Thursday, Covid 19, Quarantine

Gilbert and I are doing well. Each morning is a blessing. I enjoy exercises and breakfast, getting washed and dressed.  I like to take Gilbert for a brief walk, the outdoors is so beautiful this time of year, then settle into the virtual office.  I’m surprised at all the work and what I actually get done. The administration staff are doing a marvellous job keeping the whole thing going.  I’m very thankful at times.  So much assistance when needed.

I was thinking of Elizabeth Kubla Ross this morning. I had the pleasure of working with her, a week’s workshop. Amazing woman.  Her ideas of the stages of grief came to mind as I reflected on the first days of lockdown. How in shock I was!  The world was so surreal. It still is. But while the ‘derealization’ is reinforced by the empty streets and malls, I have a sense that the ‘depersonalization’ is passing. This is becoming the new ‘normal’ and social distancing, masks, hand washing, caution about surfaces and door handles, will continue now for a year or two, perhaps even after the vaccine. 

The world has become more ‘unfriendly’.  There’s a ‘toxicity’ in place brought by the ‘Communist’ mindset, that great anti God movement, the world of Marx and Engles and hatred of family.  Thanatos.    Politics has entered every sphere of existence.  Big Mother, Big Brother, Big Sister. Big Father are in the third spaces

I can walk outside in a dress because my face is covered in a mask. I think of the woman who caught outside covers her face.  The face, so sacred is now being hidden at the very time when facial recognition software has advanced so far as to make identification with eyes alone.  Eyes, the seat of the soul.  We can look but we can not touch.  

Elizabeth Kubla Ross’s five stages of grief are:  DENIAL, ANGER, BARGAINING, DEPRESSION, ACCEPTANCE.  I think the ‘shock’ phase was that denial. I went about the motions of changing my life with the sense that it was a kind of weekend affair. It was all very well this horrendous change but it was only for a day or two. Then the time continued. I admit I was annoyed and frustrated. I found things that I wanted I couldn’t do. I wanted to look at shoes at Mountain Equipment Coop. But it was closed and I rationally knew, but I was irritated nonetheless.  I know I’ve been praying more. I’ve been praying for the safety of my family and friends. I’ve been going through all sorts of rituals. I’ve been reflecting on mortality and reminding myself of eventuality. My basic immortality has been in question. So yes, I’d say I have been bargaining. Theres’ been some depression. I’m disappointed. I don’t even think about the losses. I had plans and dreams for what I’d been doing this year and next and none of them included the uninvited guest Covid 19.  Today I know some acceptance. I’m adjusting. 

Dr. Ross was an amazing lady and her stages of grief didn’t have to all occur or happen sequentially but they were there in part or parcel. I feel I’m grieving my old life and dreams in some ways. As I’m letting go of preconceived notions I can more fully embrace the day.  The past can be a rock tablet or a digital book.  The lightness of matter is more often than not perception.  I am now remaking myself as everyone on the planet is.  A meteor has struck the earth and like other times of war and poverty and disease or resurrection we are all changed by it.  A new world is unfolding and we’re moving on.  I will never forget what was.  I loved well and lost and won.  

It’s a new day.

Gilbert and I are enjoying our walks more than ever.  

Thursday, April 2, Self Quarantine, Social Distancing

Every day has been a blessing. Every day the factories have ramped up.  Premier Horgan and Health Minister Dix have acquired some 40 more respirators and refurbished many more. We are twice where we were last week. More masks, gloves and gowns coming in. Retired doctor returning to work.  Dr. Bonnie Henry says we’re still ahead. Some 650 people in hospital with Covid 19, mostly ICU but with still a few hundred bed capacity.  Every day is a blessing.  The social distancing is working. New cases trickling in. The deaths over 80 and mostly nursing homes.  I love this provincial NDP leadership. They truly are doing everything we could possibly hope for.

Trudeau is bringing more planes in without the accepted airport vetting and quarantine that amounts to a joke. Other countries with rational sane leadership have the highest screening on all flights and quarantines are in designated hotels with guards. Some have actually used the ankle bracelet.  Even then countries in South Asia see that the a second wave follows with the influx of travellers so some have banned all travel.  They are then able to get their people back to work and move onto save the economy. That’s the next war and as with the first we have a country at odds.  Provinces doing everything to save their people while nationally the state does everything to spread disease, kill old people and sick people and ruin the economy.  The truth will out.  Weapons manufacturers, Quebec corporations, bikers gangs, mafia and women who like topless PM’s continue this dichotomy. 

I woke this morning and took a deep breath thanking God for life and breath.  Gilbert was there, my fur baby friend. I have coffee and heat and will spend the day in my virtual clinic.  My patients have amazed me.  I love hearing how they’re respecting quarantine and social distancing. There’s a false notion that people with mental illness are overall impaired. So many have once again so impressed me by how they have risen to the occasion, helping elderly neighbours, caring for sick parents, doing really good. Of course they’re anxious.  I’m writing scripts and phoning them into the pharmacies who are really busy. The fear now is that the medication manufacture outsourced to China will be disrupted by their continued belligerence and bellicosity and constant lies and declining capacity.  90% of the masks which they made were defective. The estimates of death range to the millions because of the Comunist/Socialist government policy.  The truth is the same for Iran, and it’s Muslim dictatorship, another police state, with mass graves.  Democracies are fairly well.

The US is at 200,000 but the estimate was 1.5 million dead by summer if drastic measures were not taken.  The US was first to close the flights to China and Europe after the success of Taiwan and Singapore and South Korea.  Ironically these Asian nations were not called ‘racist’ but Canadians who continue to call for stopping flights of Communist China are still being called racist.

The individuals in the frontlines amaze me. Despite defective equipment and risk to life doctors, nurses and administrative staff I know personally continue to serve.  So many of the front line workers in China, Iran and Italy have died. All the doctors in one hospital had died.  I’m so thankful that I’m home doing virtual medicine. I remember how terrified I was the year I worked in emergency during the aids epidemic with needle users and violent HIV infected patients.  Today I’m just paranoid of surfaces and door handles.  I’m old too. But survivor guilt and flashbacks haunt me for moments.  A lot of anxiety and ptsd will follow in the wake of this disease.  I’m so sad to hear of the nursing staff from care home crying in their cars. I remember my mom the night she had the flu in the minor epidemic and all her roommates died one night leaving her praying in the wee hours telling me she had thoughts she’d go to. 

Now I’m thankful.  I am grateful.  I’m blessed.  I love most walking Gilbert in the woods and watching the signs of spring. The blue heron has returned. The ducks are mating.  I hope to see the king fishers that come here each year. Yesterday I saw more buds on bushes. The daffodils, white and yellow are in bloom. 

Thank you Jesus. 

Wednesday, Covid 19, Burnaby, Blue Sky

The virus doesn’t like the sun.  It’s a thing of the darkness. Something evil moves among us.  Calling the old and sick home.  I read the religious are the greatest gambling men and women. They bet their lives on a loving God.  I’ve done that. In exchange I’ve had confusion and questioning and depth of experience I can only imagine goes with asking the question, “why”.

I loved the book “Man’s Search for Meaning”.

Down’s Syndrome, is a mental deficit that is associated with low IQ, love of singing, love of food, and love of sex.  They get angry very quickly but don’t hold resentments.  To the external observer they seem supremely happy. They’re very sensitive.

The smartest computer ever to exist in the world, in that great classic, Hitchiker’s Guide to the Galaxy, greets people, saying, “Hi I’m so depressed.”

I wonder what this life is for? Is it a product of reincarnation.  Must I love to escape the illusion of existence to return to the womb of God, that great ocean of God? Am I in the battle field of forces of good and evil and if I am a ‘good’ and ‘king’  person I will be rewarded in a positive afterlife.

If I live life according to the mainstream distillation of tradition and culture, and science and religion,  I can reasonably expect to have some reward in this life.

I want health and wealth.  I like things in moderation. I’ve seen that I can only drive one vehicle at one time and the more I own the more it owns me. The issue is pleasure.  What value and risk to a blow out binge at the smorgasbord, an extraordinary night of orgy, an unforgettable drunken tour of the bars with a group of mad cap friends, the savouring of a long love, deep friendships or superficial encounters, reading a deep book or a passing article, tenting or building a major hotel or palace.  

I’ve lived my life daily speaking to God.  I’ve always felt the relationship was like car rides with my parents.  Roller coaster rides. Not an intimate friend or love. I envy the nuns who so love Jesus they become his Bride and we imagine their ‘song of songs’ experience has the erotic elements that tintillate the soft porn favoured by women versus the hard porn favoured by men.  Is religion masculine? And spirituality feminine?  

Does God really care if I masturbate?  If I am obese,  is it health matter that reduces little more than short term pleasure,versus long term life. Do I want to be here for a long time or a good time?

Each of these equations and so many more physiologically , psychologically , and spiritually,  is a juggling act with a sweet spot. That’s the essence of happiness. That sweet spot.  I’ve been in that ‘flow’ that has been called ‘synchroncity’, spiritually alive, feeling that I am ‘doing right’, that I am apart o the team, that I’m in the centre of the centre. If it were a hockey game I’ve had that sense of being on the ice in the flashing sticks and skates, and then I’ve had the sense of being on the bench.

Aging is more about being on the bench.

Sexually I remember wanting to literally copulate with a beautiful woman I just met.  I’ve not felt that for a man. Yet I loved my lesbian friend saying, the ‘penis is a very lovely tool, unfortunately it’s attached to a man’.  I’ve been fascinated with my own penis , and with vaginas and with penis.  I’ve clinically studies thousands of genitalia , but viewed them as through a microscope.

Sensuality and sexuality don’t reside in the superficial but in the inner feeling and the mind. It’s the mind that creates the erotic, adding a touch of taboo to the ‘beast with two backs’.  Yet neurologically we see the pleasure centre and addiction and orgasm all tied to the location called the Amygdalla.

I can live a life of ‘quiet desperation’, safe, in control, important, pompous, serious, authoritative, in the political groove, but not in the spiritual sweet place. The spiritual sweet place is in the dance with the amygdalla.

Love and fear. That’s the basis of all emotions.  Love, fear and the other, if we wish to avoid reductionism to the binary and stay Trinidadian.

Into all this we plug a virus.  A Covid 19. I woke up this morning thankful to be alive. I was aware of my body and my actions. I am going through daily routines carefully with awareness of the space I’m in , this world, no longer, safe. Everything has a newness and an impermanence, I have been forced out of routines. I’m relating differently. I do enjoy my alimentary system. I miss the hugs and cuddling. Gilbert my dog is doing his best to fill the void. But I miss my lover, and my friends,and the community,and the illusion of safety. I miss the routines.

I’m concluding that this forced isolation will make us all a whole lot more appreciative of others.  There’s just so far that masturbation can do for one. Cogito ergo sum. The element of surprise is missing. I can meditate and sing and chant alone but again the fling isn’t there. Theres certainly a depth of this relationship I have with God, my friend, confidant and lover, but I’m still drawn to Facebook.  I miss the exotic smiling face of a beautiful friend. I am truly blessed to know so many people of such depth and experience.  

I will get on with this day and long for the end of this isolation. It was the same with my 25 days alone at sea. I really did love the experience but it was sheer heaven to smell the Hawaiian islands, eventually make land, then meet people and, once again find myself, always quite surprisingly in the arms of the lover, naked and not quite sure how that happened. Somehow,  that’s poetry.