PANDEMIC PONDERING - Excerpts from the 2020 Journal
(Continued from page 6)
It is a good thing we do not need to remind ourselves to breath because I would forget.
Since I wrote last I have had four instances where I did not get to have the last word. Of course, I learned that I do not need have the last word. This is a small miracle for someone raised by military standards and always looking to take control of the situation.
I felt a slow rising after hitting a wall. Perhaps it was the searching that led me more often out on to the trails to see and feel and heal. I heard a new bird and I am still investigating the call. I was overjoyed when I heard a glorious whistling the next morning too. I had just gone beyond a copse of trees, down a small hill, and then wrapped back around and was walking parallel to the lake.
Where have I been living I wondered, as I came to realize it was the frogs waking up to the spring. It was at times a crescendo of force sustained for long periods of time. Of course, I was not sure until I got home and looked it up. Not five minutes after I learned that Northern Illinois has more than twenty-five types of frogs, my
seven-year-old friend Mya proceeded to give me an excellent direct presentation on frogs with accompanying sounds. She confirmed that only one species really ribbets. It may be true then that I heard a whistle especially if it was Spring Peepers. If it were an American Toad what I heard would be a "musical trill." I did not see either. Only my ears can make the judgment.
I have felt a bit guilty that my time at home has been so positive. I am not sure, but I have found a new focus. There is something so powerful in acting now without attachment to tomorrow. Somehow the expectations fall away and happiness occurs without strings attached.
I, too, have seen that when you have no plans, plans rise up that are simpler. Not unlike a child who creates a habitat for roly-poly-pill bugs, worms, and slugs. Does she know they are related to armadillos and woodlice? She tends to them and applies her love, but of course they die. She is sad. Then a ritual of song and longing and celebrating takes place as the yard around her is full of the living. I wonder if she is conscious of the move into mourning.
She has always talked about people who have passed and been curious about those sick or dying.
"When did your mom die?"
"There in the painting, I see the dog Gus."
"Is that why you and Grandpa planted a Dogwood bush back there?" she asks.
Of course it is why we planted the bush. To honor memory is important. I point out that her singing and sadness are a form of mourning the loss of important things. I ask her is she is saying a prayer as she buries the slug?
"I wouldn't know how to do that," she responds.
I say, "I think you are doing that now."
The miracle of children's curiosity is astounding to me. What a privilege to witness firsts. Nothing else really matters, does it? Nothing else really makes sense anymore, does it? But children, nurtured and loved, may actually know that empathy is all that is needed. ■
