For those who do not get The Alpenhorn — this is the ad a large group of us put together…
I have things to say about all this Covid stuff but I want to keep some degrees of separation between the death of Clark and my outrage. Therefore, I will save that for another day and just ask that you rest your heart and mind on what Covid is taking from us.
I have learned to raise puppies from end to beginning — not the other way around.
This means her life exists in the context of her eventual leaving.
Does that seem morbid?
It isn’t.
Rather, knowing how this story will end makes me appreciate every single minute with her.
It means I raise puppies in regret-free ways. I do not want to look back and feel guilty for anything I did or said or was…
I want the ending to be the completion of a life well-loved, with the only regret being that it wasn’t long enough. I know well that is part of the story that is Pozy Clarkia — it won’t be long enough.
I do not waste time being annoyed, disappointed, frustrated, upset — her life is too precious and short for that kind of negativity.
So is yours. Please have a regret-free day.
Yesterday I rented a lawn aerator. In spite of a mask mandate, only one other person was wearing a mask at the hardware store.
Pandemic Life is hard in so many ways but the category of Tribe is the one that challenges me most.
As I stood there in my Berner mask at the rental counter with maskless people hither and yonder, I felt a profound sense of aloneness.
These are not my people and this is not my place, I thought to myself.
Where, I wondered as I drove home, are my people? My place? My tribe?
Where, I wondered, is SAFETY?
And the voice that tries so hard to be kind, balanced, and inclusive was scolding me for thinking so poorly of these people, and trying to create a narrative that makes these policy-breaking, maskless people something other than selfish, horrible, stupid, careless idiots.
That voice, that scolding voice, is mine.
It is exhausting.
I am trying not to judge. I am trying so hard not to think terrible things. I am trying to see differences as deserving of at least respect, and to acknowledge that I do not have the corner on Truth.
But the reality is that I fail constantly.
188,000 Americans are dead because of Covid-19. That is Truth.
And masks and social distancing and other simple measures would have saved so many of those people.
I am exhausted arguing with myself about how and what to think about the actions of others in the face of a deadly virus. And I am tired of being exhausted by this effort.
My math looks like this: No mask = dead people.
There is nothing I can put into that equation that changes it for me. I try — but all I see are dead people and the broken hearts left in the wake of careless, maskless so-called freedom.
I yearn for people I can trust — people who care.
I miss my Tribe.
So much.