Spring and the Virus

The other day was so warm and sunny I decided to take my two babies outside for a little fresh air.  Spring appears to be here, and if not for the virus people would be rejoicing.  Instead we are all under quarantine and the world as we know it has pretty much stopped.  Sitting on the threshold of my front door, it seemed like any other early spring day.  The three of us enjoyed it.

My life revolves around my little world.

Horse Tales

I began to think about my horsey years when I read another blog by a person who also loves horses.  This picture is of me and my horse BJ.  It was taken at the farm where I boarded him.........called Trapho Farm.  He was a dream come true.  The second picture is of me and Darby, my second horse.  After I sold Darby I saw his name in the paper for winning a ribbon at a dressage competition with his new owner.  I had to sell both of these horses against my will.  I still feel teary when I think of it.

 Before I had my own, I rode horses at riding stables as a child every chance I got, hung around the race track in Bangor, and generally made myself present whenever a horse opportunity presented itself.  I was a dressage fan and took lessons for many years before I had my own horse.  I learned the vocabulary and all the commands.  I guess my fondness for drama and pageantry drew me to the ritualistic performance of horse and rider together, the rules and regulations, the precision (or at least the striving for precision), the quest for harmony and subtle communication between horse and rider.

 Of course there were trail rides as well.  I can still feel the strange sensation of riding bareback on Peach, a huge gray draft horse, as he swam across a river that flowed through the pasture.  He loved the water.  Those were some of the happiest years of my life, when I was defined  by how well I could perform a "shoulder in" or how gracefully I could "sit the trot at K."

My two kids were young then, and we had a pony as well.  Neither one of them really loved the horse world the way I did, but they participated in it all with good humor.  It seems to me that it was one well-defined chapter of my life.  I was wife, mother, horsewoman.  I made cupcakes for school  holidays and costumes for school plays.  I went to PTA meetings.  I passed out cups of fluoride.  I  printed the PTA newspaper.  This was, I suppose, the second chapter of adulthood after my life as a psychiatric Social Worker.  Although there is some overlap, they seem very separate to me, very different. 

The one constant from the moment I was able to hold a pencil or a crayon, was making art.

Me in Pastel, Flowers in Acrylic

I certainly hope any readers are glad to see this self-portrait, because it has taken me over an hour to figure out how to post pictures.....(new computer, new printer).  Anyway, this was done just a couple of weeks ago in pastel.  I have been experimenting with pastels for months now............for so long that I have worn out my enthusiasm and gone all the way back to acrylic paints.  I like pastel, and my recent recent obsession with the medium has produced many, many, many pieces with various subject matter.  The irksome fact that I had only 9x12 pastel paper finally drove me to move on.  I have just completed my first acrylic painting in many years. It's about 3 1/2 feet tall, so satisfied my need to get a good big image.  I used up most of my paint doing it, so I'll have to call it quits until I get more money at the beginning of the month.  I do like the painting, though and feel good about going back to acrylics.  It seems to be my medium at least at this point. 

We continue to deal with the plague........it's something I obviously have to take seriously, even as I sit sequestered in my little house in my little town at the end of the country.  It all seems so far away and unreal.  There are few consequences here.  We are used to being alone (why else would we live here?), and daily life has not changed.  I went to the grocery store day before yesterday and found it unchanged except there was no chicken at the meat counter.  The toilet paper crisis has apparently not reached us yet, nor is there any perceptible difference in the number of shoppers (ten or fifteen at a time).  The only personal consequences for me is the difficulty getting food for my animals.  The chickens (who are living in the attached shed) ran out of food because Chewy.com is very behind delivering orders.  They are dining on bread and popcorn at the moment, but my friend Jim will be going to the big city today, Calais, to work and will pick up some layer pellets there for them at the feed store.  That store is as big as a small city so I can't imagine they are out of chicken feed.

Speaking of the chickens, I noticed this morning that their friends the rats are eating their eggs.  I don't like eggs myself, so I don't care.  However, I do have to be careful when I open the kitchen door to make sure they don't get in the house.  My live and let live philosophy does not include allowing rodents in the house.  Somehow I need to get the chickens outside within a week.  The people who inspect properties that receive housing assistance, as I do, will not smile on rodents so close to the living quarters.  (The chickens are there only because I can't walk out to their house in the yard.)  Luckily I put together a small chicken coop before I became so handicapped and it is sitting outside the back door.  Had I known we would get so little snow, I might not have put them in the shed anyway, but I did.  I knew I wouldn't be able to play farmer with my present handicap, so I needed to have them where I could easily take care of them.  How I will be able to accomplish the whole process, I really don't know.  I only know that I will.

Woe is me, along with the rest of the world.......

So, the big news is about the Corona virus (I think that's its name), which I have pretty much ignored until now.  My life is quite isolated even in normal times, but now the whole world is joining me.  It is not self imposed for the general public.  Day after day the newspaper is full of suggestions for handling "aloneness."  Since I am part of the "at risk" population because of my age, it's good that I don't have that angst that comes from lack of social interaction.  I don't even understand it, can't imagine why being alone is such a problem.  Especially I am amazed by the trauma it seems to be that children are forced to spend the day with their parents.  Yesterday I read an article in the paper about how to entertain your kids when they are out of school, reminding me of my amazement that children have to be "entertained."  It never occurred to me that I had to entertain my kids, and certainly as a child myself I would have been confused and irritated if my parents tried to interfere with my days.  Luckily their idea of child rearing was "go outside and don't come back until mealtime." After supper we went back outside and were told to come home when the street lights came on.  Two little cousins lived with us and my mother took care of three others during the day as well.  All of us disappeared as soon as breakfast was over, not to be seen until lunchtime.  We all went our separate ways. 

I guess the world was a safer place then, or at least we thought it was.  Our street was a short hill lined with houses on both sides, separated by driveways.  It was a poor neighborhood and a couple of the buildings were run-down apartments populated mostly by alcoholics (four of whom were relatives who lived next door).  There was a park around the corner with the kind of playground equipment that people today consider too dangerous.  We spent time there sometimes, but mostly made our way through the steeply wooded area across the street to Kenduskeag Stream.  Today they have white water canoe races there in the spring, but then it was a playground for us.  There was an old covered bridge there that was no longer even connected to a road. We used it as shelter from bad weather.  We jumped from rock to rock as the rapids thrashed around us............well, my point is that the articles in the paper seem beside the point to me.  My own children don't have kids, so I am totally out of touch.
But I digress..........

So I watch the world thrashing around trying to control this virus, but I am really not alarmed.  The consequences for me leave no room to worry about the big picture.  For me what it means is that I now have to postpone the surgery on my hip (again).  I have lived as an invalid since last June waiting for my own health to improve enough for surgery.  Now my anemia is gone, my pneumonia is gone, my lungs are at least acceptable.  What was a mild limp has blossomed into a hip joint so deteriorated that I can't walk without a walker.  I can't sleep for the pain.

Well, enough of the "woe is me" talk.  This is the first time in my life I have been physically handicapped.  I don't like it.  The effect of the virus has, in my mind, shriveled down to a personal level.  True, I won't die from a painful hip, but I can't help being seriously irked by my little personal inconvenience.

Sorry about that :-).