Lockdown Day 9

My questions were my contemplation and their answer was [not] in their beauty.  Confessions, St. Augustine, paraphrased.

We will be given freedom and healing, but not yet. It seemed like there was the hope of having hit a peak, as infectious cases and deaths almost leveled off or dropped and those recovered rose, but that data was short lived. We’re not out of the woods yet and this is to be taken very seriously. The health care workers are making herculean efforts and the system’s infrastructure is stretched to the max. 

We are incredibly fortunate where we live as there are few cases in this area. However, attention must be paid to the catastrophic situation elsewhere. 

Armed with my affidavits, and a legitimate reason to be out, I drove to the house to feed the cats and mow the grass. It’s unseasonably warm and nature is going forth even as we are not. One of the beauties of this situation is that there is absolutely no rush to anything. You can dally as long as you wish in contemplation. I took full advantage of this to mow the grass, letting my mind wander as I mowed over vast areas several times. The peace and solitude out in nature was my reward. The down side is that it is like driving on a bumpy dirt road for two hours, but then when I got back into my car, on the drive home, it felt like a cruising in some Cadillac.  It’s a long and winding road and, even though it’s through the mountains, somehow the image of driving down Highway i through Big Sur came to mind. I can only go far in my mind these days.  

The questions of how long this will last and what the impact will be long term are not to be considered at this time. We’re all in this together.  

Back at the apartment the space-time continuum theory may apply even in a severely limited static space and Betty Friedan’s feminist admonition that housework seems to expand to fill the time available may also be true and useful right now but literature, artwork  and music are much more fulfilling, and in these uncertain times, I’d really rather curl up with a good book or something equally comforting.