Blog post 3

Singing to the Wind blog post 3.pdf

Blog post 3
Flowers and Thorns 

Day 17 Alan’s first cactus flowers started to bloom today. They are so grey and spindly during most of the year, but the colors and petals that spring from them, so translucent in shades of pink, orange, yellow, white, are glorious. This spring we all need signs of life more than ever. 

Four deaths in our state now. These are the numbers I follow most – the others are already so high I can’t grasp them, like spoiled fruit high on a tree. People who succumbed were in their 70s, 80s, 90s, all with preexisting conditions. Why does the seeming fact this virus strikes the older and weaker need to be announced: “They all had preexisting conditions.” Does it give us a strange moment of respite? I’m in my sixties, have had cancer, not exactly a prime specimen. When I hear about an infant dying, this seems most terrible. The last pandemic, of 1918, my mom was in her first year of life, and the young were the main targets. Then I wonder if I have some genetic strength from my mom surviving that terrible flu. 

When I’m mentally strong, usually in the morning and late afternoon, I check in with the news of the world, and balance it with friends’ posts on Facebook, calls and talks. I know whatever frustration or fear I am feeling is nothing compared with refugees without a home, a sick person without a bed or ventilator, a health care worker without a mask. 

There are fundraisers cropping up and we donate as we can: for musicians who have lost gigs, immigrants, for food banks, for Navajo, Hopi and Pueblo people, some of whom are dealing with no running water. 


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