Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

My husband and I were walking this morning when we ran into a neighbor, so we stood and chatted.  Her dog died soon after ours, but she has recently acquired a new dog, a six year old with a lively pettigree, who can jump really high, though he's only twenty pounds.  She then mentioned the Coronavirus, and said she didn't know what to think.  We answered that we didn't either.  It could become terrible, it was confusing, because some patients seemed to have no known contact, and now the first person here has died.  Trump dismissed the death as that of a very old person (actually in his fifties),   Trump is over two decades older.  Since the three of us are very old people, unlike Trump, we feel vulnerable.  Having information so sloppy, ill informed, and coming out of the mouths of people with no expertise is anxiety producing.  This country could use a dose of right speech, cautious speech, and only out of the mouths of trusted persons, but everything these days is upside down, and ignorant, angry and sometimes hateful speech is freely expressed.  We recoil from all information, out of mistrust.  This is a tragedy.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Last night I talked with my friend on the phone about what a rotten day she'd had, and today for me has been not so good either.  We drove over to pick up our grandson to take him to the park or zoo and lunch, but he was not having it.  He has a new baby brother and he was not leaving mommy and daddy and daddy's parents alone in the house without him.  After a period of time we gave up persuading him and settled in to play with him in his home.  That worked for a while, and I read "The Gruffalo" many times while he played with painted eggs and a basket I'd brought for him.  In the basket, then transfer to a ziplok bag, then back again, giggety gig.  Finally the little heir apparent agreed to a walk around the neighborhood to pick flowers.  He had a cloth bag, and we meticulously stopped at every flowering bush or plant, looking for flowers on the ground.  He knows his way around his neighborhood, and showed us a giant cactus with an amazing flower to huge it was bent over double from the weight.  I took a photo.  Then he slowly led us back to his house, and he wanted to stay right there, around his front steps.  No one was going to pull the wool over his eyes!  He rang the doorbell and we came inside to admire his new brother, while he screamed piercingly, until his other grandparents came in from the studio, at which point he ignored us.  We sat beside the baby on the floor, then left after a few moments.  Not a good encounter, but completely psychologically understandable.  I admit our feelings were hurt, but we had a nice lunch out and put it behind us.  This is a drama to which we are only the audience in the back row.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

My husband and I took a walk this morning, trying to get back to where we were before the flu felled us.  It gave me a bit of a headache, but really, it's that the flu is still in my head, heavily, and feels like it's squeezing my brain.  I think we both got weak really fast, due to our ages, and it's going to be a long haul to feel as good as we did before.  This knowledge confronts me with the vulnerability of my age, and how my system hasn't the resilience it once had.  Compounded is all these darling grandsons of an age to pick up and carry lots of viruses.  I want to be involved, but how much can I?  I've not held the new baby, and only see the other two nearby once a week each, which seems to be working, but I also wonder about my husband.  His joy and delight is singing in two choruses, and yet he has a delicate throat that is easily irritated.  He probably should find another hobby, but what would compare to singing for him?  Acceptance of aging is difficult, and we fight it, wanting what we had.  Letting go of that hunger is the wholesome answer, but it isn't easy.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

I went for a walk and a cappuchino with my friend this morning, and it felt great to stretch my legs and chat.  I still have a cough and runny nose, but no fever last night, so I believe I've turned a corner.  I'm going to be careful, but get out once in a while.  Since we're back in drought here, the sun is shining, the bulbs are blossoming, the trees are full of pink petals and it's paradise, though we know it's ominous.  The markets are down, because consumers have better things to focus on than gadgets; namely their health.  The markets don't care about compassion, or human lives, or fear (except their own greedy form).  Money, money, money.  We'll we've got the President for markets, because he doesn't care about anything or anyone else either.  He is tearing down this country like godzilla.  He smashes and the crowds cheer.  But this is a horror movie, and some of us know it.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

We watched one of the many versions I have of Charlotte Bronte's Jane Eyre last night.  The one with Michael Fassbinder and Mia Waishowka.  I love how the landscape is so much the main character in this film, and the sense the viewer gets of the isolation, harshness of the weather and land, and the  desolation of it all.  The two leads are extraordinary, very passionate and the chemistry is incendiary.  I hate this Rodchester more than the others, and yet, I feel for him more as well.  Jamie Bell, as Saint John, is deep and contradictory and vivid.  He has a bit of the bully Jane experienced with her cousin as a child and Lowood School when she's older.  Yet he is not the bully Rodchester is, or reckless and brimming with passion.  And passion is what Jane seeks, to match her own.  She has her own inner darkness, and Rodchester speaks to that side of her, which heretofore has never been allowed out after being sent to Lowood.  They are deeply flawed, deeply complicated beings who understand each other.  The whole book is messy, gothic and anger inducing, and this film catches that tone perhaps better than others.  It may not be a perfect novel, but it is MY favorite novel, even now, many decades after first reading it as a child.  Jane Eyre is determined, and her tenacity is what attracts me.  She respects herself.  Many years ago, in the British Museum, I gazed on the handwritten first page of the novel, in Bronte's own hand, and I felt attached to her with my heart.  I still do.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

My ten month old grandson, just turned 10 mo yesterday, is determined to walk.  His parents sent a video of him pushing his crocodile clacking walker determinedly down the sidewalk, face serious, eyes forward, until a crack in the sidewalk caused his legs to get in plank position.  I'm sure he started all over again, big eyes on the path, going to tackle this body, get it in gear, and make it MOVE.  The intensity of young children is startling, because the scuttlebutt is they are easily distracted and have trouble focusing.  That is true sometimes, but more often I see the little bodies working the skill, working, working.  They are a lesson in try, try and try again until you can do it.  He's already rolled over, sat up, pulled himself up, held on to something and moved, and, the most important:  PUT HIS TOES IN HIS MOUTH.  I'd like to see any of us do that.  He's like a Cirque du Soleil baby.  I'd love to be that flexible again, but it ain't gonna happen.  But I admire it; I truly do.

Wandering Along the Path: Right Speech

Well, another day, another urgent care visit.  This time for my husband, who was up all night with his cough, despite taking a codeine based syrup.  I spent last evening talking to the on-call nurse practicioner, who couldn't figure out whether my fever was indication of pneumonia or not.  He told me to take Tylenol every four hours for twenty four hours, and see if that kept the fever away.  If not, go to urgent care for an Xray, to see if I need antibiotics.  Of course, he didn't realize urgent care has cut their hours, and is no longer open at all on Sundays.  I figure I'll call my doctor and make an appointment for next week.  The truth is, as the guy in front of the line at the pharmacy said to my husband:  What the heck is this cough?  I've never had anything like it!  Which is what my friends who've had it say.  It's a long, drawn out sucker.  I need to lower my expectations considerably.  I already talked to my daughter and admitted I was in no shape to help her next week or even be around her, and I'm not going to be holding my new grandson without a mask.  This the season to be sick, and I'm in the thick of it.