Written 22 April, 2020
Shelley in New York, now the epicentre of death, writes:
Today we took a great hour long walk in Central Park. The daffodils are coming up, yellow petals around a bright orange horn. The birds—blue jays, red breasted robins, and even a lone cardinal are plumper and calmer than I have ever seen them. There was a lone female duck sleeping outside a pathetically small puddle, very fire from the large reservoir and the ponds in the park. I wonder why she there and looking so unconcerned?
My mind feels alert and Alejandro is in a good mood, therefore I am happy. In these times, I have relearned how little outside stimulation I need to feel joy and purpose. In the hustle and bustle of life in New York City these last 20 years I had forgotten that about myself.
Alejandro and I have ratcheted down our news consumption and upped our playfulness and curiosity, our creative pleasures, our kindness to ourselves and others, and love. Always love. Sometimes now when I awake at 5 in the morning, I imagine myself a gigantic whale rising up and spinning around and around in the ocean, flippers open wide, and singing at the top of my lungs.
Love,
Shelley
I’m realising here that I go to bed happy on the days I learn a useful skill. So today, for the first time,with a cordless drill with a spade bit, I drilled holes in the bottom of a big plastic box which I found under the house- that treasure trove. I’m planning an extra veggie garden, and I’m learning to love tools! (The other day I was trying to lift some heavy compost, and GG, gardening fork in hand, explained the principle of leverage. I was so excited.)
My plan: I’ll fill it with good soil- not the soil here, because no matter how I pick through it, it hides feral seeds. Dy texted to say he’ll be back on Friday – I ran down to the cabin to tell GG, we were so relieved!- and did we want any shopping? So I, learning to say yes to favours, another first for my life, asked for 2 bags of potting mix. (I wonder how they sieve out feral seeds?)
Then I’ll take the new soil inside the newly holed plastic box complete with its potting mix soil out across the mud to the spare, floating pontoon. Because it’s out of range of the beetling cliff behind us, sunshine pours on it through the morning and two hours more in the afternoon.
Then I’ll replant the poor little lettuce seedlings, currently crammed in the veggie garden and lolling lethargically in the shade.
Or should I replant them in the box before they go on their river journey? Hmmm….
Meanwhile: ten minutes in the day of two courting herons: is it to be a how-do-you-do or a life-long love?
2
Then at last our little video uploads to You Tube after 48 hours: I’m pleased because I passionately want everyone to remember their creativity. You’ll find a great happiness when you do. It’s simply a matter of thinking the way you did naturally when you were four or five, before school insisted you think analytically as well as creatively at the same time- and by doing this, trying to use two different and contradictory pathways. If you’re interested in this, please tell me in a comment, and I’ll know you want more. This aren’t my beliefs, or my theories: I’m a nerd who in the wee hours, follows the latest neuroscience research into creativity.
(A responce to Shelley)
‘…Anyone who votes for Trump is dead to me; my husband is an immigrant’
A declaration from E on her Instagram yesterday following Trump’s latest pigheaded statement; (“but which one?” I hear you ask )… Trump could be putting a ban on all green card visas.
The collective blob’s heart sinks a little deeper.
It’s strange thinking of J in such a blunt way, ‘an immigrant’. Well, I guess he is; J is an American immigrant. J has built an entire life over there for himself. He’s done away with Australia; he’s done away with his old friends, his old foes, past partners and past hang ups. Unfortunately, or fortunately, Josh is an American… or an American in the making.
Since COVID-19 came into our lives and countries started shutting their boarders, I was inundated with questions as to WHEN J was coming home.
After a few more weeks the question changed:
“WHY isn’t J coming home?”
As the mortality rate grew and grew in the U.S. it became harder for me to defend his decision. I quietly began to ask myself, ‘why IS J still over there?’
It wasn’t until E’s post on Instagram yesterday that I answered the question for myself.
“…my husband is an immigrant”.
Her husband…. Her husband! The person she has chosen to share her entire life with. The person she can’t live without. The person she’ll brave fires, floods, viruses, World Wars TRUMP, with…. my brother, J.
OF COURSE!
J isn’t coming home for love. J is in the epicenter of a deadly pandemic for love! The thought of dying, lungs filled with fluid, body shoved into a mobile morgue was far more appealing than being safe and sound in Australia WITHOUT his wife.
It’s a hauntingly romantic thought; it’s a terribly terrifying thought. It’s a thought that numbs my anxieties: J is where he needs to be. Oppressed by the virus, oppressed by the Trump administration, and all in the name of love.
Shut down the bars, the cafés, Broadway, JFK, Rockefeller Centre, MOMA, Hollywood …. shut down EVERYTHING that tempted J over to the U.S. in the first place, because J will be just fine as long as he has E.