Life during COVID-19
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Returning to not-so-normal life
“Normality is a paved road: It’s comfortable to walk, but no flowers grow on it.” ~Vincent Van Gogh Yesterday I met an old friend for lunch on the outdoor patio at Three Cats Cafe. From the start, the two of us were overcome by delight, wondering aloud when we’d last seen each other (at least a year ago). The sun was on my back, my vegetarian “scallops” were perfect, and the company of a vaccinated friend who’s been around since the early days of my writing career was soul-nourishing. It was a sentimental moment — or maybe it just felt that way because we are writers who seize joy anywhere we can…
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One year later: Notes from my quarantine journal
Cindy La Ferle “Life can only be understood backwards; but it must be lived forwards.” ~Søren Kierkegaard March 11, 2021… Today marks the one-year anniversary of the start of the COVID-19 shutdown in our embattled-but-not-beaten United States of America. To date, nearly 530,000 American lives have been lost to the virus. One year ago today, my husband, Doug, was waiting for surgery to reconnect the fingers he’d nearly lost on his left hand, thanks to a brutal accident with a table saw. It was an incredibly scary time to experience a medical emergency of any kind, because nobody — not even healthcare workers — fully understood the threat of COVID-19 or…
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Getting vaccinated: Notes from my quarantine journal
Cindy La Ferle “Little darling, I feel that ice is slowly melting. Little darling, it seems like years since it’s been clear. Here comes the sun, here comes the sun, And I say, it’s all right.” ~”Here Comes the Sun,” lyrics by George Harrison I wish news anchors would stop overplaying stories about the anti-vaxxers and anti-maskers who claim COVID-19 is a hoax. As a wise friend reminded me, most Americans have quietly adapted to pandemic restrictions — and are working together to heal our country. Over the past year, we’ve soldiered on. We’ve quarantined, worked at home, read more books, tried new recipes, repaired our homes, shopped in masks,…
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Small sparks of happiness: More notes from my quarantine journal
Apollo, December 2020 / Cindy La Ferle “The world gives you so much pain, and here you are making gold out of it. There is nothing purer than that.” -Rupi Kaur December 10, 2020 So here we are, barely two weeks away from Christmas. Most of us are still hunkering down at home while Covid-19 spreads faster than a California wildfire. Reading the morning news, I was hit with the astounding fact that more than 3,000 Americans died yesterday from the virus. Meanwhile, half the country refuses to accept the results of the 2020 presidential election, and the talking heads won’t stop talking about it. I’d hoped that the…
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A pandemic birthday: Notes from my quarantine journal
Silver Beach, St. Joseph / Cindy La Ferle “Each experience in your life was absolutely necessary in order to have gotten you to the next place, and the next place, up to this very moment.” ~Dr. Wayne Dyer August 6, 2020I tend to feel more ambivalent about my birthday as I age. I’m grateful for my life — and all the people and animals I’ve loved. Yet I still experience a vague sense of melancholy, knowing that time is moving ahead quickly and will, eventually, leave me behind.Celebrating a birthday — your own or someone else’s — is especially poignant during a pandemic. Mortality stares us down daily on the…
