PANDEMIC DIARY: DAY 100

My bike isn’t a bike at all, actually a recumbent trike. It has three wheels, two in front and the drive wheel behind the seat. Still a long history with bicycles and I call everything that moves under pedal power a bike. My normal is to ride for an hour first thing in the morning, about 10 miles of flat, smooth streets in my neighborhood, never straying more than 5 blocks from my house. That makes me an authority on every crack, bump and undulation along the route. There is one short descent where I roll out for a couple of hundred feet followed by a climb where I have to gear down to regain the lost elevation. The work is probably more important now than ever before. Good cardiovascular exercise is critical to both my physical well being and a balanced psyche. After 9:00 a.m. my day turns pretty much sedentary. With pandemic forecast through the next year I don’t know what I’ll do come cold weather; maybe buy a stationary exercise bike. 

I take breakfast after my ride on the patio if I’m cooking on the grill or cold cereal inside. Cereal isn’t tasty as eggs and sausage but I can watch the bird feeders from the kitchen window. Today my favorite customers were intimidated by starlings on the peanut feeder and four, young sibling squirrels. They have to work long and hard for a sunflower seed but they monopolize the feeder and keep the finches away. So I watch their tactics and theorize how I can squirrel-proof the feeder. I’ll be working on that later. Squirrels have a reputation, well deserved no less, for being clever if not shrewd. I don’t think so; relentless is a better word for their quest for food. They are rodents, tree rats with gnawing teeth that never stop growing. That’s why they can chew holes in metal bird feeders and seemingly indestructible obstacles. They don’t have anything better to do. 

Starlings and squirrels are just trying to earn a living; I know that. They can’t help it that DNA only knows one tune. They are simply replicating links in a long chain; in that regard, not that different than humans. The fact that I like titmice and woodpeckers is about me and I lure them to my patio with their favorite food. But it also attracts critters that I didn’t invite. Extending privilege to some and not others doesn’t make me a racist when it applies to different species. Still it is what it is, my intentions are selective and exclusively targeted. I don’t wish starlings or squirrels harm, just stacking the cards so my favorites don’t have to work so hard. The others are on their own but enforcing my rules is impossible. Between people, the privilege paradigm discriminates against people we don’t identify with, it goes tribal in a heartbeat and you get racism, Nationalism or both. 

Nature instills in us a preference to keep company and support of our own kind; not just other people, people who look and behave the same as us. But evolution has equipped us with a revolutionary tool, the cerebral cortex. Squirrels have them too but too small to draw comparisons. Our cortex allows us to be subjective, to correlate unrelated bits of information and make predictions. It’s like writing. If you have enough pages you can write a very long story with multiple plots and the human cerebral cortex has more pages than we can count. But often, most often, we default to the old, prehistoric, instinctive brain where fight & flight call the shots. In that mode we don’t care for nuance nor do we pause to weight the options. Privilege is hardwired into the old brain. That paleolithic legacy began with bonds between blood relatives and can extend to others in our tribe. Still we can override the reflex, embracing and rewarding strangers when it makes sense. 

When I began this story I was making the segue from physical exercise to watching birds at the peanut feeder. Now I’m exercising the cerebral cortex, in the teacher-talk mode. But humans are addicted to a conscious preoccupation with self. As far as we know, we are unique among other mammals in that we think about what other people may be thinking. The fact that we think about thinking at all is testament to that cerebral cortex. I doubt any squirrel has ever pondered the significance of “Why?” Still, my big brain is tasked with making my sunflower seed feeder squirrel proof.  

In the current state of pandemic I think a lot about what my countrymen are thinking about. All around me people are exploiting privilege, calling it “Liberty” as if it makes us immune to the virus. Americans are subdivided into artificial, ideological tribes where feeling good in the moment is preferable to addressing risky behavior and bad news looming on the horizon. This is day 100 and it feels like the first mile of a marathon. 

DEAR DIARY: DAY 94

I’ve been picking away at my guitar, making recognizable noise and I’ve been singing. The singing is slow and weak but I get to say words out loud and there is a story there if I make it thru the last verse. I go long stretches without making a sound and like anything else that you want to manage; use it or lose it. After several repetitions of the song I dial up the volume and reach for a little timbre. 

My song book has been pared down to about 8 or 10 songs that sound good no matter the source. I can read them as poetry and they sound great without the melody. The song I do most, do best is “Wonderful World”. The line I like to vocalize goes, “I hear babies cry and I watch them grow, they’ll learn much more than I’ll ever know.” Then I move on to “Saint James Infirmary Blues”. The louder the better. Seems grimly appropriate during our coronavirus ordeal. A couple of rounds and I thumb ahead to “Summertime, and the living is easy.” I do both St. James & Summertime in the key of Am. I like the Dm chord and it drops in at just the right time in both songs. 

Before I finish, I do a couple of rounds of “Over The Rainbow.” In Wizard of Oz, Dorothy just wanted to get back to Kansas. “Birds fly, over the rainbow, why then oh why can’t I?” I’m not enthralled with Kansas but I identify with being trapped in a strange, other world. I will have sung enough, worked both hands on the guitar and move on to something else but often come back for an encore.

It feels like everyone in my realm has moved on, as if the virus has given us a reprieve but we all know better. It may not kill you but then almost dead with scarred lungs isn't how I want to spend the rest of my 80's. Day 94 and who knows, maybe another 400 days before we get good news. People have to go to work and some would rather risk infection than change their behavior. Politics and public outcry against police brutality compete for front page headlines. Still, I’m too old to be taking chances; so if I don't have to go out it's stay home, wash my hands, wear a mask and keep distance from people. 

DEAR DIARY: DAY 87

Three months ago, “New Normal” was just starting to float around but it was thin on context. I tend to be the last one in the room to get the message but I am catching up. Yesterday, for the first time in months, I went to the grocery store. Earlier I registered with the online shopping service at HyVee grocery store in Belton, MO. I learned how to navigate the shopping software and ordered resupply for my pantry. I used the search bar to find items, picked the date and time I wanted to pick it up, placed the order and then wait. On my chosen date, at the appointed hour, I received a text message. My stuff was ready. So I drove to the store, parked in the numbered spaces near the pharmacy entrance, called the number they provided. Soon a young dude with a face mask brings a cart with my order, puts it in the back of my truck, shows me the receipt and tucks it inside one of the paper bags. When I got home, everything I ordered was there. Due to a few sale prices, my total was less than I had been quoted. 

My truck needs an oil change. New Normal: make an appointment, same place, same people but I’ll take a lawn chair, park in the lot, call the manager and tell him my keys are in the truck. They will do the service wearing rubber gloves and mask while I sit in the shade outside. He will call me back with the amount, I’ll write a cheque, hand it through the door and I’ll wipe everything down before I drive home. Even outside, I’ll keep my mask in place. New Normal. 

My coffee group has begun to meet again. Our old meet up, Paneras, is open but too confined for distancing so my amigos bring their coffee and a lawn chair to a public park where we can distance in the shade or the sunshine, whichever feels better. I went to a lunch gathering with them a few days ago. The group is serious about distancing. Folks who came late and wanted to squeeze in to a space appropriate for the Old Normal were rebuffed summarily and sent off to wide open space. Outside, with a breeze you still distance; our resident expert on nearly everything (he really is well read, well versed but sometimes a little overbearing) informed us that under those conditions you don’t need the mask. He took his off but the rest of us wore ours. If you have something to offer you may need to shout or repeat it but we’ve been  alone so much, it feels like a bonus. 

The New Normal is just what they said it would be. The experts have a much better grip on how the virus works now, what we need to be concerned with and what not, and there is a little wiggle room after all. But the rule hasn’t changed; wear a mask, wash your hands and distance. Don’t assume anything other than, everyone is a potential virus bomb. Like with guns, treat them all as if they are loaded. 

I have a couple of standing invitations to come-hangout at distance. One of these days I’ll do more of that. Early evening is the time when I feel most isolated. It’s when I want to be human, socialize, make eye contact. Television only moves the bubble so far. I try to sympathize with network programmers; they are about out of timely entertainment. Old movies are sandwiched in between commercials; you get a 7 minute sales pitch for a pharmaceutical drug that can cure something but it may also kill you if you have any of a dozen common conditions. Just when you think they are returning to the old Patrick Swayze movie they reboot with Joe Namath or Tom Selleck pitching unnecessary insurance or reverse mortgages. I play a lot of solitaire and mahjong. I’m almost backed into the corner where I have to choose between Mayberry RFD and Hogan’s Heroes. Ron Howard is 66 years old now but Opie Taylor will be a kid with a fishing pole forever. 

DEAR DIARY: DAY 80

One of my favorite quotes comes from Joseph Campbell. His lifework elevated Myth and mythology from ancient fables to include modern day allegory. He said, “Participate joyfully in the sorrows of the world. We cannot cure the world of sorrows but we can choose to live in joy.”  His words rang true with a clear eyed view of man's mortal journey. Campbell was telling us to take the high road when sorrows prevail. You only live once and all you can put your hands on is the here & now. My journey has been a rational unfolding where sorrows were either small or far removed. Buying into his rhetoric was just that. With great timing, good fortune, sufficient diligence and White Privilege my life story has been a situation comedy with a happy ending. I’ve never had to endure grim sorrows that that rain down everywhere except for where I am at the time. 

I could always dodge the weight of a sorrowful world. Maybe I’m too old now. Over time there must be a cumulative effect; what was just, ‘that’s too bad’ at the time gains weight and a deeper meaning. The result is deferred sorrow. The horrors of war and our collective inhumanity to each other either compounds with age or it makes you go numb. In the old days I never saw sorrow coming and when it washed over people like spring floods across bean fields all I could do was move my feet and wonder, ‘. . . what is this about?’. But this one, I see it coming. 

It took a while for ‘Pandemic’ to register but it did. No safe place on the planet. I will have to hibernate for the next year. Mankind is just begun to suffer a large dose of sorrow. Then, just as Americans are trying to find the handle, another unarmed black man dies, on film, of police brutality. This sorrow on top of the other was too much and now we’ve regressed back to burning, throwing bricks, breaking glass, tear gas, rubber bullets, and billy clubs. I knew it would come back around someday but I wasn’t ready again. I fear. I never had the foresight to do that before. All I can do is stay home and avoid the virus but I’m afraid for so many poor people of color. It seems like a Catch-22. If the virus doesn’t get you the police will.

If you put good people in a corrupted culture, they will either assimilate or be rejected. In order to survive and advance a policeman can not push back against bad policy and practice. After the first Gulf War in 1990, police officers who served with the National Guard returned to their beats with aggressive, military, warrior attitudes. Waging war on the bad guys was addictive. Not that racism wasn’t already flourishing in police ranks but it began to surface with tacit approval. Over 30 years, police departments have morphed into military units with an us vs. them sensibility. White citizens get the benefit of doubt but law enforcement's fundamental priority is to have their way, if not by intimidation then by force, not unlike chivalry among knights in the middle ages. 

Since emancipation, police departments realized the new dilemma, how to keep blacks contained? How do we make them conform to what we think is their rightful place? Not just the South; there was little or no tolerance for them in the North either. 160 years later, unarmed black men and women are still dying at the hands of white policemen. When challenged, authorities do what every smart lawyer does; blame the victim, make token gestures and resume the injustice. 

White privilege has been so comfortable for so long we tend to see that norm as a God given right. When you’ve enjoyed privilege all of your life, then you have to live with a just and fair share of equality it feels like you are being punished. That is where we are. I fear for my country. I fear for white men and women who champion brutal police and condemn people of color for their pigment and a subculture they were funneled into like cattle at the slaughter house. I don’t know what I would do if I were black. I’ve never had to live with this  kind of deep, wide sorrow. Leadership in Government is a myth. Their most important concerns are getting reelected, from the White House down to local mayors and police chiefs. Joseph Campbell is telling me to participate joyfully because it’s all there is. My brain tells me that he is correct but my gut doesn’t want to go in harm’s way just yet. White privilege; easy to hate but hard to let go. 

DEAR DIARY: DAY 74

I’m having a deja vu moment. I watched a movie last night, one I’ve revisited often; can’t say how many times. But it must have been removed long enough that I forgot how a movie can pull you in and how invested you can get with reflections and feelings. The characters and the plot touch enough buttons that you identify at several levels. This was that movie and I had forgotten. So I think I remember writing about this at one time or another but it feels new again. 

The story revolves around ‘Seabiscuit’ a famous racehorse but the story itself is about the human condition. Through the 1920’s and the Great Depression people, even rich people, they struggled with the cards they had been dealt and leaned on each other out of mutual need. In the end, the horse rises to save the day. In short summary, the hook line for the whole movie was introduced early in the plot by the trainer, in defense of the horse. “You don’t throw a whole life away just because he’s banged up a little.” Near the end of the movie the owner resorts to the same line in defense of the jockey. Over and over I got the message, we are all broken toys and we need each other. 

This morning, as my coffee maker began its bubbly, burping I listened to the news. In Minneapolis, MN, in the midst of pandemic, another unarmed black man died in police custody. A white officer had pinned his neck to the ground with his knee for over 7 minutes before the man died. Several days later, demonstrations continue to ferment with violence, looting and burning buildings. More deja vu, race riots from the 1960’s. Not just Minnesota, smoke was rising from coast to coast, north and south. 

Mayors and civic leaders plead for restraint and due process while protestors rightfully question: How far has restraint and due process gotten us in the last 20 years? Civic leaders note, this is not protest. It is nothing less than violent, criminal activity against businesses and citizens that had nothing to do with the killing. I heard black religious leaders taking that position and tended agreed at first but then it started to ring of hypocrisy.

The problem with race relations and police tactics is not that minorities make bad decisions or that there are a few bad apples in the power grid. It is not about individuals rather, it conforms to a racial, cultural pattern of privilege and discrimination that has been systematically ingrained. We of the white race have great difficulty dealing with the “beam in our own eye” (Jesus’ sermon on the mount). It feels like a universal constant that prevails on the merit of its own hyperbole. Once upon a time, I think I was in college; someone I respected and admired shared his long suffering, hard earned wisdom. He said, “There are three corrupt institutions in this country that hide behind a thin veil of noble pretense. There is the legal system from the Congress to the Supreme Court down to local law enforcement. Then, there are banks and insurance companies. They are hand holding, kissing cousins. All three entities are predicated on and committed to advancing and preserving the status quo.” In simple language that means, power and wealth are interchangeable and should remain in the hands of the rich and powerful. . . if God didn’t want them in charge he would not have put them there. There need be a vertical hierarchy that allows for limited mobility, for a privileged few. Anybody can rise but not everybody. In order to have winners, there must be losers. It is incumbent on the power class to manipulate the culture to their own advantage. The underclass provides a pool of semi-slave, beast of burden resources to be spent in the pursuit of profit. In any case, the military doesn’t flinch in the clear eyed truth. Rank has its privilege. 

I am not an expert on anything but I do know something about ghetto culture and white privilege. My people survived the Great Depression. We rose along with millions of other WW2 people from sharecroppers to home owners. But more than the good timing and hard work, we were white Christians, in the right place at the right time. That is so obvious in my experience but so unthinkable for most of my peers; it boggles my mind.  

So, in less than 12 hours I’ve been down memory lane with mankind’s truly noble story (Seabiscuit) and been jerked back to denial and hypocrisy (America’s appetite for racist classism.) As much as we do need each other it is nigh impossible to self diagnose the curse we’ve come to depend on. I’ve been sheltered and blessed with white/male/christian privilege all my life. Whatever my input, it was necessary but my station in life has been less about me and more about the path I was on. George Floyd is dead today and people of color everywhere are pissed. They are not going to get over it. You can’t flourish in a system that preys on the underclass (poor people of color) and think they will get over it just because they did last time. Treyvon Martin is still dead and his murderer is free but it is old news. But black people have not forgotten. Every time the law is written to protect law enforcement (status quo) first suspects can be reduced to animals, unarmed people of color will be killed as a matter of protocol and their people are going to set things on fire. Flourishing at the expense of the underclass; that is another story by itself and way-too much for me to take on by myself. 

DEAR DIARY; DAY 65

Writing about one’s thoughts and feelings while a pandemic is sweeping the planet is a challenge. In fact, it is more about keeping busy and staying sane. At first I avoided news, it was all bad. I listened to music and watched reruns on television. By now we understand that pandemics are not new and that civilization has weathered the storm every time. The Black Death came and went in the 14th century with a death toll that stagers the imagination. Covid-19 kills a small percentage compared to the Bubonic Plague but in the 21st century, the 3rd largest nation, even a small percentage is a really big number. The virus is new, no history so no head start on the learning curve. 

So how does it make me feel? Anxious is one feeling I’ve been experiencing. There is no fix yet, won’t be for a long time. No cure, no safe place to hide; how would you feel if you knew there were thousands of assassins out there who want nothing more than to take you out? Not just me, the virus needs people to replicate and anybody will do. So we learn fast, people carry the virus that can jump from one person to another on a sneeze or a cough or even a loud shout. We take our chances every time we get in a car but you can see cars coming. Wash your hands, don’t touch your face, wear a mask and keep a distance. The new normal is, anxiety and fear can pop up without warning. 

I feel sad. Civilization, my culture has taken a big hit. American Exceptionalism is a popular myth that elevates us above other nations in terms of morality, creativity, leadership and industry. We have prospered and we are quick to sing our own praise. I have no qualms with praise but likewise, we conquered a pristine continent and its people, then replicated our own civilization very much the same way a virus takes over its unsuspecting host. Still, it is my culture and we are unprepared to compete with pandemic. We have a powerful military and an economic infrastructure that works as long as everything conforms to an established paradigm. But a wild card in the deck changes the rules. So much for international supply lines and industrialized agriculture. We are hurting and I’m not the only one afraid it will get worse before it gets better. 

My thoughts are scattered. Believers have Faith to fall back on but even in my righteous period, my doubts superseded Belief. If I were faithful I’m sure I would feel better but it’s not something you can turn on and off. I am sequestered in my home with a big yard and a fence. As long as I can keep that buffer between me and other people I don’t have to worry about the virus. It doesn’t survive very well outside living tissue. 

I think about how life, how American Exceptionalism has dealt me good cards, how I enjoy the benefits of white privilege and of male privilege. Before the pandemic I worked with a volunteer organization that fed the homeless. Our clients came in all colors, all genders but not many old, white men. Those that I met were veterans who had been discarded by the system. I saw me in their faces. All it takes is one wrong place at a bad time and you no longer have a life; it has you. Those people are still out there, hungry, many hopeless, trying to make it through another day. Now they have pandemic to contend with. I think about gratitude. I think about how arrogant it is to think you can judge others when you don’t know what’s what. Who deserves privilege and who does not? After all, by definition Privilege is unmerited. If it’s earned it isn’t a privilege. 

This pandemic will unfold. Someday its survivors will look back on it with understanding that hasn’t been born yet. A day at a time sounds corny and dated but it still works.

DEAR DIARY: DAY 58

Day 58: My favorite radio station is one of several public venues that affiliate with NPR, 90.9 The Bridge. It offers an all music format that explores all forms and styles. The local DJ’s make up the play list and do live or prerecorded interviews with artists who are in town to help promote their concert schedules. If the music doesn’t suit me I can always play something from my I Tunes library. This morning they read my mind, knew what would please me. 

Kansas City’s big time NPR station is trying to keep us informed with stories and reporting on the virus and with what leadership either is or isn’t doing. In either case, a little bit goes a long way and to spend much time with them is a lose-lose, self inflicted wound. There is no good news other than we woke up this morning. So music that soothes the weary soul is welcome. 

I only make coffee a couple of times a week. Today was one of those days and everything felt a little less stressed. The Bridge was playing story songs, like you get with song writers playing their own stuff in small venues. The name, Margaret Glaspy was new to me but her song put me at ease. “Stay With Me” pretty much fit the pandemic feel. You don’t know what will happen but here in the moment, you do what you can. I listened, then got on You Tube and listened to it again. Feeling good about my discovery; I can download her song for $1.29 and add it to one of my many play lists. At breakfast’s end I was glad that with all of the bad news I had skipped over, I had reason to feel no so bad.

In quarantine I discovered, not a surprise but still noteworthy, how much comfort I take from the birds that frequent my feeders. Just outside the kitchen window I have two peanut feeders, two suet cages and a squirrel-proof sunflower seed feeder. I require food but it ain’t what it once was. What makes food wonderful now is the company you keep in the process. Otherwise it’s just fuel. I find my woodpeckers, titmice, finches and cardinals to be wonderful breakfast companions. 

For several days I’ve been fretting my short supply of bird seed. If I don’t set the table, they don’t come around. Today I called the local supplier; asked if I could transact business without coming inside the store. I made my order over the phone, like online grocery shopping and he filled it. At the loading dock I slid the cheque in a crack between the glass and the window frame while he loaded my bird food into the back of my pick up. No contact, not even close. I’ll leave the stuff in the back of the truck for a few days to be sure any contamination has dissipated. Come the weekend I’ll reload the feeders. I would love to be sharing coffee and a scone with friends at Panera’s. Those days are only a few months past but our coffee klatches are now virtual and online. I don’t think they can be recreated, not for a long time. Our Zoom get-togethers are the best we can do and I’m happy to get that feed back. I haven’t touched another human or held a door open or shared coffee and cookies over a friend’s birthday since February. I’ll just have to make do withy my birds.