Getting out again

Hurray, hurray!

Furniture is being moved back into the lobby of my building.  Maybe we're beginning to see the rainbow at the end of this miserable pandemic year — actually, it's been more than a year, as shown by this photo I took of the lobby on April 2, 2020.  Taped squares have been removed from in front of the elevator showing where to stand to be six feet from others waiting.

Philosophizing

This quote I found on Colleen's Loose Leaf Notes blog today made me stop and think.  I've emphasized the four categories of people, which I'll note could be women as well as men, no matter how Mencken and Keillor labeled them:

"A philosopher is a blind man in a dark room looking for a black cat that isn’t there.  A theologian is the man who finds it.  A cynic is a man who, when he smells flowers, looks around for a coffin.  An author is a man who, in the absence of toilet tissue, is forced to use his own manuscript and regrets that he wrote on such stiff paper." — H.L. Mencken and Garrison Keillor

Visiting with neighbors

The Crown Center recently put our outside tables in grassy areas with two chairs each, so we can visit with each other again, I presume.  I sat down with Rosie just outside the main entrance to our building on a warm day, and we caught up a bit on what we've been doing.  Earlier that day, I visited with Emma, one of the two grad students who lived here before the pandemic.  She came with her mother Jane, who was visiting from Ohio.

Well-being during isolation

Jane S. sent me this list, which I can probably use for my well-being.

• Shower, take my meds, and drink 6-8 glasses of water a day.  Each glass is 8 fluid ounces, so drink 48-64 fluid ounces a day.  Got it, but don't we need six or eight little boxes to check off?
• Clean one thing/space.  I've been sorting through books and papers, tossing some and trying to arrange my bookshelves so they make more sense for me.
• Tend something growing/living.  That would be Clawdia, who doesn't hesitate to tell me when she wants to eat.  I used to have spider plants and other potted plants, but I gave them away because Clawdia could get sick or die from nibbling on some of them.  And she did nibble.  She is also feeling stressed out, picking up on the feelings of humans around her and our strange behavior, like wearing masks just to walk to the trash chute.  Clawdia likes to get out of our apartment by walking to the other end of the hall with me, but lately she stops at our door and peers out fearfully.  Sometimes, she turns around and hurries back into our apartment.
• Be mindfully present to a sound or song.  I hear the sounds of traffic on the highway, and Clawdia alerts me to any noises she hears coming from the hallway outside our apartment door.  I have learned to tune into the sound of sirens, especially ones that cut off suddenly, and I go to my windows to see if an ambulance is arriving at my senior living facility.  Yeah, it happens too regularly.
• Be mindfully present to a sensory feeling.  The five senses are seeing, hearing, smelling, tasting, and touching.  Let's see, I definitely check my sense of smell frequently, knowing that loss of smell is a symptom of the Coronavirus.  Yes, I can smell and taste the tomato, the corn, the mushroom barley soup.
• Be mindfully present to something I see.  I've been noticing the people in my neighborhood, now that I've spent months staying at home and looking out my windows.  People walking dogs, delivery vans, family groups with baby buggies.  I've been surprised how many walk in the street.  Part of that is that they are distancing themselves from slower walkers on the sidewalks.  I can see Walgreen's from my kitchen window, and recently I saw a young man apparently walking home along my street, swinging two big bags that each looked very much like 12-packs of toilet paper!  Aha, that young man is stocking up again.
• Be mindfully present to a spiritual practice.  Meditation is a spiritual practice that I do.  Clear your mind, and sit quietly for a few minutes listening to this music from YouTube.  This one also has calm, relaxing photos of pleasant places.  Enjoy it, and relax as you are being mindful.
• Reach out to a human outside my home.  I text, talk on the phone, and send private Facebook messages every single day.  I don't always have to do the reaching, either, as others also want contact.
• Do one thing to get my heart rate up.  I need to work on this more regularly.  It's easier to exercise when I have to meet with a group on a regular basis, than it is to make myself exercise alone in my apartment.
• Do one thing I'll be glad I did later.  Making myself go to sleep at a reasonable hour is something I'll be glad I did, but it's hard to stop reading when there's nowhere I need to go tomorrow and nowhere I need to be.
• Do one thing just because I want to.  I love to write, so writing this blog post is what I enjoy doing.
• Get in at least one good laugh.  I like puns, so posting puns on my blog and on Facebook keeps me laughing.  Let's end with this one from The Book on the Bookshelf by Henry Petroski, 1997, page 222:

"The more things change, the more they remain insane."

A knitted sweater and a white pantsuit

A few days ago, I blogged about how some of us dealt with our election anxiety issues.  My friend Jane S. let me know that she's been knitting.  When I asked to see photos of what she's made, she sent this one of a sweater she knitted for a friend's baby.  It's beautiful!  The baby is cute, but it's the sweater that amazes me.  I'm very impressed.

So how have you spent your time during the pandemic?

Speaking of clothing, how about that white pantsuit Kamala Harris was wearing on the night she and Joe Biden addressed the nation to accept their nomination?  Did you notice what she was wearing?  Read CNN's article about why that white suit speaks volumes.  Even the bow on her blouse has meaning.

"The color white has long been associated with the women's suffrage movement . . . [Kamala] was standing on the shoulders of Shirley Chisholm, who wore white as she became the first African American woman elected to Congress in 1968.  She was standing on the shoulders of Geraldine Ferraro, who wore all-white to accept the role of Walter Mondale's running mate in his 1984 presidential campaign.  She was standing on the shoulders of Hillary Clinton, who wore a signature white pantsuit to accept the Democratic presidential nomination in 2016."

Maybe too much is made of women's clothing, but this was symbolic in a good way on a night that made history.  She is "the first female, first Black, and first South Asian vice president-elect" in our history.  Click that link for another CNN article from a couple of days ago.  She's making history!

Shirley Chisholm, Geraldine Ferraro, and Hillary Clinton are in that quote.  What about Rosa Parks and Ruby Bridges?  Rosa refusing to give up her seat on the bus.  Little Ruby walking to school as the first Black child.  Their pictures are on Facebook now, with these words:

"Rosa sat, so Ruby could walk, so Kamala could run."