Checking In, Covid 19

When I was at sea alone in the North Pacific in the midst of hurricanes and storms, high seas and unbearable anxiety, I’d listen on the Hamm Radio for our daily contact.  The Hamm Radio operators liked making contact with us. Odd men in little rooms surrounded by electronics reaching out to solo sailors bouncing about in the middle of oceans thousands of miles from shore. The Hamm operators who managed these nets motivation primarily seemed was to be to check out their equipment’s capability and to play the Hamm Radio Game. Solo sailors like me were playing the Solo Sailor Game with a whole lot of moving parts and games in the Bluewater Solo Sailor Game. I was so thankful these Hamm Radio kindly Asperger sorts were out their on land.

There was always uncertainty. I was wedged in the aft berth with the boat rolling and tossing about. My dog and cat were crouched in beside me, their only comfort, the suspect security of my body.  I’d hear the crackly call and pressing the button on my receiver respond.  Across a thousand miles of empty sea the voice of a person I’d met in SAN Francisco or Vancouver would reach me. I’d pass on my Latitude and Longitude, give him my course, say that all was well when often it wasn’t but it was ‘well enough’.  The contacts were brief. We were strangers, relatively.  Casual friends brought together by mutual interests.  

I was one of a very lose network of adventurers. I was solo sailing across the North Pacific in winter, desperately staying alive, sometimes at all odds. By contrast he was enjoying the warmth of his home trying with arcane and modern equipment to reach out and touch someone bouncing signals off various waves of atmosphere.  I lived each day for the contact, some days more.  When I came more into tropical waters I was handed off to another person, this one a total stranger.I’d give him my lat and long and course. Someone would then record that on a map somewhere and family who followed such things would sigh. I’d once even made a radio telephone contact so that I’d be able to speak with family.  I wanted to reassure them, to let them know I was alive. They were glad and I was so thankful I had someone who cared. I’d doubted that I’d survive that hurricane and it was very uncertain. Surely they had their doubts.  The dog and cat and I continued on.  

One day I sailed into Radio Bay and anchored. The world stopped moving.  The rich scent of land and foliage and flowers enlivened my senses.  For 24 days on that passage I’d checked in.  I enjoyed checking in.

Now I’ve a group of medical colleagues and psychiatric colleagues. We’ve met together annually for a conference in different places in the world.  After we keep contact with a increasingly sophistical email list called ‘cyberdocs’.  Sometimes weeks go by when I don’t check in. Then I do.  I’ve a different dog today. The cat died to and another came and went.  I’m in the warmth of my home and the world isn’t on the lean and I”m not afraid of sinking.  I still check in though.  I feel good knowing I have friends, people who care for me , as I care for them.  It’s like the place where everyone knows my name. I’ve never known a bar like that though the community pub I visited when first I lived in South Putney had that flavour.  

I’ve heard they put bells on toilets in Putney now so the neighbours of elderly know that the old are still living. I’ m aging but years I hope before I get bells on my toilet. I’m still hoping to wear bells on my toes..  In our group we laugh a lot.  We cry too but mostly we laugh. We expresss resentments and gratitudes, share platitudes and stories and even a bit of wisdom. One of us who has now died wrote the book, “Spirituality of Imperfection’.  Some of us are famous like that but most of us, like me live in the mixed blessing of relative mediocrity. Walking talking accessorized worms with varying degrees of sentience.  

Locally we have now another cybergroup of like minded doctors who pride ourselves on our caring.  We value humility whether we have it or not. We share this common collection of character traits and values that we hold as true. We have mutual admiration as well. We know what it means to become a doctor. We don’t denigrate each other’s achievements. In our own lives we are too often encountering those who make themselves look taller by chopping their heads off.  Steal from the rich the mob cries thinking that things of value can be taken like objects.  The thieves and animals keen in the streets now looting and stealing. Our group doesn’t do that. We are workers and achievers. We appreciate things aged and pure. We believe in meritocracy.  We celebrate individual effort, thank our teachers, love the guild and apprenticeship, and respect the years that go to making that which is rare.   We understand we are not alone even if we forget it.   Checking in is a reminder.  

They asked me to be the organizer of the next checking in meeting.  We’ve sat around the province at our various computers looking like the opening of the Brady Bunch tv show, our our little squares of faces with varying backgrounds. So many of us are greying.  It surprises me when I see us. I’ve coloured dyed hair with vanity.  We’ve known each other,  many, 20 years or more.  I am reassured.  I  tell the really mensch organization folk among them that I can’t organize.  I’m right now very disorganized.  I’m thankful for the call. I want to rise to the occasion but it’s like when I was in my boat at sea.  I’d be asked for something like the wind speed and required going up  on deck. At that moment  I was afraid to go on deck, because it was so bad outside, I didn’t know I’d make it back, even tethered as I always was to the ship.

Now the word ‘organizer’ shocked me.  I reflected on the disorganization and uncertainty of my life today. In my garage I have two lap top computers, a flat screen monitor, a printer and a filing cabinet on wheels.  I’ve a cell phone and sometimes also use an iPad.  I’ve some books . The space is messy with flotsam, papers,  pens and debris. I’ve thrown this office and control centre together on a folding table. I didn’t know it would go on this long. I’d started it as a temporary solution to the announcement of a plague. We have all entered again into Camus, Plague.  Kafka is still struggling to get into the Castle. And I just want to make love in the time of Cholera while practicing social distancing. 

I’ve gone to my room and stayed for weeks, now months.  At first I was very afraid. I’d been sick early in the year and had been unable to breathe, coughing and panicking and believing that I was far from God. I’d been scared then. I’d thought how effective water boarding would be on me.  I am terribly addicted to breathe. I take it for granted too much though I love to breathe. I couldn’t then. Repeatedly I was humbled. This virus was announced weeks later and we were told we all could get it and that it would be best if we went inside for a while.  I was very relieved.  It was my fourth epidemic.  I’d already survived the Aids epidemic working in the main hospital emergency bled on, spat on and assaulted but I’d acquired tuberculosis serving up north.  A year of medications cured me after I still wheezed climbing mountains. Now I’m old and wheeze making love.  

We  know now the virus likes the old and sick.   Others are safe,.

Each day I phone or connect online on the computer with a dozen or so folk who so often sound or look like I must have looked to the Hamm operator. I have felt such love knowing that the mere connection has sustained them that day and that week.  I’ve repeatedly heard the tell tale tone of ‘cabin fever’ I’d first heard working in the Arctic. I’ve known too that just talking and checking in I’ve helped another human remain grounded. There’s such relief and gratitude in their voices.  I now know the Hamm Net Operators loved that connection as much as hearing from me the loudness and clarity of their transmission.   I’m glad to have reached my patients too.  I have so many to see and talk to. There are several staff in several clinics asking me to talk to more and more.  I’m feeling nails on a chalk board and the terror or just anxiety and irritability transfers to me even at a distance through communication lines and atmosphere. I have a satellite dish outside my home. I sometime talk to people around the world though mostly I’m just talking to people in this city.  It’s all about distance and time still.  I feel of service and that sustains me. I’m a part of this greater whole. I”m a contributing member of the community and I’ve touched another human and reminded them ‘we are not alone.’  I talk to pharmacists too and write letters to government,  employers and schools and send all these missives signed with my name and all the long line of letters aftert my name that once meant so much to me.  Now I don’t know.  Being alone myself in what the Rolling Stones aptly called ‘living in a ghost town’ I’m finding a lot is being stripped away that hadn’t already fallen away.  

Adventures do that.  Challenges do that. Expose the essentials.  Each day when I’m not working, I’m walking the dog and breathing in the rich scents and joy of nature. We have a trail through the woods by the river. I’ve taken my dog, my camera and love to catch pictures of wood ducks and herons and song sparrows. The blossoms I shot months back have given forth fruits now. My dog has a heart murmur, congestive heart failure, coughs like a 2 pack a day smokers,  is blind and injured his back . We don’t walk fast. My back is sore most days as well.  My heart weary but  still good. I don’t know.  It’s what my patient called the ‘season of uncertainty’. Friends are ill and sometimes I learn someone has died. Our hospitals are full or nearly full. They never empty.  People with covid fall and recover but I’m sure it’s sheer terror. I’m still afraid of being sick. I avoid people ,especially young people and strangers. I see a friend or two. We’ve begun meeting again on weekends.  She is loving and comforts my dog.  We laugh. I love to hung. 

There’s war and rumours of war.  The lies and misinformation are ubiquitous. Mobs in terror roam the streets.  The media has failed everyone, clanging bells of partisan bias and propaganda.  The leadership has so often lost it’s direction. There’s untold deaths of old caused by lizard brains and heartless leaders. I’m protected here. The local government is showing surprising wisdom. The insanity is at a distance.  Some guy is dementing while another talks about his socks.  I think of times of George III and know that I’m in the middle of the likes of the Charge of the Light Brigade.  Chamberlain insists the communists are friends. Still there are equally beautiful and profound hero’s.  A little boy saved his sister from a dog attack. I saw the picture and read the story on Facebook.  I liked the mother elephant rescuing the baby elephant on Utube.  The donkey sanctuary always makes me smile.  I harken back to the times I was a child and my mom and dad and older brother were there to save me, mostly from myself.

Now I pray. My God, My God, why.......I begin.....then change to,  gratitude.  Jesus commanded ‘Do Not Be Afraid’.  I told my sailing friend ‘worrying is wicked’ . He laughs whenever we are in desperate times and asks, “are we wicked yet, Billy.” 

Thank you for this day, Lord. Thank you for the joy that comes with checking in. Thank you for my family and friends and colleagues. Thank you for the example of my courageous little dog.  Thank you that I can still be of service. Thank you for the good leadership. Thank you for technology and networks that allow me to reach out and still the fear in others. Thank you for nature. Thank you for breath.  Thank you God of Gods, Creator, Sustainer, Lover and Friend  Help me to be less afraid. May my faith grow stronger. May I know you more dearly.  Thank you for checking in.