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March 20, 2020: Going Nowhere, Fast

I talked to my sister Eleanor today. I told her that Pete and I have been adhering to a routine that’s pretty familiar to us. We’ve been working at our computers in the mornings and working outside in the afternoons. He spent this morning working on his chainsaw book and on his classes. I spent this morning working on If You Come to a Fork in the Road Pick it Up.

This afternoon Pete plowed. The driveway, front area, and the agility arena. This afternoon I put the equipment in the arena away prior to his plowing and then put it back in place afterwards. I did agility with the mares and then took Hrimmi and Raudi for a walk. Pete, coming the other way, with Tyra in hand, joined me.

Eleanor suggested that we do something different, like go for a ride in the car. “You should go and check out Hatcher Pass,” she said. I told her that we don’t often do this because we have a lot to do around here. We also are able to step outside the door and recreate. We live adjacent to the Matanuska Moose Range, and any time we want, we can hike, horseback ride, bicycle, and/or ski.

I added that we are really lucky to live where we do and are able to be in a near wilderness setting in minutes. I think that Eleanor knows this but feels that a change of scenery would do us a world of good. I’m not so sure. Maybe so, maybe not.


Photographer at the Columbia River Maritime Museum

 


A change of scenery most likely does city dwellers a world of good. Right now, Eleanor is taking great joy in working on her yard and garden. This I understand. And, come to think of it, my visiting her and going to the coast did me a world of good. I really enjoyed spending time there and would go again in a heartbeat. But right now, it would be foolish to travel any place by plane, train, cruise ship. Having contact with other humans who may have The Virus, is currently a foolhardy idea.

My father had a painting hanging in the inside porch of his house. It was an abstract, of a group of people walking. It was entitled “We are primed of every gesture save coming and going.” I often think about this particular piece of artwork and the accompanying caption. It simply means that we have given up our hunting and gathering lifestyle; however, we have not been able to give up our desire to stay in one place for any length of time. Hence, our dependency upon motorized transportation.

There are right now fewer motorized vehicles on the road. This is because the prospect of being really sick and perhaps dying is superseding our desire to go anywhere. So right now we are temporarily primed of the gesture of coming and going. I suspect that once all are no longer infectious that we’ll resume our old habits.

Pete said he thought about taking a drive out to the glacier and stopping at the nearby Sheep Mountain Lodge and realized that right now, it is open only for takeout. Oh well. We’ll see what the future holds for it and other Alaskan eateries.

80. 3/21/20: Taking books to the Emergency Homeless Shelter

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