Soapbox

It’s like living through an invisible hurricane, or blizzard.

You look out the window and you don’t see any snow. Can’t feel the cold or the wind. But everyone tells you that its there. People are in danger, people are dying- but you can’t see where the danger is. Can’t see the snowdrift right in front of you that you could fall in and freeze. To death.
That maybe you already fell in and have started freezing, but you can’t tell yet. And since you can’t tell- are about to pull someone else into the drift with you, and they might freeze too?
You don’t know how long the snow will last, either. A month? Six? Forever?

And since it’s an invisible blizzard, a lot of people don’t believe that it’s happening. OK sure some people are falling into snow drifts- a LOT of people- but that’s 2000 miles away. 200 miles. 20 miles.
The President said the blizzard is a hoax. There’s snow falling, but democrats are just *pretending* it’s a terrible blizzard to make him look bad. And anyway the blizzard will stop when the weather gets warm. And there will be a thaw any day.

And every meterologist on the planet says No, the blizzard is real, and bad, and getting worse. Schools close. Concerts and festivals are cancelled. Sporting events. Grocery stores and drug stores are sold out of mittens and hats and bottled water.
People can’t go to work now- for how long? How will they pay their mortgage? Feed their kids?
The safest thing is to just stay in the house anyway: hunker down and wait for it to pass- but when will it pass? WILL it pass?

And yet it’s so surreal because YOU CAN’T SEE THE SNOW.
The sun comes up. The birds are yelling at each other in the trees. You take a shower, run the vacuum, walk the dog.
Go to work- and eye everyone you see. (Are they gonna throw you out in the cold?)
Go to the hardware store for lightbulbs. Wash the dinner dishes. Watch TV, still full of ads for cruises and colleges that are closed, shows with people walking around doing things that we’re not supposed to do any more because of thte blizzard that’s outside.
Reach desperately for normalcy in an utterly abnormal world- because what else can you do?
And everything looks fine.
But it is so, so NOT fine.

We knew this storm was coming.
Epidemiologists have said for years that a global pandemic might be a bigger threat to the human race than even our reckless global warming. We couldn’t have prevented this storm.
But we could have protected ourselves.

Obama tried to protect us.
He set up a Global Pandemic response team dedicated to watching for the first signs and co-ordinating with military and scientists to know how best to fight its spread.
And that disgusting, self-obsessed ape in the White House FIRED THEM all.

We also knew that this s torm was coming. Watched it pop up in Chiina, then South Korea and Japan. We watched the countries who delt with it smartly & aggressively have an exponential growth of new cases for a while and then start to crest that curve and bring the number of new cases down, as they identified who has the infection, who they have been in contact with and isolate everyone until their illness has either passed or they have no symptoms and are clear. It’s tough- but it works.

And what did the mighty US do?
Did we re-instate our pandemic team (rather closing the barn door after the horse has run out but better then nothing). Of course not. Trump didn’t want to pay them when they “weren’t doing anything”.

Did we start testing everyone who came into this country by boat or plane from an area that was known to have the contaigen?
Of course not. The World Health Organization quickly developed a test that other nations used, but Someone (and it’ss always safe to assume a horrible, illogical decision from the ope levels of government was directed by Trump) decided that America needed our own test, developed independently by the CDC. Which would have been fine if, while the test was being developed and checked, we havd used the WHO test. But we didn’t: we waited and didn’t test people.
And when the first test the CDC made didn’t work right, we waited AGAIN while they fixed it.
Meanwhile people who had possible exposure to the Coronavirus but no symptoms weren’t tested, and went home to their families, their jobs, their work.

#WhereAreTheTests has been trending on twitter as weeks have gone by. Last Tuesday, almost a week after the science-denying Vice President said that the US had 1.5 million tests shipping out, we tested EIGHT people.
And everyone wants to know “Why would our government put millions of lives at risk over an issue that could be so easily overcome?” And why would they lie and continue to lie about it?
And the obvious answer is:
Because Donald Trump thought a lot of cases of the coronavirus would hurt the stock market and his chances for re-election.

That’s why for a week he kept saying:
There are only 15 people with the virus and in a few days, that number will be close to zero.
It’s basically just like the flu, and the flu actually kills a lot of people so this won’t be any worse.
When the warm weather comes, these things just disappear- they always do.
And my personal favorite,
Pretty soon- like a miracle- it will all go away.

Every one of those statements was obviously, proveably, terrifyingly wrong… but he said them. Scientists, doctors, nurses and journalists kept saying “No! Those are lies!! This will be bad and we need to take steps now to keep it from being horrible!” Virologists and national security specialists and people covering what was happening in Iran and Italy have been running around with their hair on fire screaming the warning. We have to take strong action NOW!”

So Donald Trump tweeted and told his rally attendees that the whole “the virus is really bad!” story was a hoax. A hoax, by the Democrats, and by China, because the Russia investigation didn’t work (Because the Republicans covered for him) and the impeachment  didn’t work (ditto) so now they were blowing this little virus out of proportion just to take Trump down.

Some of his supporters are actually saying that Democrats got together with China and CREATED the virus and turned it loose just to hurt him. Who thinks like that? Donald Trump does- and the lunatics who follow him.

Despite the Sociopath in the White house insisting that nothing was wrong, in 2 weeks we went from “this is a hoax” to a State of National Emergency being declared. but the poison is spreading. And I don’t mean just the virus.
This morning I went to JoAnn’s to get some narrow elastic for some fabric masks I’m making. I was chatting with a super-nice woman I know from back when I worked there. Of course we talked about “this whole thing” and she said “I mean it’s just the flu!”
“No, Deb” I said “It’s not just the flu.”
She made a dismissive gesture. “The flu kills people every year. We’ll be fine.”
I took a deep breath.
“The flu kills about 1 out of a thousand. In parts of Italy the mortality rate is EIGHT out of a hundred!!”
She shook her head at me with a some people are so silly expression and turned away.
“Deb” I said as I headed to the check-out, “In Iran they are digging trenches for all the people they have to bury”.

Colleges across the country, libraries and the entire NBA season doesn’t cancel for “the flu”! It makes no sense for her to believe that. But no matter how many times scientists speak the truth, people who don’t WANT to believe that this is serious have been given an excuse to deny reality by the greed and- dementia?- of the worst president in the history of time.
This week’s cover of the National Enquirer shouts “Coronavirus Cure found!”
I consider that kind of shit to be domestic terrorism. When people believe there’s a pill they can take to make it all go away, they won’t be careful, they won’t self-quarantine, and the virus will spread faster.

Speaking of self-quarantine…
I slept poorly last night and was too anxious to eat much today. When I started feeling just a little ‘off’ this evening a grabbed a thermometer, since they say fever is the 1st sign. And son of a bitch I had a temperature of 100.
I stood there just staring at the thermometer for a minute- then got busy.
They call it “home quarantine” and I had already throught about it. First I got clorox wipes and wiped down every surface in the bathroom, and my hands. Then I grabbed one of the masks I made and started grabbing supplies:
A large sheet (to cover the basement sofa so I can lay on it without contaminating it too badly), my pillow, phone, a book, a large glass of water, some zinc lozenges, hand sanitizer, hand lotion, my computer, toothbrush and toothpaste, my mouth guard, the thermometer– it takes a crap lot of stuff to isolate yourself!
I’ve been taking my temp every hour (and feeling a little silly because I feel fine) and after 3 hours it has gone down, not up. It feels like just a false alarm but I consider it a beta-test for my home quarantine plan for when one of us gets this damn thing- because experts say that the odds are that at least one of us will.

Something nice to end on: today we got a real snowstorm. Not a blizzard, but quiet, gray day made bight by huge, fat flakes falling gently for hours. I love that kind of snow.
I went out and stood in the front yard and started to grin. Putting my arms out, I tipped my face up and let them fall into my mouth. I started hopping and jumping up to meet them. I walked around the house and looked at my butterfly garden.
Despite a global pandemic, despite the snow, the garden is coming back to life.

I don’t remember how it came up, but the other day Ted and I were talking about The Womenfolk, my first girl-crush and a major musical influence. I threw out the comment “Gee, I suppose they’re all dead by now” and a few minutes later he was showing me a web page by my favorite womenfolk member, Leni Ashmore.
“There’s a post from earlier this year so I bet she’s still around” he said.
Well then.
I pulled up the contact page and I wrote her a letter. (This is a longer version of what I said)

Dear Leni
When I was 4 1/2, my aunt started to play her folk music records (Kingston Trio, Tommy Maken and the Clancey Brothers, etc) for me, with the result that ideas were put in my head. One day nothing would do but that my mother take me to Lazarus in downtown Columbus Ohio to hear a live concert by my favorites, The Womenfolk.

I remember being transfixed. Live music is always stimulating for a young kid, and all the guitars and harmonies really fixed in my neural network and set me vibrating like a tuning fork. And most of all, I remember you.

I was anxiously awaiting the song “500 miles” because it was my favorite (after The Great Silkey which you didn’t perform) so my mother leaned toward the group between numbers and called out, “How many more songs will you be doing?”
You turned to her, held up 3 fingers and said “Three”. You trilled your R!
I know- right? Of such small moments are lasting impressions made.

I thought you were beautiful and exotic. I loved your deep, rich voice. I wanted to look and sound just like you. I wanted to BE you! My family did a fair amount of singing, my mother and her sisters arguing over who had to sing melody for Sweet Violets or On Top of Old Smokey. Between that and singing church hymns next to my mother’s strong alto, singing harmony was in my blood.
As was folk music. I sat in my little rocking chair for hours listening to my one Womenfolk album, looking at your faces, learning all the parts, picking out your voice from among the layers. (To be fair- I did the same with my sister’s Beatles albums.)

Fast forward to college. I decided to study a brand new field: music therapy. For my audition to the School of Music I played the guitar and sang a folk song that I had written myself at age 14. They were… less than impressed; however, it must have been a slow year because I was admitted as a voice principle.
Pity my poor voice instructor. First he had to tell me that I was actually a soprano (aaaaugh!) and then radically change my musical diet. Folk music wasn’t considered real music at that school (well, they had only recently decided that Jazz was real) so he dragged me into the world of “Art Song” and operetta. I did my best.

One day he played for me a recording of the great operatic alto Leontyne Price and when it was done, said “I played that because I believe, if you would work harder, you could sound like that!”
I was shocked. I was touched. I was sad.
“Mr Zook” I said at last, “I know that was a great compliment. But I don’t want to sound like Leontyne Price!I want to sound like Leni Ashmore.”

We both soldiered on.

In the end I became a nurse, and a mother, and did a decade as the music director for a very small church where I was able to fully satisfy my need to sing harmony. My kids heard Little Rag Doll and The Great Silkey as I rocked them when they were sick and sang Rickety-Tickety-Tin and The Green Mountain Boys around campfires. Because folk music is not music to study- it’s the music you live.

Anyway.
Last month my dad turned 90. At his party we had a sing-along with me on guitar, my husband on ukelele and dad on his washboard (we’re an odd bunch). After we annoyed the neighbors by belting out my dad’s favorites like Darktown Strutter’s Ball, Shine On Harvest Moon, etc. one of my sisters said, “What about that ah-de-doo ah-de-doo-dah-day song?” So we closed the party with the Womenfolk version of The Whistling Gypsy Rover.

 All this is my very long-winded way of saying, from that scrawny girl back in 1964 to you today– thank you for so many years of music!

It will not be easy.
But it will be
Okay.

Life is worth the fight.
Love is worth it.
I am worth it.

Summer clouds are worth it
The smell of baking cookies is worth it
Laughing ‘til your sides hurt is worth it
Curling up in front of a fire is worth it
The first opening of a new butterfly’s wings is worth it
The connection of singing in harmony is worth it
Crickets under a sky full of stars is worth it
Bright pebbles in a stream are worth it
The sound of rain on a tent is worth it.

Baby goats are worth it
Paint moving through water is worth it
The soft fur on Tucker’s face is worth it
The sound of Ted breathing in sleep is worth it
Easing into a tub of hot, fragrant water is worth it.
The smell of pine trees is worth it
The belly laugh of a baby is worth it
A storm when you’re safe and dry is worth it
A cold night when you’re warm inside is worth it.

My name on an envelope from a friend
The sound of falling snow
Distant lightning illuminating a cloud
The first pink of sunrise
The first bird of the morning
The hallelujah chorus of a pond full of peeper frogs
The roll of distant thunder
Daisies smiling from a roadside ditch
A strawberry, still warm with sunshine

A peach so ripe that the juice runs down your chin
The first page of a new book
The last page of a really good book
Fishing with Grandpa
Sunlight speckles through a sycamore tree onto the water
The first taste of hand-cranked ice cream
Brilliant autumn leaves
A hammock in the shade
The shouts of kids at the beach on a hot day

A heron gliding silently along a river
Evening walks
Spontaneous hugs
The first step in the door when you’ve been long away
Rocking a baby to sleep
Creating something new
A horse running through a field
A difficult job completed
The jelly softness of a puppy’s belly.
Lilacs
Porch swings

The wind in your face
Staying up talking half the night
Sleeping late
That first big stretch of the morning
Seeing seeds you planted sprout
The smell of bacon
The chance to be of service
The touch of skin to skin
The bottom of a small kitten’s paw
The smell of clean sheets hanging in the breeze
A good teacher
The opportunity to teach another
A song that makes you cry
A happy dream of a loved one departed.

“Possible abnormalities detected”

Well fuck. 3 words to change a life.
This has certainly been the longest week of my life: waiting for the repeat scan and the news. So bizarre to realize that today I am me: tomorrow I will probably be “Cancer Patient”.
Something that’s supposed to happen to other people, right? I mean hell- breast cancer doesn’t run in my family!! I’m healthy! I do push-ups, for God’s sake!

I feel like I’ve been going through the motions all week; pretending that I don’t have a sword hanging over my head, which will fall tomorrow at my 10:00 appointment. Watching the clock: 26 hours from now I’ll know…. 24 hours… 22 hours til everything changes…
Last night I woke at 3 AM when Ted got up and couldn’t get back to sleep. I started to have one of those mini-panic attacks that I used to get long ago, where the adrenaline just surges and surges and I’m so clenched I’m almost shaking from it and feel like I’m burning up.
I calmed myself pretty well when I developed a sort of a mantra:
It will not be easy
but it will be Okay.
Life is worth the fight.
Love is worth it.
I am worth it.

Who might I be tomorrow? The brave lady with cancer, who has such a great attitude and a great support network and is gonna beat this thing…. all the cliches people say about people fighting cancer.
I refuse to wear all that pink crap, by the way!

Not looking forward to telling my family. Becky already knows I’m going in, and Ted of course. He’s going with me- I asked him to come. I guess I thought he’d offer, and when he didn’t I felt silly asking him to take off work for something that obviously didn’t seem like a big deal to me. Of course he didn’t hesitate when I asked, and right now I can’t imagine having the focus to drive myself home.
Who do I tell and who do I just say “Well they’re not involved in my treatment so I’m just going to go stealth with them”?
Shit, tomorrow night is book club. We’re having a pot luck dinner to discuss the book “Educated”. I can’t even think about cooking. Even if somehow the news is not bad (I try not to let myself even think of that because if I cling to it and it’s wrong, then I won’t be prepared) I won’t have anything to bring to share. Should I tell Amy that I probably won’t be going?

I’ve made it now to 21 hours from diagnosis without crying but I’m on the verge now. HOW DO PEOPLE STAND THE WAITING? How do they just go about their lives? Will there be oncologists offices and biopsies, or will we go straight to surgery? How much money will this cost Ted? Will they amputate? Radiation or chemo?
How can you make a person wait so long to know? I feel like it will be easier when I”m actually in it: actually having procedures and treatment. This standing at the edge of the pool staring down and wondering how damn cold the water will be Suuuuuuks!

Gonna take a sentimental journey…
Sentimental journey home…

Last week my dad and his recently-minted 89 years came to Columbus, checked into The James Hospital and had 7 hours of surgery for papillary thyroid cancer.

My brother-in-law Joe, being far too well aquainted with surgery at The James, graciously shepherded dad and his wife through the whole ordeal. Dad went back for pre-op at 9 AM. Then there was a delay, and another… and he was 3 hours late going into the OR. Then the grueling hunt for tiny cancer nodes. It was 10 PM before that elderly man and his exhausted 84 year old wife were deposited in a room on the 21st floor to try to get some sleep. Everyone was worn out- even me, and all I did was sit at home and fret!

When I came to visit the next morning, he looked… well- better than I thought he would. His scar (which he would ask for repeated photographs of over the days to watch the progression of the bruising) looked like a nightmare…

But my dad was smiling and cracking jokes.

What's the difference between thyroid surgery and a mugging?
Dunno- what's the difference, Dad?
Nothing! They both take all your money and slit your throat.

We had been told that he would be hoarse after the procedure and there was a small chance he would lose his voice. And so, to enable him to call for people without raising his voice, and in honor of his great love of the Marx Brothers, I bought him a Harpo Marx clown horn. And a top hat, because of course!

But his voice, like the rest of him, bounded back quickly.
After a few days of him neither eating nor sleeping particularly well, the wound drains came out and the doctors let him go. I had volunteered to stay with them at their place after surgery in case they needed assistance, so I picked them up and drove them back to Athens.
I have satellite radio in my car, and a few years ago I had discovered a 40's station that played the artists whose LP's I remember my dad playing when I was a kid and I thought he might enjoy listening to that as we drove. It used to be called "the 40's on Four" because it was on channel 4, but not any longer. hoping they hadn't eliminated it completely, on the way to the hospital I was punching my way through the station offerings at every red light, looking for it. I got as far as #72 but hadn't found it.

After Dad got settled in my front seat and Dawn in the back and we were headed to the freeway, I started checking stations again- and it was the very next: #73, "40's Junction".
"Hey Dad- how do you like this song?"
"Oh this sounds- is that Count Bassie?"
"It is!"

For the next hour and a half we listened to the classics, and Dad tried to name the musicians, or the tune. If he couldn't guess, he at least had some nugget of information about the musician, or the singer, or the style of music they were playing and why it was popular. Good thing he didn't lose his voice, because he talked or sang along non-stop.
At a traffic light after we pulled off the highway for beverages, a song with a particularly good rhythm came on. Dad beat out the pattern on his legs and the car door- i used the steering wheel. We leaned our heads close, he rumbed a soft baritone while I harmonized up high.

And suddenly my eyes were misting up and I had to rub them, because it was one of those perfect, quintissential Dad moments. 
Like working at his basement workbench together, among the smell of wood shavings and machine oil,

Or hiking a trail and listening to him talk about a flower or tree,

or crawling around on the ground to get the perfect photo angle, Dad and the big-band music he loves is my dad at his best. His happiest.

He is recovering well (and was, in fact, doing rather more puttering around in the 94 degree heat yesterday then I thought he should be doing yesterday) but I don't imagine he will be doing those other "dad" things much any more, if at all. And so I am doubly grateful that, thanks to my satellite radio, me and my dad got to have 90 minutes of easy, pure happiness together.

Gonna take a sentimental journey.
Gonna set my heart at ease.
Gonna make a sentimental journey
to renew old memories.

Never thought my heart could be so yearny.
why did I decide to roam?
Gonna take that sentimental journey:
Sentimental journey home.