“We live in exceptional times.” This is a quotation from the
book I am reading right now called All
the Light We Cannot See by Anthony Doerr (ISBN 978150117321900). It won the Pulitzer Prize in 2015 for Fiction as well as the Andrew Carnegie
Medal for Excellence in Fiction the same year. It is a story set in WWII told by
two main characters, a blind French girl and her father entrusted with a
priceless diamond from the Museum of Natural History in Paris and a young
German boy who discovers the atrocities of his people through his training and
later on the front and is sickened by it. The prose is exceptional and I am at
the point now where the two stories have come together. There is still a ways to go in the book and I am anxious to see where it goes next. As war stories go, this
one stands out and is well worth reading.
It was earlier in the week I came to the page with the words
“we live in exceptional times” and my immediate thought was that those five
words describe our current global health crisis better than any other words. As
individuals, as a community, and as a society we have changed forever already,
and I can only hope some of the good we have learned from this crisis will
carry over to when times settle down again and the COVID-19 virus is contained.
I can also only hope the ugly side of humanity we have seen from some will be
crushed.
Each one of us deals with the crisis in our own way. I
empathize with the ones who are stricken with the virus. I empathize with the
ones who are panicking and so worried they hide in their homes. And I empathize
with everyone trying to juggle child care with working from home or worse,
layoffs. As a senior I’m in the high risk category, but that doesn’t deter me
from going outside for a walk in the neighbourhood.
In many ways how I deal with this crisis is the same way I
dealt with my breast cancer. When I was diagnosed I was headed towards
uncharted waters and instead of worrying myself to death I chose to live one
day at a time. I didn’t think about what was going to or could happen next
week, next month; no, it was what’s happening today, and at the most tomorrow.
The word “worry” ceased to exist in my vocabulary and I entered full fight mode
from the start. I was very good at following directions from health
professionals then, and I do the same now. I feel the same calmness now as I
did then. I knew it was a serious situation then and I know it is a serious
situation now. But instead of letting it control me, I control my reaction to
it. I keep myself informed what happens each day so I can take appropriate
action in my little corner of the world. There’s a Danish saying that it takes many
small creeks to make a big river… if we all do our bit, the world will be a
safer place.
Jan and I have chosen to self-isolate for a while… we don’t
even get together with our family next door, for their protection as well as
for ours. We meet outside with a couple of meters between us as we talk. I am
mindful of how I wash my hands and do it more often. We haven’t yet but will
take advantage of early opening hours for seniors at the grocery stores and
pharmacies, to limit our exposure to others despite social distancing. Next
week our twice-weekly exercise class will come to us in our home from our
instructor via Facebook Live. We don’t take walks to the woods with our friends
anymore… instead we go separately and compare notes via texts on the birds we
see. Getting outside and soaking up the sunshine is more important now than
ever before, and it is important to remember it is safe to do so, just not in a
crowd. A drive in the country gets rid of cabin fever, just like it always did.
And
that’s exactly what we did the other day. I brought my camera and took some
shots. Let’s not forget in all the turmoil that the world is a beautiful place.
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| I can never get enough of this view of the mountains |
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| Gophers are out! And all the colours of the rainbow glittered on the snow in the sun |
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| The shadows make all the difference in this picture |
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| A pair of great horned owls... mama tucked down on her eggs in the nest and papa keeping watch |
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Another view I never tire of
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