A mash of thoughts and things...

July 17, 2020

This week I found myself making daily to-do lists. It has been exceptionally busy so that made sense, but I found myself listing things like, ‘eat fruit’ or ‘shower’ besides important tasks – not that those things are not important. But it is also absurd to list these things, isn’t it? I felt a particular satisfaction at the end of the day when I had ticked most of the items off the really long list. 

I had a follow up for my ear infection on Monday, saw the physio for my ankle on Tuesday, and had a dental appointment for a painful tooth on Wednesday. Of course, I had to rush into the shower after I returned home from each outside visit. I am still operating from those messages that say practice good personal hygiene, sanitize, sanitize, sanitize. I wonder when that will shift.

Large chunks of my morning, all week, were occupied in collecting my daughter’s tax documents to send to our accountant in India. I decided to do hers as I had just done mine over the previous weeks and was familiar with what had to be done. It took only three days. She will do mine next year. But through all this I made a visit to Tokyu Hands and bought a few drawing pens: two black liners and purple, light blue and green, water colour markers. How wonderful it felt to browse through racks of pens – all those colours and types – gel, markers, brush pens etc. etc. etc. It was the high spot of this week, along with yesterday afternoon with my book from the library J  Yes, I have a book from the National Library which has opened up by slot-appointment now. 

But today I woke with another toothache and felt really awful. I had just been to the dentist two days ago. I felt adrift. Like I was flying face up in a darkening sky. Paralysed, except for my eyeballs. Other objects were flying around me but I couldn’t move my limbs to push them away or to avoid them. At first, I felt a panic at the total helplessness. Then suddenly the fear disappeared and there was this curiosity. I seemed to have surrendered to the lack of control. I shift between these two states.

Covid too hits me in waves. At times it feels surreal to see people outside with masks. At times it feels things are ok. We are adapting. Then I hear some news, or something shifts and the panic hits again. USA, Brazil and India are just not able to control their infections. They rise and rise and rise. It scares me. Then there is a spike elsewhere but with some restrictions it is controlled and I feel hope again. Yet it feels we are at the beginning of this, not in the middle or the end, that we have a long way to go with Covid. Wonder how we will cope? A lot of people have slipped into poverty and others are on the brink. Children with low access to the net are deprived of education and will fall further behind than their advantaged peers. It is the most economically disadvantaged that have been affected the most but the voices we hear, the problems we hear, are those of the privileged. And many of those have benefitted from the pandemic, many do not want the world to change from the way it is, while others see Covid as a message for change. The rich have the power, the 'others' have the numbers -- where will we emerge?

While I have been grappling for meaning during these days, while writing these words in fact, I had a WhatsApp exchange with a co-journeyer in karate, a kyu grade in the dojo. He talked about how kata was changing him – developing character, attitude and more. He is one of the several who work hard at perfecting their moves in the dojo. It makes me happy to be part of his journey. 

My co-teacher in the dojo has a bad injury and will be out of training for a bit. I feel some panic about how to manage the classes with the restriction of not more than five training together, how to teach both groups. But then I also go back to the sense – yes, we, as a dojo, will figure it out. We will adapt. 

On a slightly different note -- earlier this week I browsed through a book on writing and life, and read this, ‘...all serious writers, private and public, are engaged in a common task: to see something as it is and to reveal it without distortion...’ I think it applies to all seekers, whatever the medium of our searching and our expression, that we want to know things as they are and reveal them without distortion. Will ponder this as I munch on my mid-day meal.