New Ways of Counting Time
Born anew at each new season
I’m on day 9 of having what I think is COVID-19 even though I have been testing negative. My teen had confirmed COVID last week - yes on the five year anniversary of the pandemic’s debut and I think I have been testing negative because I’m fully vaxxed and boosted. But OMG I shudder to think what this would be like were I not up to date on my shots. Today day 9 I walked around the block (masked) at a leisurely pace with my dog and had to stop every so often because of a coughing attack.
2:43 pm - pause to cough
My dear co-worker and comrade told me late last week, early this week that I should just stay home all of this week. That I should rest because it’s only when I’m sick that I’m forced to slow down.
“Think of it as a work project,” she texted me and that immediately made me sad because she knows that my perfectionist, control freak workaholic eldest daughter of assimilationist Puerto Ricans ass would only really slow down if I make it something that can be measured and deemed successful or not.
So I have been tracking my healing in coughing attacks per hour. I also have used these coughing attacks to remind myself that you can’t rush healing and so I pause and surrender and pray.
We are 9 weeks into the current US president’s term. What’s that 63 days? But with the guy in the White House now we count in minutes. Just a few minutes ago the dismantling of the Dept. of Education started. I worry about my kid’s financial aid as she decides what college she will go to. I worry about my own college debt from all the failed attempts at finishing my undergrad. I worry about my sister who is an assistant principal at a school that works with young people with mental illness. I worry about if my own niece and nephew will get the services they need.
How long since the last person was disappeared, detained, deported? Let’s use that term disappeared more - they way they do when talking about dictatorships and fascism in other countries , countries that were invaded or that were paid to be run a certain way by the country I live in now.
How long since they found the last body of a child in Gaza? Grief and healing aren’t linear - they don’t follow the human invention of calendars but what is time when there is no pause in violence?
3:38 pm pause to cough
Today is 15 days that my boyfriend has been in inpatient rehab. The plan is 60 days but you know one day at a time is the measure of time there.
Today is also the start of Aries season which for me just means that much closer to Taurus season. Today is the Spring Equinox when things are supposed to be blooming and birthed. If any of my Catholic schooling was worth anything I would know what day of lent we are in but I have - we have- already given too much up and I’m not sorry.