Welcome to my blog. This is a new journey for me. I hope that you find it interesting and engaging and decide to join me along the way. I have some ideas, but no grand plan for my blog. I anticipate short essays on topics ranging from books and music to social, political, and economic topics; stimulated by, I suppose, anything that stimulates me to write: t-shirts, bumper stickers, a song or TV show, the news, a conversation with a friend. While I don’t have a set schedule for posting, I will try to do so frequently enough that neither you nor I loses interest.
The Year That Wasn’t
I admit I became a couch potato. When the stay-at-home orders were issued in March 2020, I didn’t immediately assume a role as Mr. Potato Head. Initially, I was awestruck by the sense of isolation. This wasn’t like some monster snowstorm that prevented people from going out. It felt more like a social apocalypse.
The stay-at-home orders should have fed right into my hobbies of reading and writing. Nope. I couldn’t finish a book; I couldn’t even get half through one. Writing? It was as if my pen was out of ink. Day-in-and-day-out, I sat. I watched the news to see full hospitals and empty streets. I played Solitaire. I streamed Netflix and Prime. And I ate. (I used to joke that the 19 in Covid-19 stood for the number of pounds you gained staying at home. I’ve decided since that 19 is the average and I’m above average. I wonder how long the stay-away-from-home orders will need to last for me to undo my “food baby”!)
My wife, Nancy, began spraying things that entered our house (mail, groceries) with alcohol. My friend Steve said they left their mail in the garage for three days. Several neighbors ordered meals from the subdivision’s clubhouse where the food runner, wearing mask and gloves, placed the food in the back of your car. I generally have difficulty remembering passwords, but since my phone doesn’t recognize me with a mask, I’ve got that passcode down!
As disconcerting as the past year has been, and as bonding as it is to share reactions and changes, we cannot forget the number of people who have died – more than a half-million. While that number certainly grabs my attention, it’s also somewhat abstract. As the cases and deaths were rising, my wife began comparing the numbers by states. Still abstract. But when I began the succession of somebody I kind of recognize in the community to I know a guy’s whose cousin to a friend of a friend to friends and colleagues I’ve known for years, the abstractions faded quickly; it became personal. My heart goes out to those who lost loved ones, who took them to the hospital never to see them again.
We continue to lose people to Covid, but the overall numbers are declining as the vaccines offer hope. It’s spring. Grass is turning green, flowers are blooming, trees are leafing out; the dark, dreary days of the past year are giving way to a sense of hope, of rebirth.
Many people have been asking – sometimes rhetorically, sometimes plaintively – when will we return to normal. I and others contend that we never will return to our previous normal, but that we will have to discover our ways to a new normal. I recently ran across a reference to a new podcast – “The New Abnormal.” I’ve never listened to the podcast, but I like its title. We’re dealing with a confluence of pandemic, economic crisis, domestic political dysfunction that already has led to violence and death, and international adversaries seeking to capitalize on our current quagmire. Taken collectively, “the new abnormal” seems a fitting label for our times.
We can begin working our way through it, though. Go outside. Enjoy the sunshine. Admire the beauty in nature from the flowers to the cheerful melodies of birds singing and breezes whispering through the trees. Push “reset” on your mind, your emotions, your soul. Assess what you missed most this past year and take the path forward to renew your life, emphasizing those aspects that you have determined by their absence to be most important to you.
If you feel like you were rolled over this year, you might enjoy a little pick-me-up with this cover of “Steamroller Blues.” It’s a bluesy acoustic version with Casey Abrams on bass and vocals and Haley Reinhart accompanying on . . . well . . . you’ll just need to listen. Enjoy.
Note: Both of these t-shirts are from Signals.com, which offers a cornucopia of shirts with different themes, in addition to other merchandise.
Mike's Fountain Pen 