My Crazy Circles

 Today, as I did my crazy circles, I went over the past year while walking round and round and round.

Just after lockdown began last year, in March, I began my walks around my neighbourhood.  My really lovely semi urban hood. As I learned the different paths and windy streets of the hilly area, I marveled at the unimpeded views of the Bay and San Francisco, the Golden Gate Bridge, and Marin Headlands. I enjoy the changing of the seasons displayed in lovely gardens  and tree lined streets.I  feel blessed indeed to have this at my feet, so to speak.  In my wanderings  last year I also discovered a track nearby and have blogged about it.  I still go there, especially when there is inclement weather.  Somehow I find the walking round and round and round very soothing.  I don't have headphones, I don't listen to podcasts, books, or music. Round and round I go looking at the asphalt move under my feet.  The grassy area is well maintained and lovely trees surround the field. I have met masked walkers and dogwalkers and ball players and skateboard folks and workout fanatics and new parents pushing strollers and we greet each other from correct social distances.  Nice to see humans still out there. There was a time last year when even the field was closed to us.  Then when it reopened we couldn't go at all because of the smoke from the fires. That lasted longer than the total lockdown.

Today I went because it is much cooler than it has been and tomorrow I have cataract surgery, and, as I said, the circles calm me. 

Now here's the thing, cataract surgery is not uncommon, probably one of the most common surgeries for the aging population, along with hip and knee replacements.  However, I have glaucoma and have had several eye surgeries - trabulectomies they are called.  Apparently this makes the cataract surgery somewhat more complicated. So round and round and round I go.  I trust my surgeon, I trust my crazy circles.  And, hopefully, I will see my beautiful surroundings more clearly. 

Random thoughts, unrelated to pandemics

 

What have these two pictures to do with my thoughts.  I will tell you.

I grew up in Johannesburg - no mountains, no rivers.  The minedumps are what constitute my memories. Large flat topped gold/sandy dust covered enormous dumps.  Flying in years later I saw them  covered in sparse patches of green grass.  

Years later I lived on Kibbutz Ein Dor situated in the Jezreel Valley - the lower Galilee. Mt. Tabor is in the above photos.  Wherever I went on the kibbutz, from my cottage to the fields, to the dining room, to the childrens' houses - Mt. Tabor was always smiling on us, always there - a Mona Lisa.  The Arab Village of Daburiyah  nestles around her feet.  A road winds up to a monastery and the Church of the Transfiguration.  It is here that Devorah the prophetess promised victory over Sisera. It is near Nazareth, and quite close to Tiberias. (Everything in Israel is quite close.) Sitting in the gardens of a kibbutz house one looks out at the glorious Jezreel Valley, a patchwork of fields, dotted with settlements. Gentle rolling hills in the spring covered in green and lupine, red poppies, an abundance of flowers, pink and white almond blossoms. Followed by  the comes the season of platinum and gold.  Fields of wheat and sorghum.  Then the harvest and the brown earth.  And always, there is Mt. Tabor.

And the above, the view from my back door.  Mt. Tamalpais.  Always there, sometimes a sharp silhouette, sometimes enshrouded,  always breathtaking sunsets.  There, ever present, blessing us with her presence. The Sleeping Lady, sacred and holy land to many Native American Tribes. A Mountain of legends and beauty.  She has sustained me throughout this strange time.l

As I walked on my crazy circles today, my settled on these two most precious and special mountains that have graced my life. And for them, I give thanks

Exactly One Year

 Last year - 2020, March 10 fell on a Tuesday.  I am not some kind of savant who remembers the days and dates, but this I do remember.  I was in my Art workshop that Tuesday and I distinctly recall telling the members that I had a ticket for Hamilton that evening.  By this time we all knew of this corona virus and we were unclear as to what to believe, and what is the correct protocol for using BART, going to the theater etc.  After much deliberation I decided to go. I took BART into the city - the theater was packed with an enthusiastic audience.  I thoroughly enjoyed the evening, and was so pleased I went.  The very next day public gatherings were forbidden.  I did blog about this a year ago.

Now I am 2 days before my second shot.  Then I have 2 weeks to remain protected, then apparently it will be safe to be inside with people who have been vaccinated. We can even remove our masks.  As I wrote in previous entries, I am not singing woo hoo and ditching my mask and hand sanitizers, nor my caution that has been drilled into me for a year.  I am also not hopping on a plane or planning wild vacations.

I know this pandemic is not over, and oddly, I am by now quite used to staying at home. I attend zoom groups and classes, and am quite relieved not to have to drive anywhere, look for parking etc. 

I suppose it will be like first putting my foot in to test the water.  First one toe, then another.  Maybe the whole foot, followed by the other.  Wading out, not yet fully submerged.  Then perhaps, with caution, eventually, one deep breath and under the water I go.

Let's see.

Almost a Year

 Firstly, many thanks to those who have commented.  I have not yet discovered how to reply to comments - it took me years to tell people how to reply.  The other thing I have not yet discovered is how to alert followers that there is a new entry.

Johana, as always, thanks so much for your insightful comments, and what you said about receiving the vaccine. And to Hopeful, I am aware of the experiments done on black people.  Years ago I worked for Contra Costa County in home health.  We would get new referrals to patients in our weekly meetings. I remember an 80 year old man being referred, and one of his diagnoses was syphilis.  Immediately a nurse who was present asked where he was born and she told us of the Tuskegee experiment. (In fact, he was from Tuskegee).  I remember how shocked and saddened I was to hear about this. Also, Johana writes about Henrietta Lacks, and the ongoing importance of her cell line.  

This is the dark side of medical experimentation.  And yes, learning about the covid vaccines and their affects and efficacies will be ongoing for a very long time.

After my previous blog about not experiencing any side effects other than a desire for Diet Coke, a strange thing happened.  Eight days after the vaccine while on a walk I felt my arm itching at the site of the vaccine.  It was also somewhat painful.  I paid no attention, thinking it must be a mosquito bite.  The pain and itching continued. While toweling myself dry a day later I saw that my arm was swollen and very red. It looked like a dark red rash in the swollen area. It was also hot to touch.  I was really surprised, because I realised it must be from the vaccine, and it was by now 10 days later!  An internet search revealed a surprise - I was not the first to develop "Covid Arm" 10 days after the first shot.  For a few days I was quite lethargic and experienced some unpleasant gastric disturbances.  Go figure ......

I am fine again, and receive my second shot on March 13.  On the advice of answers to FAQ I will get the shot in my right arm this time. 

The Vaccine

 Today I joined the burgeoning multitude.  I had my first shot of the Moderna vaccine.

I stood in the 1.20 p.m. line.   This, I thought to myself, must be what it is like at Lourdes. The very old, the misshapen, the bent, the lame, those on wheelchairs,  those with canes, those pushing walkers.  Black people, brown people, yellow people, white people, all with a shared purpose - hopefully to evade the clutches of the virus that has changed our lives.

I feel there appear to be two streams of thought.   Those who place absolute faith in science and statistics, and the others -  the anti-vaxers. 

As I have written in previous entries, it is really difficult, if not impossible,  for us to grasp that our lives, or rather, our lives as we knew them, have irrevocably changed. It is almost a year now and what was really strange is now a way of life. We wear masks, We do not go to gyms, to theaters, to cinemas, to restaurants, to shops, we hardly socialise.  Zoom has found its way into our lives.  We learn languages, do yoga, paint, draw, analyze our psyches, learn to fix cars, whatever it is, on zoom. The world of science fiction is here.

I feel that I hover between these two opposing streams.   I don't feel science is invincible.   I don't feel we have all the answers and the genius to do and solve everything.   This virus is new, and it is doing what it must do, it is mutating.  We are learning about it every day as it continues to evolve.  Although I don't think the vaccine will change our lives, of course I will have it,  So today I drove to Contra Costa College. This is an area I worked in for years, but haven't been this way in quite a while.  The trees clad in their pink blossoms line El Portal Avenue, making the drive quite pleasant.

I had the vaccine, and have an appointment for the second shot.  So far I feel fine - I don't even have a sore arm, although I realise this can still happen,  But do I feel that my life will change?  No, not at all.  Has the virus been vanquished - no.  It is mutating, as viruses do, it is here among us, and we have to learn to live with it. Vaccine or not, we have to be careful that  we will not get infected, and that we don't pass it on to someone else.

That is our life now, along with masks, social distancing,  and zoom. 

Happiness is...........

 Happiness is finding my missing valet blade.  At last I can again scrape dry paint off my easel. 

I have no idea why I still have a valet blade, or where it came from.  Does anyone recognise them?  I remember my mother used them in South Africa to sharpen pencils.  One side is blunt.  I don't even know whether it is still possible to buy or find them.

I found one still in its packet a couple of years ago and have used it to scrape paint off my easel, as I stated before.  But just about a month ago I didn't see it in the box of brushes.  I searched high and low, to no avail.  I scraped paint off with makeshift items, a steel emery board, a blunt knife.  Nothing as good as my trusted valet blade.  This morning I sat down to my coffee and began clearing my table  for tomorrow's art class.  I have a small cart of art supplies which I pushed aside to make room for more tins and what have you's  when, to my unbridled joy, I saw the valet blade on the mesh surface of the table.  Such happiness!

It doesn't take much to bring me joy in these strange new times.  I am wondering what Mari Kondo would say to that!  I experience joy finding a missing sock in my basket of masks.  I am unreasonably happy to discover a pair pliers that I had misplaced.

I suppose it doesn't matter what anyone else thinks of this, joy is joy after all.

A Slurry of Unfortunate Mishaps

This latest string of mishaps began last Saturday.  Hopefully now that this week is over, the string has been cut.  I am writing about personal mishaps, NOT what is going on in the larger world around us, because unfortunate mishaps would be a gross understatement.

Last Saturday a friend and I went for a hike.  We walked for two hours in an Oakgrove Forest not far from where I live.  

At the end of the hike we bought beverages from the neighborhood cafe.    Paper cups in hand we proceeded to walk up Stockton.  She was ahead of me.   I saw her foot catch on a section of pavement that jutted upwards, pushed by a tree root.  In slow motion I saw her stumble then fall, arms outstretched, head to the side as she landed face first, with a small cry, on to the unforgiving pavement.  Her sunglasses clattered to the ground as did the cup of tea she was holding.  It fell not too far from her and drop by drop the tea spilled out.  

In 2019 my sister, brother-in-law and a guide hiked around a glacial lake in Torres de Pines in Chili.  The winds were fierce and gusted from every direction. A sudden fierce gust sent my sister toppling face forward onto sharp rocks.

To see my friend fall face down was a deja-vu.  Fortunately in both cases, no limbs were broken, no concussion.  Just stunned participants with cuts on their noses and blood dripping down.  Grazes, bruises, etc.

The night after this I sat on my couch at 6 to watch the news, when - total blackness.  A power outage - the second in a couple of weeks. NOT a dreadful thing - just an inconvenience without of course any idea of how long it would continue.  Power returned after an hour.  

The very next morning when I went to make my cup of coffee I saw droppings -  the same place they had been before when I insisted to myself that it was cumin seeds.  This time I could not deny what I saw, and this is a sight that really sets me on edge - of what - a cliff that is high.  I called a friend who said she had bought an electric rodent zapper. I wanted to buy one.  She generously told me I could borrow hers.  I went to her house and brought the zapper back and set it.  Well, strange to say, but since then, no droppings, no you-know-whats.  Who knows what is going on - ours is not to reason why. The trap is set just in case.

The next day I drove to meet a friend at the Berkeley Marina.  I waited for the light to turn green at the junction of Stockton and  San Pablo Avenues so I could make a left hand turn.  Yet again I experiened a disconnect between seeing and hearing things.  I kind of saw a grey car coming out of the strip mall to my left. Then I heard a crash and I realised something, that car, had crashed into me. I turned my head to the right expecting the car would stop at the side of the road and we would exchange information or something. Instead I saw the car pass me on my right and it turned right on San Pablo Avenue.  I registered it was a grey Pontiac - I couldn't see the license plate, but I then turned right and drove after it as it was not going to stop. I followed it down San Pablo, it turned right on Waldo Avenue. In hot pursuit I made a right, lost sight of it and realised what I was doing was insane. Thoughts, time, movement coalesced back into so called normal.  I drove toward the Marina and then thought I should check my car - a serious ding on the rear seat, no hubcap - scratches.

So - severely shaken up.  Thank the lord no injuries, and thanks for the help of a friend who helped ferry me back from the body shop, and to rent a car.  

Lets hope that is it.