Has it been weeks in here? I’m so out of touch.
My son’s covid has hung on for at least a week. He doesn’t advise exposing myself by coming over, so I can’t even help him much. I did “sneak” in and out those few days, avoiding contact with anyone. I haven’t seen my gkids in weeks. I missed the whole fake spring, what with being sick myself, and having nowhere nice to walk to even if I could.
Some days I never make it outside at all, which for me is like being confined in a cage. It’s just the nature of things, how it has to be for now, and won’t last forever. Spring will come, and we’ll live to make up for lost time.
Still, it’s a little surreal, just me and my bizarre dreams (I remember them all), and trying to find constructive things to do besides sleep. And still, I feel very fortunate, compared to most of the world right now. I have a place to hole up, and family safe nearby. I’m just waiting for the other shoe to drop, as it probably will, such as losing my small SSA income. It’s just a matter of which form it will take. But for now, I never take my good fortune for granted.
Yesterday, just by chance, I found a way to obtain fresh produce and other basics after all. It seems Instacart was offering a huge discount on first-time memberships for one year, which applies to me because last year’s was a gift. Plus they had one of their reduced minimum purchase deals going on, so I was actually able to afford fresh fruit, veggies, and a few other necessities I can’t get from the food pantry deliveries. For me that was a big deal. It means not merely surviving but feeling better. I felt very clever as I gobbled down produce!
Segue alert! Here’s why we need a community-based social system, like more civilized countries, in which there’s a basic social safety net for everyone, and people live more communally, not just struggling solitarily. Humans are not meant to live as self-sufficient singletons. We’re more like wolves, who thrive in an organized pack where everyone has a place and role, and look out for each other.
Whereas our system has somehow devolved to the point where we’ve allowed vicious predators to take power and try to destroy anything civilized about us, and alienate our longtime civilized world allies. No one can thrive or survive in a state like that. No person or nation can exist in a vacuum unto itself. Individuals and nations, just like nature itself, can only work in an interconnected network; take one integral component out, and a downward cascade of consequences affect all of us. It’s happening right before our eyes.
Sorry about the tangent. I may not be too smart or educated, but even I can see that this story is not just about me and my own minor setbacks. It’s about living through a time in our history where things have once again, predictably, gone very wrong, and trying to navigate the regression, which can’t be done alone. It can only succeed with allies in community, all of us in this together, like organized wolves protecting the pack and resisting extinction.
