My Covid-19 morning routine consists of waking up, saying "hello lover" to my husband, going to use the ladies' room, then climbing back in bed to peruse Twitter, and harass the President of the United States, the administration, and my elected representatives. After that, I get up, do some yoga, drink some coffee, write, go for a walk, eat some food or have a protein shake when I don't feel like eating (which is often these days). There is a knot in my stomach.
A knot of anxiety, uncertainty, anger, sadness, disbelief, rage, compassion, empathy, and helplessness. Could it be because of stay at home orders, quarantine, a global pandemic, the political corruption that has been fully revealed by investing in corporate welfare and global militarization instead of people, and an economy built upon a house of cards of personal and corporate debt? Could it be the distance separating me from my daughter, my mother, my sister? The uncertainty surrounding a global pandemic is enough to drive a gal crazy! As my dad has recently said, "I have lived through a lot of things and a global pandemic is one I could have lived without." Me too, dad. Me too.
I love to knit but I haven't picked up my knitting sticks for a couple weeks. This is partly due to my circular needles breaking and waiting for new ones to arrive and also having stitches fall off the first sweater I was in the process of knitting. It is halfway done with a beautiful leaf pattern up the side and the stitches that fell off are part of the leaf pattern. Alas, my confidence in my knitting abilities has been hit hard with the fallen stitches.
What I have learned about life is even when it is knotty, all it takes is time, space, and effort to sort itself out. Time is not something our current society values unless it is tied to money because as we all know, time is money. (Blech...sorry, whenever I hear/say that phrase, it makes me throw up in my mouth a little.) The more life I live, the more I realize that time and money are not quite so finite and there are a lot of other confounding variables that influence time and money. Money is silly to me. It is a made-up measure of value to allow men to continue the age-old adage of "my penis is bigger than your penis" contest. It's ridiculous and silly. Buy Bitcoin. (That will be another story, for another day. Sign up for new content notifications to read it first.)
The people are dying and the leadership is laughable helped along by left-over industrialists whose only concern is how much money they can make off this crisis: money made on the backs and graves of migrant labor, American labor, and institutionalized slave labor.
Back to time. Time as we know it is infinite. It is a wheel that has no end, no beginning, but keeps on ticking in the now. It's a weird notion made up to make sense of the world around us. A quantifiable measure to dictate who, what, when, where, why, and sometimes how. In the year 2020, now is too late, it should have been done yesterday (no matter what "it" is). No one has time for inconveniences, unforeseeable circumstances, or natural occurrences.
Time is broken down into incremental chunks to make it easier to plan, organize, and optimize production of children, agricultural and material goods, as well as manipulating numbers to justify performance, profits/losses, and value. These same mechanical, quantifiable measures are applied to human life and we are seeing how well that is playing out in real-time with a rolling death count. (Over 84,000 Americans have died due to the Covid-19 global pandemic. Dead. No voice. No breath. No warmth.)
It is not just biological systems that die, but ideas, relationships, systems, institutions, corporations. The arrival of a novel virus to North America has revealed a knotty mess of opportunism, ignorance, and corruption. What is playing out in the United States during the pandemic is nothing short of a comedic tragedy. Comedic in the United States' complete and utter failure at being prepared for a known occurrence. It wasn't a matter of if, but when and the powers that be decided to roll the dice against the timing of Mother Nature. Time after time I am miffed that the global systems of operation continually ignore the one constant in this world: nature.
Nature has her own timing. She is not rushed, she is not cajoled, she is not controlled, she is not dictated, she is her own time and space. However, men have been trying to control her for eons. Controlling the water, extracting minerals, drilling for oil, chemically altering natural cycles, enhancing production, mechanizing growth, these are all measures and actions of man, designed to create the illusion of control. It is incredibly domineering and repressive. Doesn't man know that Mother Nature can pull the plug at any moment because she has the final say? Well, I am married to a man and at times, he forgets this simple truth. (Love you!)
It's funny to think that a few months ago the current administration was literally stating, in public, on national television that "today, there are 15 cases and pretty soon it will be zero...it will be a miracle. One day it will be gone." Oy vey. Fast forward to today and the response is "here's your band-aid, here's your band-aid, sorry, you don't get a band-aid, here's a band-aid...oh, you are a corporation with person-hood rights? Here's all the taxpayer money we can find and the White House sink, thrown in to boot". It is laughable, not helpful, and definitely not mind-blowing in its vision.
Traveling by air in February, wearing a mask, socially distancing in the airport terminal (as much as possible anyway), I was amazed at the sheople completely unaware of news coming from international outlets. Existing in a space in time where everyone is oblivious can be terrifying at moments. From where I sit in the world, now seems like the perfect time to create space and take a deep breath. The ideologies driving some people's decision making are dangerous, outdated, violent, discriminatory, and again, man-made. Asking people to dive into their deepest, darkest bias' and ingrained beliefs may be asking a lot but what better time?
What does it mean to create space? What does space mean? Some people don't have any idea of space, especially personal space (cue the close talkers in the world). Others, relish space. Space is also the time between one moment and another, exhalation and inhalation, what exists between life and death.
During this "socially distant" time, we should be giving people not in our immediate household at least 6 feet of space. Each of us is responsible for curbing the spread. After getting tired of providing a verbal education on the definition of 6 feet to white middle-aged men, in particular, I have started carrying my horsemanship flag to create my own space.
There are people out there arming themselves with AR-15s and an entire arsenal of ammunition to "protect" themselves and demand for "things to go back to normal". Sorry, but a gun isn't going to save you from a biological agent that doesn't give a f*** about your bullet.
No better opportunity has ever presented itself to use space and time to upheave the status quo and re-create holistic systems that benefit the whole vs. a few. Continually providing false hope of a vaccine or drop in cases (due to social distancing and stay at home measures) will ensure a continuation of non-compliant public behavior, disbelief, surges, shifts in epicenters, and let's not forget the rolling death toll, worldwide.
This is not about you, this is about the world collectively.
It takes space to untie knots and we have a lot of knots to untangle in order to weave something coherent and that, my friends, takes a whole lot of effort.
It takes effort to not bite the head off of your significant other, praying mantis style, while quarantining together. It takes effort to love and as cliche as it may sound, what the world needs now is love. The current administration stands on a pretty shaky foundation of "love" for country.
What the administration loves is money. Nothing more, nothing less. They don't love this country. If they loved this country and the people of this country, there would have been a coordinated federal response complete with adequate and wide-spread testing, stay at home orders, and a consistent message.
At this point, it is pretty clear that this administration lacks leadership, common sense, and self-reflection. All of those things require effort and when things aren't going well, it is time to step outside yourself and observe the effects of your decisions. It's hard to hold out hope for people who believe they are entitled, chosen by God, and have the mentality of mine, mine, mine.
Now is the time to put in the effort to build a better space that is inclusive, sustainable, and regenerative for all. This requires us all to be a little uncomfortable in this space of uncertainty. Until there is a vaccine available at low or no cost to all (again, not a "me" problem, but an "us" problem, as in the WHOLE WORLD), adequate and robust testing, contact tracing, proven immunity, nationwide antibody tests, be prepared to hunker in until 2021, maybe even 2022.
Personal responsibility is required at this time and holy hell, that requires effort. Putting in the effort can absolutely be painful, hurtful, maddening, but also enlightening. Without taking the time, well, I guess we will see what happens in 1-month, 2-months, 3-months, and 6-months.
Those are my thoughts today on knots. We are in a situation that none of us know when or how we will make it out on the otherside.
Back in January when it was clear there was incredible transmission rates, increases in cases, and deaths coming out of China, I looked to my husband and said, "I love you and I'm scared. I hope we make it out the other side. I'm worried about our family members, but at the end of the day, I can only control my own actions and do what I can to protect those around me and myself."
With that, I am taking the time, space, and putting in the effort to sort out my knitting debacle.
Peace and love to all, practice social distancing and be a good example to those around you. Someday we will be able to walk hand in hand with our loved ones through Glacier National Park again.
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