If you have lived for at least seven decades, you'll agree with me on this: life, in so many ways, for so many of us, has gotten to be so much easier.
There are the obvious: I spent the first three years of my life (and many summers after) in a home with no electricity or running water and of course, no phone service. I'm sure you'll think those times to be positively ancient, so let's roll forward a little and take it out of rural postwar Poland, which, admittedly, struggled. When I was a young adult, living now in the U.S., travel was hard, no matter how you wanted to move from point A to point B. No air conditioning in cars. Smoking people everywhere -- on buses, trains, planes. Not unusual to have a seatmate puffin away next to you. And suitcases didn't have wheels. You lugged everything you traveled with. No credit cards to pay your bills away from home. Cash or travelers checks only. Dont get me started on the hassle of arriving at foreign city with American Express travelers checks. What a pain. I'm not going to mention the absence of the internet and all that entailed. Your young imagination can probably still conjure up that world. But really, I could write a book about all the life's improvements, from three point seat belts and crumple zones in cars to microwaves heating up your soup in the kitchen, on and on, but let me just pause on one wonder and it is in the word "write."
Sometime in the middle of the night I thought about how many times I corrected sentences/thoughts/ideas in yesterday's Ocean post. The fact is that the written word is, for me, like music. I can feel when it doesn't sound right. I can't always make it passable let alone great, and in music, I can do nothing at all with it, but surely I can tell when a sentence falters. If I start in on a post early, you can be sure I will have gone back to it and corrected it ten times over. When I worked on my book, I rewrote sections every time I went back to that Great Writing Project. Maybe everyone does it, and surely most bilingual people are sensitive to language nuance, or maybe it dates back to my early years in New York when I confidently proclaimed that when I grow up I want to be a journalist. I've paid attention to writing, even as I have lived a life of language confusion, traveling as I did between Warsaw and New York all my younger years.
I lay awake thinking how easy writing is now that we have computers to smooth things over for us -- keep drafts, fix mistakes, do quick edits, and importantly, they allow us to publish our writings so that they can be put out there quickly, while still relevant. As you know, I started blogging 21 years ago. You have to think it's important to me or else why would I devote so many hours of every single day on this project. And it boggles my mind that it is something I could not have done at another time in the past. It is entirely a product of change and innovation. My life, made so different, and for me, so much richer, because times have changed so much. I wonder -- what will my grandkids do that will be totally important to who they are that can't even be imagined yet? I'm excited for them, for the possibilities that we do not realize are there, percolating, waiting for their moment.
Today is dreary and the temps are hovering around freezing and I feel like this Covid slog has been going on for too long here at the farmette.
Still, Ed says once again that he is "better." He sounds the same to me, so maybe it's a bit of wishful thinking on his part, but to prove it, he puts a bit more energy into the day. Not only does he do the morning chicken duty, but he asks -- want to go out for a walk in the park today?
Yes I do.
First, of course, there is breakfast, still alone.
But by noon he is here and we're bundling up for our first walk together since... New Year's Day!
There is a gusty wind, and the landscape has neither the look of winter, nor fall, nor spring -- it's just stuck in the harsh reality of bare trees, frozen earth, against a gray sky. But the prairie is golden...
... and those bare trees do whisper their secrets as I pass among them -- we are there for you, we are there for you...
I'm thrilled to be back in their midst.
Ed of course follows this with a deep sleep on the couch. But maybe he is better? He managed that half hour walk, if not at a breakneck pace, then at least at his steady, forceful gait.
For lunch? I go Polish today! I had a grocery delivery this morning and among the goodies was a jar of herring (in vinegar). For that German seeded bread. With the leftover poppy seed roll I'd gotten over the holidays from Delaney's in New York. So this:
To be honest, I prefer my combination Kind/Cliff granola bars and I will return to them again, just as I will bring back my beloved croissants in the morning. For now though, I'm playing with being extra mindful during my confinement so that I don't go berserk. With a touch of nostalgia for my Polish past thrown in for good measure.
Evening. Still alone. We'll both retest tomorrow and I expect us to both be negative. I mean, I'll be on day 10 of the infection. Ed? Day 13th. Let's move on already, okay? Honestly!
with love...
