And Peace Shall Return

Our capacity for denial is stronger than our capacity for belief. We find it easier to not face the truth. We go on living our ordinary lives while refusing to believe the overwhelming evidence that our way of life is self-destructive. A prisoner of the past, we go on doing things which we know are killing us. Worse, we believe that the inevitable conclusion of all our deeds will not come to pass. We think that somehow, at the last minute, there will be a miracle, a magical solution. We possibly even hope that factors in nature we hadn’t considered will somehow wipe clean the slate of our cultural and environmental crimes.

 

Ben Okri

I could've done worse than read this story by Ben Okri (link here, go on it's excellent). 

But only barely so. The title is inviting but seriously misleading for all of us who believe we are on top of things and superior to, say, the common fruit fly. Reading it did all sorts of things to me, I cried, I admit that much.

To counteract any feelings of hopelessness, I am listening to/watching a live performance by the West-Eastern Divan Orchestra directed by Daniel Barenboim. They are playing Beethoven to celebrate the composer's 250th birthday. Beethoven was born a few miles down the road from where I sit right now and this concert comes live from our city's opera house. 

The musicians sit spaced safely apart, they all wear masks, apart from the woodwind and brass players. Daniel Barenboim plays the piano and does not wear a mask, he shed a few tears during the Largo (second movement of Beethoven's piano concerto no. 3).

I am not particularly attached to classical music (I wrote about why this is so here) but I like the idea of it being a freebie (thank you covid) and that I can do some editing, i.e. paid work, while listening. 

And I also think highly of Daniel Barenboim.

We just had a break in performance and now Mr Barenboim is back with a mask on and we're off with the do do do doo at the start of the fifth symphony.  In another lifetime, when I was just about to become a rebel, I had to write a school essay on the second movement of this symphony and the ongoing motif  with its apparent sunny nature and its source (a Franconian folk song, I kid you not) in contrast to the fateful tone of the first movement. It all comes back to me now. Honestly, school! Now, today, I can finally use this knowledge. After all the trials and tribulations of the past almost 50 years. Here we are, thank you Beethoven, thank you secondary education.

Actually, the second movement is quite lovely to listen to.

Do you remember the happiest day of your life? What about the saddest? Do you ever wonder if sadness and happiness can be combined, to make a deep purple feeling, not good, not bad, but remarkable simply because you didn't have to live on one side or the other?

 Ocean Voung

We are entering the darkest days. The next six weeks, three before and three after midwinter. When I was a child, this was a time of silences, in the 1960s in Franconia, there was snow or sleet, dark forest, early evenings with advent candles, baking, lots of baking, no commercial xmas jingle bell clutter. Not yet.

This winter will also be a silent one as we are about to enter a hard lockdown, probably until mid January. 

I don't mind the darkness of winter, I can cope with the cold, foggy weather. I am a grown up, I know it's really just a short few weeks. But I admit that we are tense, unsettled. Trying to find the right words to explain this feeling, all that I can come up with is that I am sad. We are living through the saddest days, the saddest time. And I don't just mean the pandemic. We are a hopeless species, really. Let's face it. We've made a mess of things.

Oh no doubt, I'll cheer up again soon. I hope so.  

humans are social animals

While I was reading what Robin wrote today about kindness and the wonderful poem "Small Kindnesses" (here is the link to that post), two things came to mind.

The first thing is the ongoing research by Felix Warneken, professor of psychology at Harvard University, and Michael Tomasello, anthropologist and behavioral researcher at the Max Planck Institute in Leipzig, Germany. 

They have been investigating altruism in human infants and compared it to altruism as shown by young chimpanzees and then developed this further to figure out more about altruism as a human trait or whether it's a learned thing and so on.

There are lovely videos online of their research experiments where they looked at how small infants react when faced with adults in a dilemma.  

(more videos can be watched here)

Recently, they carried out another, particularly impressive, experiment, examining the influence of extrinsic motivation, such as praise, on the helpfulness of young children. 

They had three groups of small kids for another experiment where an adult showed that help was needed (similar to what is shown in the video above): the children from the first group received no response to any help provided, the children from the second group were thanked and the children from the third group even received a reward. 

They did that a couple of times and then they repeated the test without giving any reaction or reward to any of the kids in the three groups. This is what happened:

The first group, the children who initially had helped and never received a response, continued to show a very high level of helpfulness. 

The second group, the kids who had received a "Thank You", showed a minimally reduced level of helpfulness.

The third group, the kids who had been receiving a reward, showed a significantly lower level of helpfulness. 

In other words: An unconditional willingness to help had turned into a conditional willingness to help. In technical language this is called the corruption effect. 

But because most societies are convinced that children are not naturally helpful, it seems imperative to create an incentive - i.g. parents give their children money to help in the household or, believing that children are naturally lazy, pay them for bringing home good grades. 

(I could go on about household chores, which are mostly repetitive, boring jobs we adults assign to kids because we think they are dummies who need to learn, but that's for another day.)

The second thing that came to mind is another study investigating honesty and selfishness in adults. This experiment was carried out in 40 countries involving 17,000 people and the results were published last year (here). Briefly, "lost wallets" containing varying amounts of money were handed in anonymously by the researchers at various public and private institutions (hotels, libraries, banks, post offices, shops etc.) and then it was examined whether the recipients did in fact contact the owners to return the wallets. 

In every country, whether in Asia, Europe, Africa or America, people were more likely to return the wallets that contained a higher amount of money. 

The researchers concluded that these were "acts of civic honesty, where people voluntarily refrain from opportunistic behavior" despite "monetary incentives to act otherwise". 

And on a final note: Occasionally, the university clinics I work for run low on blood plasma and we all receive emails encouraging us and our families and friends to donate blood. Several times people have suggested that if the clinics would pay people for this there would not be a shortage. 

Not so, there have been many studies that have shown again and again that the number of blood donors will decrease if the donation is rewarded with money. 

Anyway, reasons to be cheerful.

 

everyone’s feelings are valid - not

If half of us believe the earth is flat, we do not make peace by settling on it being halfway between round and flat. Those of us who know it’s round will not recruit them through compromise. We all know that you do better bringing people out of delusion by being kind and inviting than by mocking them, but that’s inviting them to come over, which is not the same thing as heading in their direction.

Some of us don’t know how to win. Others can’t believe they ever lost or will lose or should, and their intransigence constitutes a kind of threat. That’s why the victors of the recent election are being told in countless ways to go grovel before the losers. This unilateral surrender is how misogyny and racism are baked into a lot of liberal and centrist as well as right-wing positions, this idea that some people need to be flattered and buffered even when they are harming the people who are supposed to do the flattering and buffering, even when they are the minority, even when they’re breaking the law or lost the election.

 from one of the best essays I have read in recent times, more here: Rebecca Solnit

 

today's messages from our government

I'll just leave this here

 

Yes, seriously, the world is watching. Some are laughing. Also, the new shade of hair colour??? And we fully support this:

Hibernation would be an excellent idea.

Our little Meyer lemon tree as of this morning. We have been harvesting for weeks and still no end.

And here, for all the fans of bitter plants belonging to the genus Cichorium, is the buttery heart of catalogna puntarelle di Galatina deep inside its rocket-fennel-liquorice tasting leaves. It's a bit of a task to grow and we are mighty proud of our harvest.

There are the three positive aspects that carry me through these strange times. One, I am an old hand at this, living as a social recluse more or less for the last ten years. Two, for many years, we, that is R and me, have developed the fine art of close (grand-)parenting, despite the vast geographical distance between our dinner tables. And three, my father is a staunch defender of - what he calls - civilised conversation versus wimpish physical expressions of emotions. 

It helps. I am not at a loss, or at least not more than usually, when I think of my once weekly phone call with him, all properly civilised, while listening to a friend's tearful lament because she misses hugging her dad. And later, I mention this over whatsapp to my daughter, who nods her wise nod, while we cheer the grandchild jumping over sofa cushion mountains on the other side of the planet.

It's not ideal, but nothing is. 

In the evenings, I wrap myself in a blanket and listen to the latest science podcast on the pandemic, to the eager voices explaining vaccine studies and virus mutations and protein sequencing and viral loads and it all washes over me like a soothing lullaby. In the early days, way back in spring, I would take notes and read through the scripts and references, trying to squeeze understanding into (out of?) my mediocre scientific brain capacities. Now, I just feel reassured that there are people who will not give up, who love research for the sake of it. And sometimes, I imagine these scientists coming home to their families after a long day, maybe playing with their kids for a while before dinner.  

By now, admittedly, I just want us to make it through in one piece. There is one unconfirmed case in the care home where my father lives. The infection rate here is beginning to decrease ever so slightly now that we have completed our first week of the November semi lockdown, but it's too early and the number of Covid patients on the intensive care ward, two floor above my office, has tripled in as many weeks. Still manageable, but only just about.

"The pandemic is not an inevitable fate. We determine by our behavior whether the situation gets worse or better.

 . . . personal freedom cannot be achieved in isolation from society. In order for the freedom of all to be maintained, it is in turn necessary that people stand up for one another and take responsibility for one another. The better it works, the less intervention and regulation is required.

The pandemic has shown how relevant this principle is. The more I act responsibly as an individual of my own free will, the less reason I give the state to intervene in social life. The more thoughtless and selfish I act, the sooner the state has to restrict my freedom in order to effectively protect the community as well as the well-being of other people."

Christian Drosten

 

the news from Co. Clare, Ireland just in

West Clare hotelier loses out in US Presidential election https://t.co/RFoPusmU5x #Election2020 | @thepmanofficial pic.twitter.com/sfIRVN6YY5

— The Clare Echo (@ClareEcho) November 7, 2020

no pity

There are several reasons presidents cry. Anyone who has ever had one and been up half the night with it – or all the night with it, night after night – can tell you this. Sometimes presidents cry because they’re tired, sometimes they cry because they need their nappy changed, sometimes they cry because they don’t want you to leave them, sometimes they cry because they have a gnawing pain in their tummy, and sometimes they cry because they’re just being impossible that day and you should probably go to bed and leave them to it but somehow you just can’t. To anyone going through it currently: this phase will pass. Of course, a crying president demands incredible amounts of attention, and while you’re in the thick of it, consumed by this, it may feel like it will never stop, or at least you won’t make it out. 

For parents of small children, and also for anyone who has ever seen a small child behave badly in the supermarket or the street, the thing we are watching on TV now is extremely, totally, instantly recognisable even to the very young. The big orange guy is angry because it is not his turn any more.

 Marina Hyde

 

 

Today would have been her 95th birthday.

When my brother called me early on that one morning in August 1999, to tell me that she had died in the night, I was relieved. Hugely relieved. It was over, I was free. Finally. 

I have a memory of that day, of myself dancing, slowly swinging my body around by the open patio door, humming along to some imaginary music, raising my arms into the hot summer air. But maybe that was just in a dream. My boss at the time gave me a week off and warned me to take it easy, that no matter what, I would be shattered. It's the hardest experience, he warned me, the death of your mother. His words. Not mine. I wasn't shattered. Not then, not now, not once since her death.

There was no funeral, she had donated her body to science. She announced this decision the same way she always announced her threats, of starving herself to death, of jumping off the roof, in front of a train, down a bridge, swallowing ground glass, or sharpening the fruit knives. Nothing was ever without drama, nothing was ever normal. This one, she followed through. We did not stop her.

There was a short memorial service, siblings, a cousin, a neighbour from long ago, one of my brother's old school friends. As expected, my father didn't come. 

For a child of an addict growing up is hard work. It marks you. It marked me, for life. Something sitting inside my chest that will never lift. Never allowing me to feel good enough. The smell of stale cigarette smoke coming from a woman makes me wish I could walk away. If I can, I run. But most of the time, I stay, try to be polite. Try to be good. Always trying to be good.

It has taken me years to understand that my mother had not simply been a careless addict but that she had been suffering beyond my comprehension. That all her angry rants, her harsh punishments of our never ending faults, her endless physical ailments, imagined or real, always headaches, back pains, colicky stomach, her inability to eat a proper meal while at the same time forcing us to finish what's on our plates, all her special diets and bottles of medicines on the kitchen window sill beside the full ashtrays, that all of that was part of something so much bigger.

I have no name for it, I cannot call it depression, sometimes I tend to call it PTSD. And under my breath, behind closed doors, I whisper, the war, the war. While just as easily, I could whisper, the nazi childhood, or, the glass ceilings all along her way, or, her 1960s unhappy housewife valium and martini days. Or. Or. Or.

But what I can say now, one month before my 63rd birthday, what I know with certainty is that it was not my fault. I played no part in it. I just happened to be one of her kids. And it has taken me, oh, so many years to understand and accept that.

Addiction is a disease. But often we don’t see it that way. We see only the bad behavior, the actions that wound and betray us. And yes, she did all that. And I admit that much. The wounds will never heal.

Autumn flare

In sickness, you’re too much with yourself. The whole body burns with memory, the volume of sensation is turned up. You are filled with an excess of remembering. Your skin, wherever you touch it, says “I.” There are muscles here, yes, there are nerves here, yes, there is pain here.

Then the illness subsides and you go back to self-forgetfulness. 

But for the chronically ill, this is what cannot be forgotten. Every square inch of one’s body is at all times crammed with "I," with self.

 Teju Cole

 

 

I am an old hand at this, I should think. But it floors me every time something happens that triggers a flare up. Which is where I am currently finding my miserable self. The usual coping mechanisms are in place, dividing up the day into tasks and rest and floating in between these stages with equal degrees of anger and resignation. Autumn does not help, not my season, neither is winter. I could go on.

And I hate myself for it, this over dramatisation of the person I think I am and the futile attempts to pretend I am not. The anger that rises up inside my head when I watch someone about my age being active and fit. The futile attempts to pretend I don't care. That lesson in my childhood socialisation training, the one about cheer up and who do you think you are compared to others who are far worse, it sticks. I crawl to work and pretend I am superwoman.

As for the covid, it feels like an oncoming tsunami at times, despite the detailed information we receive. Numbers are climbing, even the shittiest tabloid has by now dedicated a front page to what exponential growth means and why it happens and what we need to do to keep it as low as possible - and why.

The virus only survives because we host it. It floats in the air because we send it there. It's a people thing.

sorry sunshine

The test came back negative, the head cold went into overdrive. I am getting better. I think. I cut R's hair today, I made breakfast. The numbers are climbing steadily, the city is quiet, I have been told.

Here’s the thing. If you buy into a false narrative that the body is controllable, that illness can always be prevented, you better realise that you have reached a damaging, erroneous conclusion: the belief that a person’s ill health is their fault. And regarding a pandemic, we better learn that this virus is bigger than what we think we can explain in our imagination and arrogance.

Anyway, this is for all the sorry sunshines in your lives:

This is Winston Peters, a very conservative, right wing NZ politician. Currently deputy PM but on his way out. Still, he got it.

that mysterious splendor

 

 

As we walked through this sunlit forest, I once again felt such betrayal, such loss. How can we ever again call a forest like this one by its name? Beech forest, Buchenwald. (They chose that name for a reason. The monsters in their leather coats and shiny boots.)

That was two weeks ago. Now, autumn has arrived, I am looking for my cycling gloves and we turned on the heating. Autumn could be lovely if only it wasn't a gateway to winter.

I am unwell and eventually called the covid hotline, on a Friday evening, no less. In the past, this would have been a bit of a blocked nose, no fever, sore throat, headache, shivers sort of scenario. But apparently, I tick too many boxes. Now waiting for my test slot, while R hovers at a distance with cups of tea.

 

We’re all hurtling through our lives, and the planet is hurtling through space without a seat belt. We have to discover successively more freedom inside the terrible things that have happened and the terrible things that certainly will happen, and the whole of it is also a mysterious splendor, full of kindness, welcome, and cups of tea.

John Tarrant 

 

As for the other news, I leave you with this, because, whether he's ill or not, whether he knowingly passed the virus on or not (and in my humble opinion, he did), whether it matters or not that the news broke after the stock market had closed for the day, stay focused:

First, let me say that I am fine with Trump being called a fascist because he is using fascist tactics, and it's a word that resonates with the public. We need a wide, inclusive, and resolute American opposition movement, and this word conveys the necessary urgency. 

But I've largely called him an authoritarian or autocrat instead of a fascist because "fascist" implies loyalty to the state. A fascist wants to embody and expand the state and usually has imperial ambitions. Whereas Trump wants to destroy the U.S.: he wants to strip it down and sell it off for parts to both domestic and foreign backers. His cohort's ambitions are similar to what oligarchs and other hyper-capitalists did to the U.S.S.R. after its collapse — which is not surprising because the Kremlin and an associated network of plutocrats and oligarchs are the prime backers of this operation.

Sarah Kendzior

people have the power

People Have the Power - VOTE 2020 from Pathway to Paris on Vimeo.

If you vote the present monster out of the white house, we will play this at full volume for I don't know how long, and we'll dance in the street. And not just because we are old hippies. Promise!

The real test is not the virus but our response to it

One thing I know—and this is the central paradox of COVID-19—is that despite the isolation, we are not alone. The pandemic has brought about a sense of shared human consciousness and experience. A friend emails to say: “I find I’m beginning to tune out the politics of it and get more into the humanity of it.” Maybe this is what COVID-19 means: a referendum on humanity. A societal performance review.

 Kennedy Warne

 The only way to fight the plague is with decency. 

Albert Camus (The Plague)

and for the winter, this:

 

 

 

.

 

 

bla etc.

 

artist: EJ Hill

 

This week has been somewhat tough, despite holiday rest. I did have that long overdue shingles vaccine on Tuesday because heaven forbid I catch a case of shingles while living in my isolation cocoon. But then again, R had it out of the blue this time last year and the friendly GP has been reminding me ever since. 

So, with such splendid fatigue and a grand potpourri of aches and pains, I try to remind myself that, yes, this body is still my own.

Most days, I try to make a joke since after all, I have been working really hard to be one of those people who seem to live through all of this with courage and humour. And sarcasm. Don't forget sarcasm, that handy disguise of despair.

Anyway, don't try this at home, it doesn't work.

In the absence of any further cohesive thought from me,  I will just paste a couple of things I have picked up along the way.

swinging on a star

Half way through my two week September holiday - and still more to come! A week each in October, November and December. The beauty of German civil service regulations. 

I don't miss a thing, apart from maybe a visit to the seaside. I mostly sit on the patio, R's voice drifting out of his office upstairs, explaining to some (un)fortunate final year student the intricate workings of cell membrane structures, around me the busy noises of the retired neighbours exercising their expensive gardening tools. 

I crawl out of bed every morning in disbelief that this body is actually me. Morning stiffness is a glorious euphemism. This is when dawdling comes in handy. Slow dawdling.

And so I fill my time with pleasant useless stuff until eventually, my limbs begin to respond to my wishes, at least enough to push the bicycle out into the world and get a move on. I have slowly but purposefully increased my daily distance to a now staggering 20 km, which is still a crying shame compared to my healthy past self. Anyway, must take things as they are. By the time I am back home, triumphant and sore, inflamed tendons screaming, more dawdling awaits. 

And thinking, trying to explain the world in my head. 

In no particular order, this is what's swirling around:

1. The covid conspiracy theories - there are people I know, who really truly want to believe that the world is good at its core, that all power lies with nature. And now this evil nature dishes up a creepy virus. So it must be someone else's fault. I have given up any desire to discuss this. I admit I have avoided phone calls.

2. Anti-intellectualism has been a constant thread winding its way through our political and cultural life, nurtured by the false notion that democracy means that 'my ignorance is just as good as your knowledge.
(Isaac Asimov)

3. Garden. Here is one blossom from each of the currently flowering plants. As of today. We are inundated by wasps this year and we have completely surrendered one apple tree and most of the grapes. They feed on it in a frenzy for a day and end up dead on the patio stones. In other words, they are starving. It won't last much longer.

4. Sir Ken Robinson died in August. I was a great fan. Watching this talk always brings me back to my student days, when I still had dreams of changing the way children are educated - something I soon realised as utopian on a grand scale. Anyway, listening to him still makes me a tiny bit hopeful.

5. I had to agree have been told to reduce my home office work and, after this holiday, will have to go back working on campus for two days a week. My GP is not amused. In theory, there is a strict hygiene protocol incl. airing the room every 30 mins which I can just see happening in the winter months. Not.

6. I leave this here for general perusal (for source click here).  When I am in my office, I'll be in the yellow. But currently, only 40 cases in my city.

Risk of SARS-CoV-2 transmission from asymptomatic people in different settings and for different occupation times, venting, and crowding levels (ignoring variation in susceptibility and viral shedding rates). Face covering refers to those for the general population and not high grade respirators. The grades are indicative of qualitative relative risk and do not represent a quantitative measure. Other factors not presented in these tables may also need to be taken into account when considering transmission risk, including viral load of an infected person and people’s susceptibility to infection. Coughing or sneezing, even if these are due to irritation or allergies while asymptomatic, would exacerbate risk of exposure across an indoor space, regardless of ventilation.

7. We are in for another heat wave, apparently. 

8. This week's music is in memory of R's parents, who taught this to my daughter one day driving back from the beach.

 

In the silence the ever-present past

 

This is footage from Inis Mór, the largest of the three Aran Islands in Galway Bay, on the west coast of Ireland. It's a wild place, rough and windy. The land is crisscrossed by stone walls, protecting the fields from the wind. About 4  mins into this video, you see Dún Aonghasa, a prehistoric hill fort, one of several Bronze Age sites on the island. But this is not a history blog, so for anyone interested, go here. 

The poem is spoken by Mike Scott of the Waterboys. He wrote it in the early 1980s when the band was living in An Spidéal, a small village on the Atlantic coast, overlooking the Aran Islands and the coast of county Clare. The village is famous for traditional music sessions.

I like to believe that the storm he is referring to at the beginning of his poem is the one we ran away from in October 1981 when we were staying on Inis Mór for a short while. I have very little memory of our time there other than that we walked a lot, were accompanied by all the island dogs, met very few people and smoked our very last joint sitting next to the fort looking out on the ocean. That day, we decided it was time to have a child, one of several, so we imagined. 

Back at the harbour village of Cill Rónáin, the fishermen had started to pull in their boats and gear, windows and sheds were secured and by dinner time, the storm warnings were all around us. Early the next morning we got the last boat back to the mainland. 

This was the time when I started to think of myself as becoming an adult.

 

For the last couple of weeks I have been trying out a new approach. It sort of works surprisingly well and I am quite pleased with it. 

Step one: Apply the basic principle of life and death. Or rather life vs death.

It boils down to a quick analysis: Will I make it through the day? And if under the circumstances it seems that I do - and this is obviously so - I'll just chuck out whatever it is that bothered me. Away with it, not worth dwelling on it.

Step two: Discover the basic underlying pattern in your life and if there is none - which is what seems to be the case most of the time. Honestly, the chaos! - make one up as you go along. Divide the day into periods of food intake, dental hygiene, laundry folding, cryptic crossword solving, paid employment, a chapter of whatever book comes in handy, coffee intake, meditation (sort of), fresh air exposure, conversations with other humans, watching R cook dinner and drug taking (purely pharmaceutical).

Step three: If all fails, go online. Or read a book. Or both. 

This is the lake we did not swim in despite careful planning. Pandemically speaking. We did make online reservations for a socially distanced slot - four hours - to access the nature reserve that then allows you to get to the water safely. Alas, thunderstorms. Force something or other winds and flooded roads. We stayed home.

This is a maar, a very deep volcanic crater and the water is clear, cold and black. There are many of these maars in our part of the world, we are surrounded by volcanoes and hills that were formed by eruptions. Some of the lakes send up gas bubbles, so-called mofettes, warning us that there is activity, always. Volcanoes are never dormant.

 

In my healthy days, I swam across and back, it's about 1.5 km in total, several times. 

It's one of my brilliant memories.

 

 

This is Friday's music.

 

 

Our national and regional media reports with disbelief about the deliberate slowing down of the mail system for voters in the US. Disbelief that this can happen and disbelief that apparently nobody can stop it. At the same time, we watch the crowds on the streets in Belarus day after day after day. 

What do I know.

Zoe Leonard

apple sauce day

Two nights ago thunderstorms washed over us from midnight until almost sunrise. After our first delight and the open windows to let the wind blow through the house, we got grumpier by the half hour and wandered up and down the stairs checking for damage (none) and whenever we had settled down to catch up on sleep, it started anew.

Obviously, we were not in top form yesterday. Also, it got steamy and muggy hot, and before we knew it the sky was closing in with black clouds and not a breath of wind. We got a storm warning from the insurance app and I pulled the router plug seconds before the lightning started. I've experienced my share of thunder storms but this was massive incl. hail stones and water in sheets so dense you could not see through to the other side of our suburban street. 

Today, I made apple sauce from the windfall apples that dropped from the neighbour's garden onto our back lane and cut R's hair, finally. The apple sauce is delicious but the haircut is messy. 

In the early hours before dawn I dreamed that a knife was repeatedly struck in my left forearm. It took me a while to wake up and realise that it was probably the tendinitis in my left elbow spreading down towards my wrist. I got up and leaned against the bathroom mirror while I held my arm under the running cold water. This is nothing, I told myself. A tendon is nothing. Tendinitis is just a minor ailment, even if it's chronic.

Last week I had to see one of the experts. I try to avoid them - like the plague (get it?) but every so often they want to see you in person just to reassure the insurance that I am still here, still chronically ill, still not faking it. Anyway, he is the guy responsible for my ears and the ongoing seasickness and the bouts of vertigo and sinusitis headaches. He now wants to inject cortisone into my ears (intratympanatic steroid therapy). I told him, I want a second opinion. I didn't tell him that I find the idea of no matter how fine a needle piercing my ear drum too scary right now. He shrugged and said, well, the ears are secondary organs, you don't need them to survive. Not like your kidneys. Or your lungs. Or your heart. You need to watch them more carefully. As if I didn't know that.

You have no idea how afraid of death I am some days. And most nights.

On The Covid front, I'll cut and paste as my latest public service announcement from an excellent article by Garret FitzGerald,  director of the Institute for Translational Medicine and Therapeutics at the University of Pennsylvania (the bold markings are mine):

". . . the World Health Organisation estimates there are 165 vaccine programmes under way. This is unprecedented, as is the diversity of approaches to vaccine development. (. . .) Indeed, it is likely we will need more than one effective vaccine if we are to reach the numbers globally that are necessary for effective immunity.

Given the political, cultural, and logistical challenges, attaining the goal of population immunity of 60-80 per cent, necessary in our connected world, is likely to take some time, maybe years.

Population protection in advanced societies with an assured supply of a vaccine by late summer 2021 is a reasonable bet.

Despite politically and commercially-driven promises that we will be protected from Covid-19 by vaccines early next year, this is extremely unlikely. Mass vaccination based on trials of a few thousand patients – as suggested in Russia – would be reckless. 

Masks, distancing, and hand-washing will be the rule for the foreseeable future. In the meantime there is encouraging progress in the development of drugs to curb the severity of Covid-19 and this, as with AIDS, may lead us to a semblance of normality even sooner than an effective vaccine."

 (You can read the complete article here.)

 

 

 

two songs

Right now, there is a lot stacked at the negative side. And I am not immune to feeling down over It All.

In a lengthy zoom meeting with far away friends last night, we discussed helplessness and being at a loss as to what to do when overwhelmed by the seemingly endless feed of bad news, climate change, mass extinction, the pandemic, the lot.

I haven't got enough energy to always be disheartened, depressed. Feeling hopeless is hard work. Even listing all the stuff that makes me feel upset and hopeless is too much work. 

But unable to turn away. I wish I could.

 

Anyway, Saturdays are difficult days while my body metabolises the weekly shot of immune suppressant medicine. 

Also, we are having a heat wave. The lawn turned into grey bristle in the span of 24 hours. We covered the greenhouse with the black netting, filled the bird baths, shut the house and let down the blinds. It could be a blizzard out there for all I know. But instead it's still 39°C out on the patio at almost 8 pm.  

 

So today, I am posting two songs to cheer myself up. To remind myself that we need to bear witness, to be aware, to stay open, to learn, to act responsibly. That nothing is normal, never has been.

virus bits

First, I invite you to have a brief look here.

So, the virus, or The Covid as my Irish family calls it.

Like so many, I have by now had a couple of virus related dreams. In one of them, I was struggling to breathe and as a result, in the morning, I read through my Living Will to reassure myself that I have it in black and white, no ventilator if in intensive care. It's a thing, I admit but I have watched people on ventilators, incl. my mother and, no. I am old enough.

The other dream comes back in various guises. In it, I meet friends, dear friends, who come bearing gifts and who refuse to wear masks or keep a distance and basically laugh at me for being so vigilant. (There is one of them in real life. She is convinced she'll never catch it or if, just a mild case. We don't mention it.) Anyway, that one scares me a lot.

Our numbers a creeping upwards, ever so slowly and there is tons, I don't exaggerate, tons of information and appeals and catchy videos and songs in the media, tabloid incl., to remain vigilant. It's a shaky calm. In my city, we currently have six patients in intensive care and 21 infected cases.

Virologists now assume that almost half of the infections are caused by aerosol transmission, almost the other half by larger droplets and only about ten percent by smear infections. While the larger droplets fall to the ground rapidly within an area of around one and a half meters - keeping your distance helps here - the microscopic aerosols can stay in the air for a longer time, spinning around and infecting someone in the process. Since they arise not only when coughing and sneezing, but also when speaking, singing, shouting and breathing, it is almost impossible for an infected person to not produce them.

This means that, especially in closed rooms, a distance of 1.5 meters is not necessarily sufficient to protect yourself against infections. Indoor restaurant seating, church services or open-plan offices are all places where many have been infected in the past. If you need to be in such a place, the best option at the moment, apart from wearing a mask, is to ventilate by opening the window, because this ensures that the air is diluted or exchanged. And keeping a distance. Same old. Same old.

As a rule of thumb, the fewer people we see, the shorter we stay in closed rooms and the more distance we keep, the better.

The orange man apparently said something like: "This thing's going away. It will go away like things go away." It's almost philosophical. Almost.

One of the brilliant Monty Pythons sketches is the one about the dead parrot. If you don't know it, watch it here, it's a good laugh and we all need that. Not only because not all things do go away the way things should go away. And then watch the new version here.

In other news, this week was our 41st anniversary - we forgot.

Also, my mother died 21 years ago - I remembered, but only because my sister called me on a pretext.

Meanwhile, it is pink week with grapes:

 

You Ain't Goin' Nowhere

Five decades ago, at the end of July, I am living at home with my parents and my big sister and my younger brother. My father has given me the task of reading the map and navigating him on the long journey to our holiday home on the coast in Denmark. This means that I can sit next to him in the passenger seat and not get carsick in the back. I love reading maps. I love school, I play the piano, I sing in a choir and I am so much looking forward to our seaside holiday where I can read all the books I packed. My parents are making jokes about how many.

Four decades ago, at the end of July, I am living with R in a tiny attic flat in Heidelberg and I have just decided to drop out of university with four months to go to my final exams. I know I never want to teach, research or lecture, instead I am working at the hospital, mostly mopping floors and sterilising bits and pieces. R is working for a landscape gardener. In the evenings, we sit by the river making plans about cycling all the way to Ireland. My parents stop talking to me.

Three decades ago, at the end of July, I am living in a small bungalow with a corrugated tin roof in a  tropical African country. I am married to R who is teaching chemistry and biology at the capital's polytechnic, our seven year old daughter is climbing trees and diving for crabs. My job as a business manager at a government training scheme has just come to an end and I am giving away/selling our things. In a few days we will move on to spend some time in India. Back in Germany, after my mother's latest suicide attempt, my father is preparing to run away in the middle of the night, he will be in hiding for several months.

Two decades ago, at the end of July, I am living in Germany again. We have just bought a house very similar to the one I grew up in, R is teaching and our daughter is preparing to move on to study and be an adult. I have just started my new job at the university medical faculty and at the obligatory health check-up for newcomers my blood works have come back with troubling results. I decide to ignore this and instead get ready for a three week long bike trip across Germany with R. My mother is dead, my father rejoicing, now that I am finally where he feels I belong, in Germany and at a university.

One decade ago, at the end of July, I am mostly at home resting in our house and garden. R is still teaching. Our daughter, after years of study, travel and work on several continents, is beginning to settle down on the other side of the planet.  By now, I have been out sick for 11 months and I am in no shape yet to go back to work. I am beginning to accept the reality of a livelong chronic illness. I buy an ebike and slowly begin cycling again, first minutes and hours, then a morning, a day, and eventually, after another year, a whole week. I have started to blog. My father is refusing to understand chronic, but tries to be helpful.

Today, at the end of July, I am still living with R in this house near the river. I am still working at the university, but part time and since mid March, from home during this strange pandemic. R is a retired teacher and a busy gardener. Our daughter is living with her small family on the other side of the planet and the pandemic has cut a big gash through all our plans and dreams. I am a virtual grandmother, my grandchild sings with me via social media. I cycle along the river. My father is in a retirement home. He is unwell and angry.

I blog. Some nights I sleep poorly. I am comfortably resigned. My energy is limited, I am not much in pain. I could miss a lot. I could complain, I could shout at the moon.

I read maps, there are places I think I still want, I still need to go to.

the keys to paradise

"Putting something called Nature on a pedestal and admiring it from afar does for the environment what patriarchy does for the figure of Woman. It is a paradoxical act of sadistic admiration."

Timothy Morton

". . . the belief that humanity will soon become involved in a deep and abiding worldwide partnership with nature. Millions of us will commit ourselves to reversing the long legacy of environmental degradation that threatens to destabilize the climate as well as the great ecologies that sustain life on Earth. We must develop a vast stewardship initiative, which will become the great work of our time. Fortunately, there are as many ways to serve the Earth as there are people willing to engage in this vast restoration project. It includes nothing less than stabilizing the planet’s climate as well as saving ourselves."

John Todd

We could if we wanted to. But, ahh, distraction, distraction. Two days ago, I got sidetracked while I was searching online for a specific white cotton vest for my father and before I knew it, I was contemplating purchasing various underwear items I did not need to restock. I refrained, because: size charts, how do they work? Since then, this link keeps popping up to a site listing "the 10 female clothing items men hate". I am not even tempted, what do I care. As a form of interweb punishment I have since received an invitation, I kid you not, to view bargain funeral cars. There could be a message here.

virologists rule

If you read just one more article about corona, read this whole interview with Dr. Fauci on Medscape

 One quote:

"Two things. One, I just try to express how much I admire the real heroes on the front line for getting in there every day and essentially putting themselves at risk. I'm operating from a different vantage point where I am, but I almost miss the days of being in the trenches with you. So that's the first thing.
The second thing is that, you know, this is so stressful for all of us. I think we have to remember that we're gonna get through this. This is not something that's gonna be forever. We're gonna get through it. It's gonna be over. And we're going to look back and hopefully say we really gave it our best shot. And it's gonna be over from two standpoints: It's going to be over from a public health standpoint if we get it right, public health–wise.
But I think science and good biomedical research are also going to come to the rescue because we're going to get a vaccine, hopefully sooner rather than later, and we will get effective therapeutics. So for the people on the frontlines and in the trenches, hang in there with us. We're all in it together and we're gonna get through it. So that's my message to them."

Apparently, the number of medical students applying to specialise in virology has quadrupled in recent months. At least at the university where I work. 

home office

So there I was early, very early one morning, long before day break and even earlier than the birds, too exhausted to go back to sleep. The woman from the corner house, the painter who howls at the moon, had just shattered another glass bottle onto her driveway, throwing it out of her upstairs bathroom window with many curse words and threats. She is not boozing, several time that night it was empty water bottles she threw out, an expensive French brand, volcanic source, with a 1 Euro refund per bottle.

I lay there contemplating again if I should do something, go over and ring her door bell and offer my help and risk getting a bottle whacked over my head. Once again, I reprimanded myself for not having done that weeks ago, before she started with the throwing of glass and china and that walking over there in the dark would be tricky what with all the shards on her garden path. And then I started worrying whether I should wear a mask or not and well, I fell asleep again, dreaming of my mother.

The way she would climb onto the upstairs window ledge threatening to jump because we didn't tidy up our room.

In the morning, I wrote an email to the social psychiatric helpline about the scenario, bottles and howling and cursing and please, please, no police, and ended it with asking for a call back. Then I tried to delete the email but too late.

An hour later, someone called me, one of these firm female voices, professionally emphatic, and we had a decent enough talk and she took down notes and described the possible steps, i.e. a letter offering help, followed by a house call, no pressure, all voluntarily, but possibly not until sometime in August and that we should only consider calling the cops if she keeps it up with the bottle throwing and noise disruption at night and while I tried to frantically pedal back explaining that there was a lot more noise from neighbours revving their expensive cars and leaf blowers and hedge cutters and that it was her safety I was concerned for, the police arrived. I almost started to cry but it turns out, another neighbour was responsible for that and she never opened her door and stayed quiet as a mouse. In fairness, the professionally emphatic female on the phone seemed to get my point and we exchanged numbers and decided to keep an eye on things. Whatever that implies.

Why do I do stuff like that? That woman did not have the time of day for me in all the years we lived here and I have one bad dream about my mother and cannot keep my mouth shut.

In other news, I am officially on holidays. In fact, while busily working from home since mid March, due to pandemic measures, I have lost touch of my holiday entitlement and now must take at least one week every month until the end of the year or else. Also, I was informed by HR that since the beginning of my pandemic related home office confinement I have worked far more than my contract hours and must stop doing that as home office and overtime are mutually exclusive concepts. I reacted by collapsing into a deep semi coma of exhaustion and have now told R that I intend to sleep for the next three days. At least. Seriously.

The video above is the free entertainment laid on for us on the patio. The one below is music for a Friday.

Surprise, July so far has been cool and wet. Cool-ish and wet-ish. We are holding it together at the fort here, plenty of gardening and housekeeping and home office to bring in the dough.

I sort of lost it for a bit after I read about the risks to airline travel regardless of whatever air filter system gadgets and seat spacing. One of the eminent virologists told a reporter that he would only go on an airplane at a push and then wearing a protective suit and those super duper masks and for the life of me, I cannot see myself on a 33 hrs trip geared up that way, never mind the stop overs. Maybe on a couple of cargo ships? And I read the bit about mild cases who after a speedy recovery have developed neurological symptoms (tremors, balance loss, encephalitis, more here) and then the findings of how the virus attacks heart cells (more here).

Before that, I was skipping about asking people to dig deep into their creative thoughts and to come up with positive stuff and no more hankering after our has-been normal life and moaning about what we cannot change. Acceptance, I shouted with a smile. Should have known I was way over the top.

This is something that happens to other people in other times; something you might imagine, might read about – not experience. But it is real, it is happening. The plague is back. It never went away. Welcome to the future. No, welcome to the present, to the reality of an ineradicable highly contagious and sometimes fatal virus. There might be a vaccine for it at some stage, as there is for measles. There might not be, as there is not for HIV. A reliable treatment might be developed, as there is for HIV. Or it might not be, like measles.

In any event, there is a gap between what we know about our situation and what our gut believes, a gap that creates confusion, promotes outrage over inconveniences, complacency after early successes. We “know” what’s happening, but we don’t quite “feel” it. Our collective gut is still telling us normality is just around the corner. The reality has been slow to sink in because it’s beyond our privileged experience.

As you will yourself into the reality you perhaps start to understand how the millions before you didn’t understand either, didn’t read the signs, didn’t grasp calamity unfolding, were unprepared, were lost in history’s turmoil, thought their mass grave impossible even as they dug it. We’re out of practice. Mass disasters don’t happen here, not in our lifetime. The plagues and total wars and famines and deaths in the thousands and millions are confined to television screens. Even our hard times remain relatively soft in the broader, longer scheme of things. Other people’s individual tragedies have gone on regardless. In groups sometimes, in planeloads. Communities when fire or flood or landslide tear through. Bad, terrible, but this, this indiscriminate imposition … on everyone? And slowly the comprehension comes – it has always been everyone.

The single diagnosis and mass verdict, the individual execution and the genocide: Each one, one person, however many. One person facing mortality. We’re born to this. We will get used to it. Adapting is what we do best.

Michael Pascoe

We have a bit of a drop in temperatures, even a few heavy showers. But summer, nevertheless.

After the last month's heavy cluster of infections in the meat packing plant and the expected media frenzy about animal welfare and underpaid seasonal workers from Eastern Europe, we wake up to the news that in a neighbouring town, several members of the local Baptist church got symptoms and the entire congregation has been tested and all (!) are positive. All the singing and praising, well done, 500+ people are now in quarantine.

My father has been moved to a geriatric intermediate care facility for the next whatever how many weeks. He is still angry but slowly realising that he has to work on his cunning and charm to make do. The virus restrictions are complicating matters, he thinks we are all scared ninnies but has resigned to play along for a while. Anyway, picture a 91-year old in bed, unable to stand or walk for the next 12 or so weeks if at all, with his phone in one hand and his tv remote control in the other. He has a nice sunny room with a balcony all by himself, meals are served at his wish and a string of physiotherapists, doctors and carers are coming and going, like a hen house, he tells me.

When I call him, I don't get a word in one way or another, I listen until he declares the call finished and afterwards I search my soul for feelings.

Here is a picture of the cycle path along the river, looking north. That spiky church tower in the distance on the left, that's as far as I'll cycle, then I am almost home.

A few weeks ago, one of our big weekly papers asked seven leading experts in the fields of virology and epidemiology (from Germany, the UK and the US) six questions on the corona pandemic.

The last and sixth question was:

When do you think our life will be the same as it was before the pandemic?

These are the answers.

Expert no. 1: I wish I could answer that. I'm afraid we'll have to live with restrictions for quite a while. It will probably only be really normal again if we have an approved vaccine and a good part of us has been vaccinated.

Expert no. 2: Only when we have a vaccine and enough people have been vaccinated to achieve herd immunity. But I also want to ask people to think about what kind of normalcy we want to return to. In many countries, a large number of older people have died in care facilities. I want to ask people to think about the circumstances that led to it. This also includes the underlying problem of neglecting older people. As a society, we can and should do better.

Expert no. 3: The corona pandemic has made many people aware that, despite technological developments, there can still be uncontrollable events that come from outside bringing, in addition to significant medical consequences, also economic and social cuts. A bit of the "lightness of being" has been taken away from modern society.

Expert no. 4: Never.

Expert no. 5: I believe and hope that in some areas, our life will not be the same as it used to be. Perhaps in the future there will be less travel, less presence culture, fewer meetings and more home office and overall improved local structures? The pandemic has shown many inequalities and many weaknesses in our existing systems and I think it should serve as a wake-up call.
I think that many of the good things in life, like close social contacts, being with a lot of people, festivals, big weddings, going out, going out to eat, celebrating, will probably only be possible with a vaccine with the "old" lightheartedness.

Expert no. 6: I think the pandemic will have a lasting impact on our social interactions, on closeness and distance to other people, and on attitudes towards hygiene in our lives. People will be more careful with each other for a very long time, many will avoid mass events for some time and travel differently. We will be ready to invest a larger proportion of our economy to prepare and prevent further pandemics, which will affect different professional groups. Hopefully there will be an intensive debate about media, information, influence and truth - and there will be a fresh exploration of the basis on which social decisions are made and should be in the future.

Expert no.7: Life goes on. After this pandemic, we will have developed a new culture of dealing with each other that will change us in the long term. I sincerely hope that as part of this new culture we will be able to redevelop ease and impartiality.

songs and pictures

Today, Friday, music day, I have the same song in two versions. There is a third version, which is the one I have been singing to my myself all day.  To the extent that R has politely asked me to cut it out.

And at the end of the week I am also tired. So just some pictures of and from the garden. The raspberry harvest is massive, the freezer is packed, R is making jam and clafoutis.

The blackcurrants are already soaking in gin.

The onions are now drying in the wood shed

and that patch of wildflower is the square experiment, I insisted on leaving a section of the lawn go wild and with a little help from a seed packet, this is what happened. Apart from the poppy, there are eight other different flowering plants - so far.

The grapes ripen while we watch,

the lilies are just lilies

and the feijoa tree is somewhat camera shy, but it is simply loaded with blossoms and every morning buzzing with bumble bees, giving us hope of some fruit eventually.

imagine the world anew

I try to cycle for while every day, always the same long loop - as we call it -, about 10 km, 35 mins at best. I check the sky for rain and get on with it, despite aching joints or that gruesome tiredness (fatigue, my doctor calls it, ever so proper). First I wind my way southwards through our suburb, past the string of old village houses, timber framed, medieval, low roofs, the playground, the fish shop, the pharmacy, the school yards, the park where elderly men wearing masks play boules, the villas from the Wilhelminian era with their high windows and fancy stucco fronts and topiary framing the garden gates, and so on until I turn sharp left and roll down towards the ferry and onto the bike path along the river. If I needed to, I could cycle north on this path all the way to the Dutch coast or south all the way to the source in Switzerland, always with the river beside me, on and on - I have almost done it both ways. It's nice but tedious in places.

But at that spot, here where the ferry crosses and I have rolled down that small hill, it's gorgeous. The river is like a sheet of blue green wavy glass, swans and ducks and barges and rowing boats, there are the castles on the top of the hills on the other side amid thick forest, the light, the clear air, and I could sing it's so lovely and expansive and pleasant. And I fly all the way back, pedalling faster and faster.

Listen to this short text by Arundhati Roy.

I think more and more that we are facing our one and only chance as humans to find our real potential at last. Provided we can shake off the distractions from these nasty old men and their empty dreams of money and power.

Historically, pandemics have forced humans to break with the past and imagine their world anew. This one is no different. It is a portal, a gateway between one world and the next. We can choose to walk through it, dragging the carcasses of our prejudice and hatred, our avarice, our data banks and dead ideas, our dead rivers and smoky skies behind us. Or we can walk through lightly, with little luggage, ready to imagine another world. And ready to fight for it.

"Leggi almeno, tiranna infedele"

Let me tell you about a man I have known all my life. He is stubborn, harsh but fair in his judgements, very intelligent, unforgiving and steadfast. He loves a debate, any good argument, provided it is presented with conviction, knowledge and a decent sense of humour. He abhors smooth talkers, smart alecks, shower offers, fools pretending to be clever. He has no tolerance for dawdling. His sense of direction is excellent. He can name the constellations in the sky without hesitation and recite Homer's Iliad until you ask him to please stop it, that yes, you get his point. Then he will grin. Like a schoolboy.

If asked (but who would dare to) he would name as his principles, decency and punctuality. If asked, you would need to know and recite the five steps of the scientific method (observation, hypothesis, prediction, experiment, confirmation) without hesitating. As regards music, music is for listening, never background noise. He loves opera despite or maybe because of the fact that it puts him to sleep.

He hated the lockdown and as soon as the restrictions were lifted, he picked up all his regular habits. Lunch every weekday at the Italian restaurant, no more meals on wheels in his lonely kitchen. On Sunday a nice drive to the country inn. Shopping every Wednesday (sourdough bread, cheese, fruit, coffee and tea, dark chocolate and shortbread).

His difficulties walking, he claims, are due to being lazy and occasionally, he sets out exercise regimens. On paper only.

On his last shopping spree, with a supermarket shopping cart as his walking aid - as usual -, he found that the lift back to the underground carpark was out of order and since stairs are not an option, he decided to push the shopping cart down the spiralling downhill car ramp. The loaded shopping cart. The shopping cart that has no breaks which pulled him faster and faster down the ramp until he fell and fractured his left leg in several places.

He is stubborn, I repeat myself, I know.

He convinced the people who ran to his help that he was ok and no, there was no need to call an ambulance. With help, he made it to his car and when someone offered to drive him home, he accepted. Reluctantly. Some kind people did that, drove him home, parked his car for him, brought him indoors, unpacked his shopping and reluctantly left him there to walk back to the shopping center car park.

Alone at home, he was scared for a while. (That is my interpretation.)

His biggest fear is illness, he faints at the sight of blood (it's not his fault or weakness, it's called vasovagal syncope) and in any case, in his opinion, doctors these days are too young and uppity.

But he felt weak, physically that is, and in pain and also, what about dinner. He picked up the phone. Eventually.

He is now recovering from surgery, a metal plate in his leg, no standing or walking for at least ten weeks. After 48 hrs of confusion and disorientation, he is now furious with everybody and everything. And to demonstrate his fury, he has removed the venous access, the painkiller infusions and all the other useless stuff.

By the end of next week, he will be transferred to temporary geriatric rehabilitation in a newly built assisted living facility. We continue to stress the word temporary, although we fervently hope it will become permanent.

Currently, he is not speaking to any of us.

Last night, unable to sleep I was fighting waves of pity for him and of course, my fear of finally losing his affection and acceptance forever. By the time the birds started to sing, I realised that in my place, he would not hesitate for a second to pack me off to the next care home around the corner.