Daily ablutions are undertaken carefully once one passes 70 years of age. Still necessary, of course, and certainly still required for those with whom one shares a living space. Never more important than now, in these times of excessive restriction. Changing the sheets comes under this category, as well. It's not as easy as it once was, in either case. But work that must be undertaken and effectively completed.

What isn't necessarily expected is a failure of one's assistants in the act of performing the same tasks for one's dishes or one's sheets. We have had a failure of assistance in both of those instances in this time of 'sequestering'. Our washing machine gave out early on -- I think it was in March or April of this astonishing year. Since it lives in the garage, there was no need for a repair person to enter the house, which was somewhat comforting.

My trust is rusted, and it continues to flake and crumble at a more alarming rate every single day. Went out for a short drive to the US post office today. And it really is a very short drive. Just under 3 miles. Traffic was pretty busy, too. At noon on a Wednesday, during a pandemic, nothing looked different. Very few people were actually wearing masks as they were out walking. Same old irritation also evident by drivers who were held back by others actually going the speed limit on a city street. But a new, more alarming, rush of fear as some young driver in an expensive, black Infinity, slashed in and out of traffic like he was playing a video game. There were the old corrosive fumes, the weariness accompanied by frustration; but a new kind of fear. I can only tell you why I think this is. For me, this new fear, this new erosion of trust, comes from a general lack of control over anything in life.

These days I feel more like a groan up than a grown up. You know what I mean. Our times are tough. Very tough politically and environmentally for sure, even before the pandemic hit us. Now in my part of the world we are grappling with heat and wild fires as well. So many burdens to carry, and so little chance to talk it over, face to face, since we have been social distancing for months; especially those of us who are older. No spur of the moment coffee hours, or lunches. No family entertaining. If we have a visitor or two, it's from a distance and always outside. They bring their own food and drink. It's a bizarre way to host our guests. When we do connect, we have to spend a certain amount of time saying how bad things are, how impossible everything seems to be. How powerless we feel. 

Vegetable soup is simmering in the crock pot. It's a summer day, and it's hot outside. But I am in an air conditioned house, where I have been sheltering since March. I do go outside, but not when it's too hot or too windy. I'm lucky. I have a wonderful garden where I can putter, or walk, or sit. Occasionally a few family members come to visit my husband and me there and we keep a safe distance from them. I used to venture out for a walk around the block, but I have stopped doing that. Too many people are out without masks, and with no care for keeping safe. So I stay home. Everyone who can, should stay home to stay safe.

And, perhaps simmer some vegetable soup. Do you have a good recipe?

There is in interesting pheomenon that can happen at night, just before sleep, when you close your eyes. You may be treated to a kind of behind-your-eyes light show, with patterns and colors. I've had this happen to me on and off for many years. But lately I find my brain making actual pictures out of what it 'sees' there. It's like looking at the patterns in marble, where you see a definite outline of something that shifts, suddenly, and then disappears if you move your gaze or turn your head. You might not find it again. Sometimes if I've had a particularly busy day, or used my eyes for more screen time than is healthy, the effect of this light show can be quite detailed. Maybe it's a brain that's aging, sorting through other remembered scenes, and projecting what it finds for my entertainment or attention. The first time I saw actual pictures of people, or vivid cartoon characters, I told myself I had better cut down on the chocolate, or the wine, or the combination thereof.

Sometimes, when I can't get to sleep, I tell myself to count things in my mind's eye. Like the trees in my yard, twenty of them. Then I might try to remember their names: two fern pines, silver maple, juniper, apple, blood orange, fig, Meyer lemon, lemon, other lemon (sorry you two lemons, can't remember your real names), navel orange, grapefruit, two albezia, pomegranate, magnolia, two tulip magnolias, crepe myrtle, bottle brush. And then, if I still can't sleep I could think about the roses. But I'd have to get up to count them, so I could estimate there are about twenty of those too. I could try to see each one in my mind's eye, but at this point, hopefully, I might be drifting off. 

When the stay-at-home requirement was given, I was pretty sure we were covered. We had enough toilet paper to last weeks. Well, and that never would have been my first thought anyway. What is that well-known Maslow's Hierarchy of Needs? Physiological, safety, love and belonging, esteem, and self-actualization, from the bottom up. Physiological means, as I understand it, that you are a functioning person. Then you need safety -- water, food, shelter, warmth. I thought we had all of those pretty well covered. Toilet paper was incidental. Because we had water and soap, that was not any basic or foundational need. Even with Covid-19 water and soap were basic. Nothing was said about toilet paper.

Day 13 

Yesterday was like stepping into a different plane of existence. I don’t know why it didn’t hit me until Day 13, but that’s what happened. I barely had the energy to make the bed, let alone get dressed. It takes me awhile to respond to crisis. My way of coping is to knuckle down and get through it. I keep myself very busy. I cook. I clean. Neither of which interested me yesterday. I read. That wasn’t cutting it either. Writing, my go-to for restoration and my outlet for creative energy, had no appeal whatsoever.

When I was a kid, we used to run away from each other yelling "You've got cooties!" It was a fun game, and also  a cruel taunt, and a whispered slur "Oooo she's got cooties!" Nobody knew exactly what cooties were. I imagined them as some kind of creepy crawly. And it seems that the etymology is that they referred to lice. Then in 1948 a guy named William Schaper created the game. It was launched in 1949 and sold millions. It was still popular with my grandkids when they were little. Remember it? You were given a colorful plastic body shaped kind of like a beehive, and the object was to add arms and legs, head and proboscis, with numbers on the dice corresponding to the body parts. The first one to complete theirs was the winner. And then you really did have a cootie!  

We do it all the time. Of course we do. We travel in time. If we use past and future tense, if we say "I had a pony," or "one day we will get a pony," we are travelling back and forward in time. In our minds. It's useful to have this capability, especially if you can tap into some positive feelings while you are on that journey.  

For me, that's a kind of meditation. When I am feeling stressed or upset, I put myself in a place in my past where I felt safe, where I felt loved, where I felt secure. That tiny little 'ping' of recognition of a feeling generates a dose of positivity that can go a long way toward soothing the present and smoothing the way to the future.