Pandemic Winter

Plants produce seeds that wait patiently for the correct time to germinate and grow.  Generally we call this time of waiting, pausing for the correct conditions, winter.  Seeds can wait patiently for quite a long time and still germinate and grow.

Human beings right now are in this time of pausing.  Waiting.  Some are more patient than others.  Some are in a holding pattern in an environment that is comfortable.  Some are not.

Some are less patient than others and long for the time to open, ripen, grow.

Unfortunately the current situation is not conducive to surviving if we burst forth too soon.   The virus doesn't care about you.  (Much like some politicians, but I digress.)

The virus is only looking for it's own time to grow, replicate, using you as a host.

The internet can be very cruel.  All those posts about how if you don't make a grand work, time was never your problem.  I got news for those people.  Time is a slippery concept and so is the ability to deal with stress.

I just read a long post from a creative person who has been struggling with multiple things all on the top 10 list of life stresses.  Moving, illness, financial insecurity.  And yet?  They carry on, trying to make a life for their family.  There are plans and they are working on moving forward, as best they are able.

Tiny steps of progress are still progress.  Some people will write the great English language novel.  Most will not.  Some people will invent something earth shattering.  Others will work their 3D printers to make tiny bits of plastic to save the ears of health care workers.  And as usual an army of (mostly) women will carry on sewing, knitting, crafting.  I read about a nunnery who turned their sewing room into a way to help by sewing gowns instead of just their own habits.

Right now we are in a time of waiting.  Pausing.  Some of us get up, get dressed and manage to do something, be it baking our own bread or cutting our own bangs.  Some of us - many of us who worked from home anyway - manage to maintain pretty much our 'ordinary' schedule.

For me this time is not greatly different from before.  I have worked at home for four plus decades.  My days aren't greatly different - other than not meeting friends in real time for coffee. 

Closing my business means I don't have to scramble to pay the rent, get myself into a tizzy because my classes have been cancelled or postponed, or that sales of my books pretty much dried up beginning mid-March.

My heart goes out to my friends who I know are in financial straits and no one, not one of us, knows what things will look like once this time of pausing, hunkering down waiting for the pandemic to flow over and around - and hopefully by - us.

Here in BC Dr. Henry is already working on when and how to begin loosening the restrictions.  She has been open about the fact that it won't be all at once and it will be a slow, tentative, process, closely monitored to try to prevent a catastrophic second wave.  She advises caution and for those, like us, to maintain as much as possible, a quiet life.

In the meantime, I keep weaving.  The next warp is ready to be tied on and the liftplan generated.  That's my next 'job'.

Currently reading Rough Music by Robin Blake