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How is the coronavirus pandemic affecting your life right now? Tell us about your experiences, feelings, and thoughts.
For the past couple of years I have collected autumn leaves that have freshly fallen. I usually tuck them in the pages of a book and they become pleasant little surprises when I open a leafed book. This year I was going to do that and photograph them using a great ultra macro lens I bought for my Nikon camera. I picked up vibrant or interesting leaves, set them on my dining room table that has become my mini photo studio, and...nothing. Within a few hours the leaves dry and shrivel. Plus, that great lens is less great because I have cataracts and I can't see well enough to closely focus on whatever I put in front of that lens. But, I can use a different lens and take pictures of leaves that are still attached to a tree. This one was taken in October when I went on a photo trip to the Leelenau Peninsula. The leaves are importantly predictable. They mark the beginnings of withering daylight and hard cold that eventually slips gently into longer days and green. I hate the cold and the dark. I sang 4 concerts this past weekend, fully masked. There were 80 of us onstage, shoulder to shoulder. We were all masked and vaccinated, but Omicron now stands in the wings. Who knows when it will enter and how it will change us. The leaves loosened by fading sunlight and cold temperatures are predictable and at least dazzle us with color. Covid isn't predictable and it doesn't dazzle.
December 8, 2021
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Some people are feeling intense feelings right now as a result of the pandemic. Is anything making you especially sad, angry, or hopeful right now? If so, what's on your mind?
My mother passed away in 2019, following a brief and brutal battle with pancreatic cancer. She is never NOT on my mind, but she especially has been on my mind this past week, and I have notice myself feeling sadder and missing her more than usual. I think it is because in my state, people who are 75+ are recently eligible to get the COVID-19 vaccine, and if my mother were still alive, she would have just turned 75 a few weeks ago. I am still in touch with her closest friend, and I recently helped her navigate the online system to set up a vaccine appointment for next week. This is something that I absolutely, positively, without a doubt in my mind would have done for my mother too. I would have driven my mother entirely across the state if it meant that she could get a vaccine sooner. In some ways, I am glad that my mother was spared living through the COVID-19 pandemic. As weird as it sounds, I am grateful that if she had to get sick and die from pancreatic cancer, that it happened in the spring of 2019 instead of the spring of 2020 (even if it would have meant having more time with her). But, I miss her so much -- and I miss the triumph of helping her get her COVID-19 vaccine. How weird is that?
February 11, 2021