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March 30, 2020: Revisiting the White Highway

I hate it when good phrases go cliché, skills set, paradigm shift, brand, easy peasy, and new normal being just a few that come to mind. Laurie Anderson is right -- language is a virus. New normal, this is now almost a buzz phrase. Actually, it may now be in common usage; I don’t know because I’m not currently swimming in mainstream conversations. Laurie didn’t say, but I might add, that viruses mutate, just like the real thing. I don’t know what originally, the term new normal was in reference to, but in time it will take on a more all-encompassing meaning, one that will be used to refer to a variety of differing examples.


Rainbow leaps for the truck on a cold winter day


There isn’t really an ahem, new normal here. Our situation has changed a bit. Pete’s home, I’m home, we’re doing what we do when we’re home. Pete’s meetings and classes are now online. I am now no longer schlepping books around. We are now pretty much adhering to our regular routine, going to bed late and getting up early. We work in the mornings and get the horses out in the afternoons.

Getting the horses out. I slacked off on this a bit when I began putting hours in on the book project. But I have resumed spending more time with them. It was yet another cold and windy day. Like yesterday, I had to motivate myself to go out in the afternoon and tend to them. But once I got going, I kept going. I first took Hrimmi, Tinni, and Ryder for a walk. I met up with a fellow who inquired about a nearby property for sale. A truly nice fellow. A skier who works as a nurse at Mat-Su Regional Hospital. I warmed up to him in realizing he has his act together, sort of. He eyeballed a cabin on this property and said that he’d need a place to live for a year, and he could jack it up. I thought oh oh, you don’t fully have your act together.

Later, Pete and I and Ryder took Raudi and Tyra for a walk. We headed down road, but Pete decided to turn right, onto the Murphy Road Trail. In minutes, we were back on the White Highway. We had a beautiful walk – I let Tyra run loose; she galloped around and bucked on the way to Grizzly Camp then rolled in the soft snow on the way home. Raudi, seemingly content, walked fast, beside Pete, who had her on lead.

On the return trip, Pete began singing a song by Jethro Tull, from their Thick as a Brick album. I listened, nearly open mouthed as he first hummed and then began singing a song with the lines skating on ice. I was again so amazed, he has this wonderful singing voice – he hits all the notes just right. Sad to say, when I again told him this, he downplayed it, this time by singing a more stupid song, then saying if we moved to Ojai that he would join his brother’s singing group – they’re drinkers with a singing problem.
It would be a better world if we all fully acknowledged the gifts we’re born with.

If say, our old normal (which is now our new normal) now includes long walks with the horses and dogs, then we are . . . another cliched phrase coming up . . . golden.

Next: 90. 3/31/20: The Gift of Time

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