March 2020: Isolated

"I've found that there is always some

beauty left - in nature, sunshine, freedom,

in yourself; all these can help you."

Anne Frank

I have stayed active since Corona hit.  I do a daily morning Pilates or stability ball workout and then follow it with a walk, hike, or a ride:  sometimes even doing both a ride and walk.  Occasionally I add hand weights for what always has been and remains a weak upper body.  And for two days in a row, I have managed to nab a touch of sunshine on my ride though one day it meant leaving the house quite early and while it was still quite cold.

The world is screaming spring.  Daffodils pirouette in the wind, their brave yellows accentuated by the deepening green around them. Oh, how I love the greens this time of year, so fragrant and deep.  I have longed for green for months.  And the yellow, so fleeting but so yearned for. Other, small flowers thrust upwards. And so life goes on.  Isolation is wearying when one lives alone and I miss having someone to share things with, but as Ms. Frank notes, "there is always some beauty."  Oh, the magnificence of the human spirit in some people.  It shames me.  How, I wonder, did a child come to be so wise?  Circumstances? If so, surely the seed was there ahead of those circumstances.

The squirrels seem to be unusually busy and plentiful.  Important squirrel business, I suppose, as yet another crosses the road uncomfortably close to my front wheel.  Five deer cross in front of me.  Robins squabble over territory and mates.  Peepers call out in longing lonely following a long winter hiatus.  Life moves forward.  Nature seems unaware of the heavy cloud hanging over humanity at the present time.

For some reason, I think of something my daughter once told me during a time of great sorrow and great regret:  "Animals forgive us and don't hold grudges.  It is one of the things we are supposed to learn from them."  I hope it is true for we have not been kind to them or to their world. While at times the cats I live with are a nuisance, isolation, like loss, has made me aware of how much I treasure them.  It is nice to have something to hold on to, something to be responsible for besides myself.

Who knew the world could change so drastically so quickly?  I have canceled one trip in May where I was to meet with friends and ride bicycles and will likely be canceling my much anticipated Alaska trip.  But while I grieve the loss, I realize how lucky I am that thus far my family has not contracted the virus.  I am lucky I have a home and food and think about the poor people in Tennessee who recently lost so much in a tornado.  And I still have my bicycle and still can ride outside, something I have read has been restricted in other countries in an attempt to contain or slow a virus that is determined not to be contained.  The words of my mother whisper through my thoughts as I reach home:  "This, too, shall pass."

At The Start of Corona: 2020

"Alone, condemned, deserted, 

as those who are about to die are

alone, there was a luxury in it, an

isolation full of sublimity; a

freedom which the attached can 

never know."

Virginia Woolf 

Today as I ride my bike, I realize how very odd it is that one can go to bed and wake up and the world has entirely changed around you to the point where it seems a virtual stranger. I am not entirely clueless.  I know that people have woken up to no home through fire or tornado or hurricane, that war devastates people and communities.  And having lost loved ones, I thought I had accepted change.  But alas, I remain me.  And like all humans, somehow I expect it will never set foot in my doorstep.  But it does. Of course, it does.

I used to wonder why, when I was a child, my mother told me stories of the Great Depression and of hardships she had lived through.  Since my imagination already tends to run wild, her stories influenced some deep seated fears within  because, well, mom's don't lie, do they?  And now here we are in the midst of what has been declared a pandemic. Perhaps she did it to strengthen me?   To prepare me for a life that she knew would have roses, but would also have thorns?  As always, I miss my husband most during troubling times, miss how he would hold me and assure me that everything would be fine.  What a home those arms were, a shelter from the storm.

Yet still, as I ride, I notice the beauty of the first daffodils, bravely facing the chill wind today, best petal forward.  I notice the deepening of the greenness around me, and I feel almost guilty that I still take pleasure in these sights. As I ride,  I make the decision that I will mostly do as is recommended and isolate myself.   The question is how thoroughly?  And how long can I stand it? The trick will be to find that medium spot that works for me.

I read about schools canceled, church services canceled, festivities shut down, sporting events canceled or postponed and I read those that pooh pooh these measures, but I think of the differences in the outcomes in St. Louis and Philadelphia is 1918 and realize that it is wise.  Death, you see, is never a do over. And it is certainly best to err on the side of caution.  Oh, I don't really think this virus will kill me. Again a human reaction.  It could, but while I am over 60 I am overall quite healthy. We never seem to think something will happen to us, and I am not different.

I think of a  conversation with a friend that I once thought was quite smart, and I suppose he is, but like many smart people he gets so caught up in little facts that he is unable to view the larger picture.  I think that part of this is his inability to ever admit he is wrong about anything.  Luckily for him, he is unmarried.  Or perhaps I am the one who is wrong.  I never claimed to be the smartest knife in the drawer.   But like all of us, I believe what I believe. 

 I get the theory that we need to flatten the curve, to prevent as best we can all of us getting it at the same time.  I certainly don't want to die or to lose lung function, and I want no part in being part of the reason that someone loses their mother or their father or another loved one.  I have enough on my conscience.

Briefly I pray for those doctors in Italy having to decide who will be given treatment and the possibility of life and who will be left to most likely die.  I remember how hard it was to make the decision to let me husband go despite knowing he would never walk or talk again.  I don't envy them their dreams when this thing ends.  I know all too well what it means to question decisions that you make.

And end it will.  Just as this bike ride will end.  I think how lucky I am that I do love to ride because it is something where there is generally no close contact.  I then smile a bit sadly thinking of how, at the end of a ride yesterday, rather than hugging as we normally do at the end of a ride, a friend and I bumped forearms in farewell. I will miss that touching until it is safe to hug in greeting and farewell again.  Perhaps I can discover new things about my world and myself as I spend more time alone.  I grin thinking of how I often thought that randoneurring can be, at times, a lonely place, but even a 1200 only takes 90 hours. Still, maybe it played a role in preparing for this moment.

And then I am home.  While I enjoyed the ride, the wind was demanding and chilly.  But my home is warm. I have books and food and the things I need to care for myself.  I don't have to decide who lives and who dies.  I just need to do my small part. I am blessed.

March 3, 2020: Falling in Love Again

"We all remember the ones who

touched our heart so deeply that our

heartbeats began to dance and reminded

us to live once again." 

Mimi Novic

I have already been to Pilates and the weight room, but the day calls to me speaking of sunshine and warmth.  It is in the low 50's, and while quite windy, still seductive.  And it does not take long after I swing my leg over the bike and settle in the saddle to realize that I am in love again:  in love with bicycling and the way it allows me to watch the world yawn and awaken in a way that driving cannot.

I pass Helen Trueblood's and stop to admire the deep, dark purple crocuses and the first of the Easter flowers, bright and yellow, braving the season, daring it to nip her.  As I pause for a photo, wishing I had brought me other camera, a hawk flies overhead and whistles.  "Is that you, Helen?" I think.  "Are you glad that someone still enjoys your magnificent yard?"  For Helen left us not so very long ago.  Last year as I cycled past the heirs were tearing down her house, but the beautiful daffodil garden she created remains and will repeatedly draw me in that direction during the spring.  

I can't say that we really knew each other, but her daffodil show was on my 9 mile running loop when I used to be able to run long distances, and we chatted a few times briefly.  Daffodils were her passion and she was known for this, and not just locally.

I move onward.  Frogs are beginning to stir and their song rises to a crescendo in certain areas, screaming of spring.  I pass a ground hog who sees me and scurries frantically away.  I grin thinking of the commercial and so I say, "Hey, you wood chucks, quit chucking that wood."  For some reason, that commercial made me grin.  

I am pleased with me legs.  The pace is slow, particularly going westward into the wind, but they have a strength I did not think they would have after this morning.  Now tomorrow, that may be a different story, but for today they are fine so long as I can meander, and I can.

Yes, today I am fully and whole-heartedly back in love with my bicycle and I dream of the rides to come.  My heart dances at the thought of seeing friends that I have not seen for awhile, and I glory in being alive.