Day 233, November 4, 2020
Starting Over Again
Today's Soundtrack: Glenn Gould - Beethoven, Concerto No. 5 in E-flat major op.73 "Emperor"
It is the day after the election in the United States and I'll refrain from spending too much on the still-pending results other than mentioning that seeing the electoral map results truly reinforce that I do not understand this country we live in. I feel like the reality we exist in is so different than the reality I wish we lived in.
A few days ago, one of our beloved hens, Stipey was taken by a predator. It has been a sorrowful loss, and our only predator loss despite incidents with a bear, and early on, a fox. For both of these instances, the early morning hours apparition of me in a bathrobe was enough to frighten away any creature from returning. But something came and got Stripey, and once the snow melted, I was able to see evidence of her struggle in the feathers she left behind. Today, I walked Franklin down to the river, in part thinking I might see more, and I did. Stripey's distinctive feathers strewn among the leaves where she was taken down into the gully behind the house.
Stripey was the most gregarious of the remaining three girls, and was the one who tolerated my petting the most. The other two sisters are by nature, a bit more wary. The morning after Stripey was taken, they both rushed to tell me what had happened, but I already knew by Stripey's absence. The fence was bent over where the bear had once traversed, though I had no evidence that the predator was a bear.
The seasons are changing, and the chickens are as good markers of that as the end of daylight savings time. Their egg production has slowed, and the girls are molting, leaving feathers lining the coop as they prepare for their winter coats. This morning when I went out the water font was frozen over and the girls waited for me to break apart the ice so they could have a morning drink. Molting chickens are odd looking so it adds to the solemnity of my morning greetings.
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| First snow. |
It is a strangely hard loss, one that seems to embody all the losses of this pandemic era, all the losses COVID related and not, the personal and the public. It is as if, the loss of a chicken is a symbol of the loss we have all endured and will continue to struggle with over the coming winter. I recently read Emily St. John Mandel's Station Eleven, and then Chang-Rae Lee's On Such a Full Sea. Both post-apocalyptic, post-pandemic dystopias that are gripping and hard to put down. But by the end of reading both, I felt like I was ready to move into full survival mode and start learning how to wield throwing knives or some such thing.
But, the truth is, I've never had great hand-eye coordination. I played sports where I did not have to throw or catch a ball. I am mostly miserable at video games where you have to shoot something. And, I was unable to protect the last flock of chickens from a murderous mother raccoon because I could not bring myself to shoot her with a pellet gun I purchased expressly for that purpose. So, I think if we are relegated to a world without, I would be better focused on feeding fish, or harvesting plants than serving as a forward scout to protect a traveling troupe from blood thirsty religious figures or dangerous vegetarian acrobats (their dogs are not vegetarian). I'm better at lifting heavy objects, digging holes, or playing a little tune on the guitar. And while I can imagine myself surviving a zombie apocalypse, I can also imagine myself an MMA fighter, but that does not mean I would last more than a moment in a ring (cage?).
The power of imagination is important though. If we can imagine ourselves outliving our chickens, enduring through a long hard winter, managing to ration the two cords of wood, that now seem like a meager bastion against the cold, and weather the loss of power, the inevitable sicknesses (but hopefully not the big one), and the eventual tiring of all foods that give one pleasure. I can imagine digging free my snowshoes from the basement, and once the river freezes over, because it will be that cold this winter, following the river until the urge to walk ceases, and then turning around and returning home. But embarking on that same journey each day, slowly extending my excursions until, like the gifted knife thrower, or free diver, I am able to embark on the journey of a lifetime... something like those animal stories like, Plague Dogs, or The Incredible Journey.
Perhaps a little more attainable, I was inspired yesterday by seeing a photo of a colleague's workshop on Facebook. It was so clean and orderly and beautiful. She wrote about retreating there to relieve the stress of the election. I wonder if I could do that for my basement music room. Reduce everything in it to being there for a purpose, and move everything else into storage or get rid of it. That seems nearly as daunting as hiking for days in the snow, diving past the point of ordinary human breath, or hitting a bow wielding fanatic with a throwing knife. Maybe, a little bit less so.
So, perhaps my survival technique of the winter of our pandemic will be to reorganize the basement, reshaping the music room into a place of restorative respite and less of a place at risk of eminent industrial scale collapse. I suppose, sometimes, after an apocalypse, or when reorganizing a room, it is easier to just dismantle everything and start over. Maybe when this is all over I'll be able to share a photo of the basement room that will evoke similar feelings of elation and peace as my colleague's studio. We shall see (it feels dangerous to even write it)!
Stay safe, take deep breaths, and take heart,
Leo
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| Fall on the Sawmill River. |
From Our Friends:
From Teaching Tolerance:
Practice Self-care as an Act of Resistance and Social Justice
Practicing self-care is critical for all educators. But for BIPOC educators, self-care can be a first step toward self-sustaining, anti-racist practices in schools. In this article, Teaching Tolerance Advisory Board member Jamilah Pitts writes that for Black women educators and other educators of color, self-care and preservation are acts of resistance.
From the New York Times:
How to be an Active Bystander When you See Casual Racism
From EducationAdminWebAdvisor:
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From Inside Higher Ed:
4 Reasons Why Every Course Should Be Designed as an Online Course
After the pandemic. »
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| My youngest renounced Satan on Sunday and my son took this screenshot of the ceremony. |
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