a vaccine for F. in the next weeks or months. Still in a sort of stasis but trying to envision a realistic future. On April 15, two weeks past my second dose of vaccine, I’m going to celebrate: get together with my best friend and her partner, get my hair cut! Small, wondrous things.

A Brother Lost to Covid

Tim, Joe’s brother, has just died of covid. This feels like a crushing defeat. I remember Tim from my teens, as young and slim, sandy-haired and blue-eyed. (This may or may not be accurate). Defined by the tantalizing news that he played minor-league baseball—and was later drafted by the Atlanta Braves. A sort of golden boy, fascinating but remote, like a beautiful planet.

I feel an implacable undertow of grief. Death is too close and out of my control.

Vaccine!

The state kept its word.  I got my first dose of vaccine yesterday. Sitting in the vast amphitheater of the Minneapolis Convention Center, I felt a teary upwelling of gratitude, for the scientists and doctors and nurses and truckdrivers who had carried me to this moment. I was one of the lucky ones—selected at random from a pool of some 300,000 seniors--surely there were other in more precarious health? At 63, F. is still waiting.

When I got back home, I was exhausted. Not just from the vaccine, I think, but also from all the weeks and months of battling fear. I secluded myself upstairs, lay down on the floor with a book. My attention kept slipping off the page. Eventually I gave into the undertow of profound fatigue and closed my eyes.

For the first time in almost a year I have a sense of protection, an infusion of efficacy; I’m less terrified of moving about in the world. I can just glimpse a room full of light through a door cracked open.

Ready for Framing

 The drawing of Joe is finished, ready to be matted and framed. It’s not perfect, but parts of it are beautiful. He does come alive in it: his strong forearm, his hands competent despite their mangled fingers, a chihuahua winking on his T-shirt. A thoughtful concentration I never really noticed before. I said I would give the drawing to the rest of the family out east, but I’m not sure I’m ready: I need to keep him here with me a while longer.

 

 

Expanding the Circle of Support

 At the last minute, Max switched from game development courses to two gen-ed requirements: interpersonal communication and health psychology, both online. They’re required for a 2-year degree in sport and exercise science.  Now he’s struggling through them. The college has not been helpful in providing tutors, so I’ve been putting in 2-3 hours a day, growing exhausted and resentful about my lost freedom. But I finally rounded up two college girls to take over four of the seven days a week, at $20 per hour. It’s worth it. The two young women are close to his age, and patient, and Max is happy to interact with someone other than his parents and his typical circle of friends.

Cancelled

Devastated.  My appointment for a first dose of the vaccine has been cancelled, because of the snowstorm in Texas.  Despite the official reassurances, I’m terrified it’ll take weeks to get another appointment.

Portrait Drawing: The Messy Middle

 2/15/21

Can’t get the proportions of the nose right.  The problem is I just don’t like noses, the way they stick out from the face in profile.  I keep wanting to make them smaller than they are. 

2/17/21

I tend to draw too lightly.  Need to go back to darken the shadows.  Make the face, especially, pop into three-dimensions.  

2/19/21

Finally getting close.  Took a photo and posted it to my phone, to compare to later iterations. 

Portrait

Working top left to bottom right, adding shading and detail.  Painstaking.

Jerry's Artarama

 Thank God for Jerry’s Artarama.  Got the paper for the drawing in the mail today.  Drew out the grid and started penciling in the contours of the larger shapes. 

Vaccine!

 I’m stunned.  Got a notice in my email today: Out of something like 300,000 people who registered for a “community vaccine” (immediately crashing the website), I was randomly chosen to receive one Feb. 21.  I feel thrilled, relieved, and guilty: aren’t there people on that list who need it more?  But mostly grateful.

A Nudge from HP

 It appears that, out-of-the-blue, I’ve been summoned to an Experience Corps workshop for reading tutor training. I’d turned them down last fall and had no idea I was still on their list.  I think it was a mistake that they emailed me.  But I’ve been feeling a need to reach out into the world, to think about someone other than myself and my small family. It’s a nudge from my Higher Power, I think.  This time I’m ready.

Inauguration

Thank God the inauguration went as planned.   I can finally breathe.  Maybe the miasmic air of Trump’s narcissism and delusion is lifting.  Maybe the pandemic is a symptom of our country’s moral corruption, and it will finally lift its knee from our necks.

Afraid for My Country

Pro-Trump rioters storm the capitol.  The cool, calm Judy Woodruff is almost in tears as she reports on it.  I’ve never been so afraid for my country, with half the population mired in delusion.

A Minimalist Christmas

 12/25/20 

Our Christmas tree is small, with a few strings of red and white lights, and unique ornaments we’ve collected over the years. I call it “minimalist,” and I love it that way. I could’ve done without one altogether, but now I treasure the twinkling lights when dusk falls in late afternoon. I hope they bring some joy to people walking by.

There were only a few presents under the tree on Christmas Day. It seems no one in the extended family had the energy to buy and send gifts. I certainly didn’t. Max was disappointed by the lack of 20- and 50-dollar-bills tucked into greeting cards. No one’s feeling safe enough to be extravagant. But he was exceedingly grateful for the few things he got: a Patrick Mahomes jersey, a UVA sweatshirt, and $150.00 from me for PC components. 

I got F. a card game, a puzzle depicting 25 different donuts, and National Theater of London subscription for streaming plays. He got me earrings, which I like, and that was plenty—I actually discouraged him from trying to do more. I truly prefer minimal gift-giving, get easily overwhelmed by the demands of buying gifts for people who need nothing.

Time

 12/23/20 

I picked up a tool from a 12-step group I checked out. First you identify the vision and goals you have for your life, in several broad categories: relationships, service, work, creativity, health. Then you look at how you’re actually spending your time. Suddenly I understood: Time is a warm, living substance you can shape in your hands, to serve the values you hold most dear. 

The Man He Is Meant To Be

12/15/20 

I have to give up trying to impose a shape on Max’s life—the shape that makes sense to me. He may not go to college at all. He may just get any old job, and rent a house with his friends, those who are just as aimless. His only passion right now is to build his own PC—some kind of set-up for streaming and pro-level gaming. A thousand-dollars-worth of equipment. This is the hardest thing, to let him make what seem to me colossal mistakes. The heartbreak he will have to endure, the threats to his self-esteem, the extra obstacles presented by ADHD and learning disabilities. I will have to trust in Max’s internal guidance system (intuition, Higher Power, Holy Spirit, whatever) and trust that the world—the craziest, scariest world I’ve seen in my lifetime--will respond kindly enough. I can only be patient with Max and myself as we fight it out–what is his to decide, what is mine? Where I cede ground, he steps up and grows, becoming the man he is meant to be. 

Where I cede ground, he steps up and grows, becoming the man he is meant to be.