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Solo
Scarcity vs. Plenitude A while ago my mother told me that I would never make it through a real crisis, because I didn’t store enough food. She may have been thinking of her own experience as a young girl on a family farm during the depression. She did have food, but lacked other necessities. I am urban. She would be happy to know that I have extended my days of food stocking to 12 days, but I have not been able to reach 2 weeks. Having enough is what I believe I have always enjoyed and this is the first time I have doubted that belief. The cupboard is almost…
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Hello in There: a Reflection
Here’s where we were a year ago: As I write this the “USNS Comfort” is making its way up the Hudson River to dock in New York City. This is a time when our swords have been beaten into pruning hooks– instruments for trimming back, nurturing and growth. For this one moment, we are fighting a war not against others, but against ourselves. This is a time when we get together by being alone, when we sing in isolation with hundreds of people — virtually. There is some happiness in here. We continue to sing, because we are in a sort of captivity and it is all we can do.…
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Isolation and Contact
Slowly we are finding new ways to communicate while remaining isolated in our homes. I am reminded of a movie I saw many years ago — it might have been a Truffaut — in which a small girl is left alone in her family’s apartment. She’s pretty upset by this, but never in danger. She gets a megaphone and begins to tell her neighbors what her family has done to her. They rig ropes and soon fruit, fresh bread and desserts arrive at her window. In a way she has the last laugh as now everyone is suspecting that her parents have been negligent. We, too, are feeling sorry for…
