Thoughts & in this time of crisis.
An Ethical Crisis As Well As a Health Crisis
We’re in an ethical crisis as much as a health crisis. The pandemic is a massive health crisis emerging from an ongoing climate/environmental crisis, leading to a world economic crisis, and resulting in a global humanitarian crisis. The pandemic highlights the ethical conflicts that have led to all of these crises. We, as individuals and…
On Grief and Facebook
I resumed looking at Facebook a few months back after a year’s absence. I wanted to post links to my blog and had no intention of doing anything more. After only a week of pandemic self-isolation, I found myself longing for connection and some good laughs and links to articles the PBS Newshour doesn’t cover.…
Worst-Case Scenario: Reflections on Survival
I have always had an aversion to the once-popular game, Worst Case Scenario because it “challenges players to use their survival instincts and skills to outlast their opponents” and to video games that pit players against each other in a battle to survive all sorts of threatening situations. I dislike games like this partly because…
On Suffering and the Fear of Death
The pandemic has spun my ongoing existential crisis into a force 5 hurricane. I’m practicing mindfulness to cope. The practice offers me many moments of calm in the storm, but I possess an overly busy brain, and I’ve continued grappling with big issues of human experience—suffering, death, love, and meaning—and I spin out into the…
Pandemic Journal #6 On Mindfulness
In this third week of isolation, I find myself swirling in a soupy confusion of grief and gratitude. I’m thinking a lot about death. And about love. And about life’s meaning. Each small task I used to do with little thought now seems weighted with import. I gather the mail from my crooked little box…
Pandemic Journal #5 On Journaling
I have kept a handwritten daily journal for the past 8 years. Most mornings, I rise from disturbed nights with relief, make coffee, and sit at my desk to tame with syntax some frayed and tangled thread that dangles from the chaos of my consciousness. I’m writing in a crisp new black book now; I…
Pandemic Journal #4 Connection and Distance
I went to Trader Joe’s on Sunday, the first time I’d seen real live humans in-person outside my house for ten days. I’d had to drive to Massachusetts to retrieve my child’s belongings so they would have what they needed to start school on Thursday, online, for the remainder of their senior year of high…
Pandemic Journal #3 On Migraine and Crisis
While watching a television show with my daughter last night, I noticed I was rubbing my eyes a lot. A gray spot surrounded by black was distracting me. The spot began to expand, with bright colored and black moving shapes and lines around it, and yellow lights flashing throughout the colors. It grew to encompass…
Pandemic Journal #2 F2F: Evolving Language
Yesterday, Charlie was explaining to me how his school will approach the coming weeks/months. He’ll be teaching his courses online, asynchronously, and wrote, “We have office hours during class time.” Because so many people are still going into work, I jumped to thinking he would be expected to show up at the school to meet…
Pandemic Journal #1 A Pandemic Sonnet
I’ve been reading (and posting) a lot of poetry which I find to be salve for my suffering soul. I saw a friend’s recent Facebook post (McSweeney’s recent piece, “Famous Lines of Poetry Revised for the Age of Coronavirus” and was reminded of my long ignored pleasure in tweaking up others’ work to make something…
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Red Hawk Arts 