Our Random Thoughts about and/or during the Covid-19 Pandemic

This post will contain the random comments we send to each other thru the Salon email group.
We might want to look back one day...

3/30/20 from Kate: (copied from elsewhere on this site)
"Kate shared this by email the other day and gave me permission to post it here with her comment.  

To Live 

To live content with small means;
To seek elegance rather than luxury, and style rather than fashion;
To be worthy, not respectable and wealthy, not rich;
To apply talent, think quietly, talk kindly, act frankly;
To listen to stars and birds, to babes and sages with open heart;
To bear all patiently, do all bravely, await occasions, hurry never;
In short, to let the spiritual, unbidden and unconscious, grow up through the common.
This is my symphony.
    - H. Channing 

"Thank you all for being women who spur me to all these aspirations, and accept me when I miss them by a mile."   - Kate H.
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4-15-20 from Kate H.
"You’ve probably all thought of this but I will voice it for us all.  This all makes more [me] grateful for every breath I take
while so many struggle; makes me face again the fragility of my life, the wonder of the body’s delicate balance and the beautiful horror of how a viral molecule can send the world to its knees. Carpe down" (I'm guessing that auto-correct ate the word Diem)
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4/15/20 from Jess:
"I love you all! 
I love that we can embrace and share, even from a distance (for now).
Thank you, Nona, for the gift of the poem.
Thank you, Kate for your words of wisdom on gratitude.
And for all the ways you ALL inspire simply by your presence and through your comments in this thread.
Happiness, hugs, & blessings to you all as we continue to navigate our new world...
All my love~"
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One Hundred Thousand

 

100,000 now, but I am unable to see or hear or feel

what it means, really means —-
to the bride whose dad won’t walk her down the aisle,
to the mom who dreamed her graduate”s dreams,
or the man who lost the one, gone at 45, who showed him how to be a man. 

 

I can’t see the tears

or hear the weeping

or feel the depth of anguish

at not being there

to hold their hand

look in those eyes

or say I’ll miss you so much. 

I can’t imagine. 

 

100,000 

times 

20 hearts full of memories

times 

scores of nights filled with tears

times 

a myriad long days with no voice in the house

no calls from him

no stories to hear or tell. 

 

But I can look at those 1,000 names on a New York Times front page and try to imagine the
99 pages more it would take to know all your names. 

 

It’s not fair 

you got the short straw,

not fair the one who wore no mask that day,

not fair that the share of love you earned 

is costing your loved ones an equal share of pain. 

 

100,000 now. 

 

-Kate H.  May 27, 2020