Made it through covid

Late summer rose in Cornwall Park

 Yesterday morning, for the first time in a week, I tested negative for covid. I was surprised at how sick I got, considering that I have never missed a covid vaccination or booster. I had received my last one exactly a week before I came down with it. However, the fact that even though it is only a week later and I'm done with it, I sure was sick. When I think back in my memory, four or five days ago I was so sick that I was unable to walk more than a few steps without becoming exhausted. And you know how much I have prided myself on not getting sick.

One of the worst parts, though, is that I got my dear partner sick with it. He first got covid four years ago, just after it emerged in early 2020, and he well remembers the painful sinuses and distressing cough. He's got both again, and he's as weak as a kitten, just the way I felt a week ago. When I woke this morning after a really good night's sleep, it was hard to remember that I could have been so sick. Now am so much better. Not all the way better, but enough to appreciate feeling good.

Nothing, however, focuses the mind better than being sick enough to think ahead to what the future most definitely holds: more illness, more downtimes, and less energy to carry me through my days. By the time my eighty-third birthday slips into my back pocket, I hope to be back to whatever fitness level I am able to attain at this period of time in my long life. And to be grateful for every single moment.

This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness. —Dalai Lama

 I just want to spend these final years enjoying the life the two of us have created here in the Pacific Northwest. My days of hard hikes in the mountains are over, but there are still so many places to walk around in and enjoy. There are still so many wonderful people working at the Senior Center, now the center of my activities. Of course the hikes I've enjoyed over the past decade and a half originated from there, but now I am exploring the rest of the many offerings they have. I am very blessed to have such a fine center available to me. If you're interested in what is offered, you can check out the monthly newsletter.

October starts on Tuesday, and it is now only a month away from Election Day. We here in Washington State vote entirely by mail, and we have about three weeks from when we receive our ballots until November 5, when they must be either mailed back or placed into drop boxes. When we lived in Colorado, we always voted at our local precinct, and we were some of the first people in line, up in the early hours before the sun came up. In all the years we lived there (over thirty), we never missed a chance to vote. At first, when we moved here, I missed that, but these days we spend quite a bit of time perusing the ballot and making our choices on the referenda and learning about our local politicians' different stances on the issues. It's so wonderful to be able to be part of it all, especially when I see what is happening in other parts of the world, where the citizens must obey whatever laws are passed without their input.

Our country may not be perfect, no place is, but it's one of the better places to have been born and lived our lives. Now that we are into our final years, I can think of no place on the planet that I would rather be. Well, except for Canada, and places within their provinces that seem to be well managed. I follow a dear friend from Prince Edward Island, and I so enjoy seeing their environment and sometimes wish I could live there. But I am really perfectly happy living here in Bellingham, Washington, with its wonderful activities for seniors, which I have become, while nobody was looking. I see other seniors around, but also young people and families that are just beginning to form. I sit on the bus sometimes with crowds of students on their way to classes, and they seem to be from another planet, from another time and place at least, from my own student days. 

John called me yesterday to see whether I would be up for breakfast this morning, and I said yes, I am now testing negative for covid, and I am also feeling good for the first time in a week. I guess that is one side effect of having received all those covid boosters, I wasn't sick for too long, and now, a mere week later, I feel pretty darn good. I am grateful for small favors, like being able to walk in the sunshine and enjoy the company of my good friends. Yesterday Steve met me at the coffee shop, and he was very solicitous and wanted to make sure I didn't try to do too much. We walked for just under three miles, slowly and deliberately, and then I drove home, after a quick stop at the grocery store for some supplies. I am grateful that I can still see well enough to drive, but I also am aware that it won't be for that much longer.

 Since I started receiving those eye jabs, my eyesight has not deteriorated any further, but I do know it's only temporary. I am grateful every morning I can see well enough to read and write here, and I suppose it's possible that my central vision on my left eye might continue, but I am not expecting it to. I now must use that little light on my phone to see many things that were once quite visible. My next eye jab is October 7th.

Don't think I am complaining, because I continue to be very grateful for everything I have. It's normal to lose ability as we age, and I am content to enjoy what I still can. And for now, life is continuing to be something to look forward to in every single day. I can still walk with a spring in my step, I can still look forward to my yoga classes, and I can also look forward to the volunteer activities at the Senior Center. And I have friends who love me, and whom I love also. What's keeping me from being happy? Nothing! I am feeling on top of the world right now, and I am also looking forward to seeing my friend John who will take me to another Sunday breakfast.

So, with that, my dear virtual family, I will wrap up this post and get on with the rest of my day. Until we meet again here, dear friends, I wish you all good things. Be well.

A wrench in my routine

Last Sunday's surprise

Well, now I can say that I have joined the huge number of people in the US who have had a doozy of a virus hit, and I am now in the process of getting over it. So that is the only thing on my mind today, Tuesday, and the reason I haven't joined the Happy Wanderers in their trip to Goose Rock. My adventure began on Saturday, when I woke feeling moderately good, but with a little bit of soreness as if I had worked out a bit too much. A scratchy throat wasn't much to worry about. Little did I know what was to come.

By the end of the day, I was barely able to stay awake until my usual early bedtime, so I went toddling off to bed. I didn't sleep well, and when I woke in the morning, I felt truly sick and figured I had picked up some sort of virus, not thinking about covid, since I had gotten my covid booster a week before. I think I probably got infected on Thursday when performing my volunteer duties during the lunch hour at the Senior Center. I was not wearing a mask, and I was exposed to numerous people over the course of three hours, as I went about helping to set up the tables, finding places for people to sit, and then getting them coffee or tea as they enjoyed their wonderful chicken pot pie lunch.

The timing of it all seemed to make Thursday the D-day for infection, but who knows for sure? On Saturday I went for a walk with my friend Steve, and felt only a little "under the weather." By Sunday morning, I called my friend John to cancel our breakfast plans, and I went back to bed. The main difficult symptoms was my sinuses, which felt like they were on fire. I had zero appetite, and the muscle aches by this time were coming on strong. As I lay in bed, I felt worse and worse as they day went on. I took my temperature and found it to be 100.7. (It eventually reached 101.) I also realized that I could barely hold myself upright and returned to my bed, not leaving it for the rest of the day and night, except to get up once to pee. I felt a little like I had been hit by a truck, as much as I hurt all over. I couldn't function at all, and the amazing thing was that I had zero appetite and could barely make myself drink, but I knew I had to. I had developed the covid cough, too.

I was so happy to have a sweet partner to take care of me, as much as he could anyway. I was really sick, not having experienced such misery since my last bout with the flu back in Colorado, years ago. He helped me take a covid test, with the result you can see above. The "test" line is really dark! After all the tests I have given myself before, now I know what a positive test result actually looks like. There was no doubt. I also ordered some more covid tests from Amazon.

Yesterday morning, Monday, I felt a little better after a night's unrestful sleep. I called the Senior Center to cancel my yoga class and let them know I have covid, so they can pass it along to the volunteer coordinator. And now, just a few days after the onset that was so painful, I am now well on the road to recovery. My temperature is down to normal, body aches almost gone, sinus still not quite right but much better. The weakness is not completely passed, but I can now make it to the bathroom without worrying if I might need help to get there. My appetite has returned, and I enjoyed a wonderful lunch that made me feel almost human again.

I still have a runny nose and bouts of sneezing, but that is all quite doable, and I would bet that by this tomorrow, I might feel like myself. I did get up today and did my Tibetan exercises (two days lost) and put on some actual clothes, not just my jammies. I've watched some TV and downloaded The Daily Show and The Colbert Report for some laughs. 

And now I can appreciate that an elderly old lady can actually recover fairly easily from covid, but I am convinced that all the shots and boosters I have received have helped to make this less severe. I have also developed a true compassion for all those people who did not make it through this awful disease, and I am truly grateful for all my friends and family who care what happens to me. I'm thinking that I will test myself again tomorrow to see what the results might be. It will be five days since the onset of symptoms, so maybe it won't be too long before I can venture out in the world again.

:-)

September songs

Taken by Rita Eberle-Wessner

Looking for just the right picture to start off my post, I checked out a favorite Flickr artist, Rita Eberle-Wessner. She took this one earlier this month, and I was simply mesmerized by its loveliness and downloaded it onto my Mac and then made it my display picture. It brings me peace just to look at it. I hope it does the same for you.

September has long been a hard month for me. My son Stephen died on September 17th, sixty years ago now. I am sometimes amazed that I am still here, still kicking up my heels at my advanced age, while so many I know and loved have been gone for what seems like forever.

I don't have any memories of my sweet baby any longer. I read somewhere that every time you access a memory, it changes, and after awhile it bears little resemblance to the original moment. I can believe that, but just picking up an infant and holding him for a minute seems to bring back some ancient recollections from my distant past. I know that my sister Norma Jean and I both experienced much of the same memories from our childhood, but now they have diverged so much that they feel like different events. I think I'll just let my memories rest and gather starlight.

Let your life lightly dance on the edges of Time like dew on the tip of a leaf. —Rabindranath Tagore

'f'I woke this morning feeling "under the weather," as it refers to feeling sick. I have a little temperature (99°F) and my sinuses are burning, my energy is nonexistent, but I am not sneezing like I have a cold. I did get my new covid booster a week ago, felt pretty good until I went to bed last night. I think I'll stay home this morning instead of going out to breakfast with John. No need to expose anybody else to whatever I've come down with. I hope it's not the flu, since I haven't yet gotten my annual vaccination. Who knows? I guess I'll know soon enough. 

This morning I intended to recall some old memories of having been a mother, moments that still live in my heart. When I gave birth to my son Chris, I was barely nineteen and his father was twenty. We were such innocents! Chris is now gone, having died at forty of heart disease, and his brother Stephen was felled by spinal meningitis at the age of thirteen months. Chris was happily married, and his widow still texts me now and then. I don't usually respond, since it's still painful to recall those awful days. Grief never really completely leaves people; it just morphs into something less hurtful after many years have passed. Almost everybody my age has lost parents and sometimes other family members as well, but that is just what being mortal is all about. We will all one day lie down in our beds and will not get up again. Do you believe in the afterlife? I think I do, but I'm not completely sure it makes any sense. Probably it's nothing like we imagine, but I do believe that something of who we are continues. I know that there are nights when my loved ones visit me in my dreams, and they are as real to me as they ever were. Memory is a curious thing, all right. I think I'll just do as Tagore suggests, and dance on the edges of Time like dew on the tip of a leaf.

Interestingly, as I sit here pondering my post, I'm beginning to feel a little better. Nothing quite normal, but I do think that maybe I'll be able to start my day with my Tibetan exercises and sit in meditation, which are both constant companions when I arise out of bed, every morning for decades now. I'm such a creature of habit, but I don't know if it's such a good idea when feeling so under the weather. That usually means I am feeling a bit ill, unwell, poorly, or sick. My throat is slightly sore, nothing too bad, but I suspect that when I try to speak this morning, it will be with a croaky voice.

But into every life some rain must fall, and getting a littile sick is nothing too terrible, but it makes it hard to write about anything else, It's what my life is right now, although I have a sunny day ahead of me. Should I get out of bed and join the living? It's not easy to think of much else, so I think perhaps I'll stop here and spend some time gazing at that photo. Sorry I'm not my usual self today, but I can't pretend to be feeling perky. Nope. I'll be back next week, hopefully with  a smile and a better attitude.

(P.S. It's Covid all right.)

Our Senior Center activities

Me with two other volunteers

Last year, I decided to help at the Senior Center and along with many others, we created an assembly line to pack 1,200 lunches to be distributed the next day, at the Senior Day in the Park annual event. I actually had a really good time, and this week I have decided to join the volunteers at the Senior Center who help serve lunch to dozens of senior citizens who receive a good meal for a donation (or not) every weekday. I will try to schedule a couple of days every week.

Friday was my first day to see if I am interested in doing this on a regular basis. It was different from being on an assembly line, like the one pictured above, but I found out how the process is managed. I felt a little bit like a fish out of water, not knowing where or what to do exactly, but I was mentored by Tom, a fellow volunteer and after a taxing three-hour initiation, I decided that this is going to be my next task: learn how to become part of this team of volunteers and do a really good job. I was on my feet the whole time and working hard, my favorite way to get exercise.

I was really impressed with the coordination and dedication of the volunteers. I learned where everything is stored, and how to help set up the eleven round tables that occupy the lunchroom, and how to keep my hands sanitary (with gloves) and how to make sure that I am not touching any part of the setup that comes into contact with the clientele's hands or mouth. I had to change gloves three times, but I eventually learned the ropes. The seniors come in several times a week, I suspect, for a good meal.

The lunch hour begins at 11:30 and runs until 12:30. The volunteers arrive at 10:45 to get everything set up and ready for the onslaught. Only people who have gone through suitable training handle the food itself, but the rest of us were busy getting everything ready. The large room was transformed from a place for exercise classes to a very well-thought-out place for a lovely lunch. I wish I had taken pictures of the transformation, but I was, well, busy. I helped to bus the tables when one person was finished, so that another patron could sit down and enjoy a spotlessly clean space and nutritious meal.

I was also taught how to help those who need assistance in getting their tray and finding a place to sit. Then I would ask if they wanted coffee or tea (glasses and pitchers of water were already on the tables) and bring that to them. This was the only place where I noticed my eyesight was a hindrance: unless I have full light, I cannot see well enough to pour liquid into cups. I found some places where there was more light, but I still think I'll have to find someone to help me. Otherwise, my vision was quite sufficient for the tasks.

During the lunch hour, I walked between the tables looking for anyone who needed anything, and cleaning up after people were finished. Since these are seniors, there was plenty of variation in ability throughout the room. I feel very happy that I am in good enough shape to assist others, and I found myself feeling very good about the whole day.

People are allowed to stay and visit with others until 1:00pm, but as the time passed, more and more people left and we were able to clean the tables and utensils (like salt and pepper shakers) until everyone was gone and it was time to put everything back. Nothing was left undone, and I have to say it works like a well-oiled machine after years of perfecting the lunch hour routine. One lovely lady (who is perhaps my age, but who knows for sure?) thanked me profusely for my assistance and after everything was wrapping up, she pushed her walker towards me and again thanked me for doing this task. It was the first time I could see what a difference it makes to acknowledge people for their assistance. I still can see her face in my mind's eye, and it makes me smile with happiness to think of her.

In the woods

It is a pretty big change from my usual activities, such as the one in the picture above. It's time for a change of scenery, I guess, but the woods will always be there for me to enjoy for as long as I can continue to hike and walk. It's awfully nice to think of what I have in store for the future, which will entail indoor activities more often, but I will continue to be surrounded by wonderful seniors who inspire and inform. As the days continue to shorten and we move into the fall season, I will be stepping lively in the hallways indoors and the byways of the outdoors, all in the company of my fellow seniors. Life is good!

Nobody made a greater mistake than he who did nothing because he could do only a little. —Edmund Burke

And this morning I am sitting here in the dark, once again, noting that the sun won't rise for another hour or two. My sweet partner sleeps quietly next to me, and I am careful not to wake him as I tap away at the keys, grateful that I can still see well enough to write a post. Grateful for my many blessings, which also include you, my dear virtual family members. My cup runneth over. 

Until we meet again next week, I wish you health and happiness, and a fervent wish that all good things will come your way. Be well.

Puzzles and lazy days

Sky, harbor, and boats

I think this is one of the prettiest sky pictures I've ever taken. It's one of those sky situations that comes just before a weather change. We are just finishing up a short-lived heat wave, not terrible like some parts of the country (and world) have just endured. But it only has to get into the low eighties (28°C) for me to be feeling like wilted lettuce left out in the sun. This may be partly due to my age, since the past five years or so have seen a definite diminution in my ability to function in the heat. It might be also partly due to having become a Pacific Northwest denizen, too, since we don't usually get much toastier than that, even during the hottest days of summer. We never reached 90°F this year, thank heavens.

It astounds me that it has already been a week since I last wrote in here. How is it possible that time has accelerated so much that I barely feel recovered from one week before the next one is at hand?

How did it get so late so soon? It's night before it's afternoon. December is here before it's June. My goodness how the time has flewn. How did it get so late so soon?—Dr. Seuss

 I know this happens to many of us as we age: what used to seem like a long time, such as a week or a month, now seems to pass in the blink of an eye. Already I am seeing the signs of fall, leaves beginning to turn and fall from the trees, with winter not far behind. Didn't summer just begin? Or, alternatively, in the Southern Hemisphere, winter? One of my blogging friends who lives in Australia has been showing the spring flowers emerging, with their tulip festival coming up soon. It heartens me to realize that seasons are not constant on our gorgeous planet, but vary depending on which side of the equator you are living on. What a beautiful world!

This is one of those mornings when I have little to no idea what I'm going to write about. I'm happy that I can still see well enough to get up, make a cup of tea, and come back to my comfy bed, prop myself up with pillows and open my trusty laptop and see what comes out. I will continue to do this for as long as I can.

I will have my fourth eye jab on October 7, and already I look forward to that date, and experience, not only with dread, but also with hopefulness that these treatments are slowing down the progression of my geographic atrophy. Nobody is making me take them, but I wouldn't miss them on purpose, no matter how much I don't want the treatment. Anything that will keep the central vision on my remaining eye from going away sooner is worth it. When it is gone, I will no longer be able to do this, because I will not be able to see anything but a blur instead of seeing the words on the page. You can get used to pretty much anything, but losing one's ability to see takes some special determination to deal with. But I am not the first to go through this, and I will always retain my peripheral vision. I'll not be dealing with total darkness.

Another activity that I will probably have to give up is doing the NYT puzzles that have become part of my daily routine. It all started with Wordle, the five-letter puzzle that gives you six tries to figure out. I am currently on a streak of around 150 days without a miss, although I did cheat once or twice by looking up the answer online when I got stuck. Then I started doing Connections, a word game that gives you sixteen disparate words, and you can make up to four mistakes before the game is over, trying to figure out the connections between the words. I enjoy that game the most when I'm playing it with someone else, usually a coffee shop companion. My friend Steve wakes up in the middle of the night and solves both Wordle and Connections before arriving, so he will sometimes give me hints. Sometimes the game seems very easy, but usually I am not successful at getting all of the categories.

More recently, I've started playing Strands. The game begins once you start finding words in a 6x8 grid, going up, down, forwards and backwards. The goal is to find words that fit into that day's designated theme, but puzzlers only have a hint to that theme. The trick is, the theme is itself one of the words hidden in the grid. I find it very satisfying to play this game and don't usually miss a day.

And lastly, I play the NYT Mini Crossword Puzzle. It's a short one, taking usually under ten minutes for me to figure out the words, although the biggest, larger crossword puzzles usually don't keep my interest long enough to finish them. I put them in the same category in my mind as jigsaw puzzles, which some people love but I find boring.

Working these four puzzles every day gives me a great sense of accomplishment and satisfaction, and I'll miss it when I can't do them any more. For now, I am enjoying each day. I learned online that playing these games increases dopamine, a neurotransmitter that makes one feel good and helps with focus and the ability to pay attention. Makes sense to me. In any event, I don't usually work any of them until I am at the coffee shop with my iPad.

And I think it's probably a good thing for me to start doing some volunteer work. I've done a little at the Senior Center lately and think maybe that would be a good place to start doing more, or perhaps the Assistance League, where my friend Steve volunteers. For five years I volunteered to help people write their End-of-Life directives, but the program was curtailed; it's only recently that I've begun to miss volunteer work, and I can certainly do plenty even with my low vision. Just thinking about it gives me a little frisson of energy, so that will be my next project. 

I do enjoy just small little activities, always trying to get my daily steps in, deciding what to eat for the day, and hanging out with my guy. My life is pretty full, and even though I can see how it has been changing lately, I can still feel great pleasure and satisfaction in every day. Today will begin, after I get up that is, with doing my daily exercises and a meditation session, then heading off to breakfast with my friend John. I have much to be thankful for, and once again I am reminded of my virtual family, that means you, and how much joy you give me every single day. I'll read the posts that appear in my news feed and comment on them, happy to learn how you are doing in your own little corner of the universe.

My tea is gone, SG still sleeps quietly next to me, and it's getting to be time to wrap up today's effort at a post. I do hope you will have a great day and week ahead, and that we will meet here once again next week. Until then, I wish you all good things.

Decades of skydiving memories

Me in front, SG behind at Skydive Snohomish

September is a memorable month for the two of us, because we both started skydiving in early September, albeit a few decades apart. He made his first jump on September 1, 1962, and I made mine on September 3, 1990. I have written about some of our adventures in many earlier posts, but today I want to return to the incredible story of us together in the 1990s, never considering that we would end up getting married and, even more incredibly, find ourselves happily together more than three decades later. I will be lifting some earlier writing because I feel some of it doesn't need to be improved upon. Two years ago, I wrote this excerpt about what he remembers, all these years later:

There I was, scared shitless! Jack, the pilot of his Piper Cub, had me sitting in the back seat, and he said, "okay, climb out!" It was a very tight fit, so I scraped the back of my container across the back of the door, and then there I was on the strut, and my parachute was falling out, so Jack pushed me off the airplane. I don't remember much after that. But what I do remember is that when I was about to land, I was steering and it was looking okay, but suddenly I realized how fast I was coming down. The ground jumped up and hit me! I was twenty years old. I could hardly wait to do it again!

There wasn't even a Drop Zone for him to find to land at, but he managed to figure it out while he was under the round canopy, landed safely and was back again as soon as he could, eventually making many thousands of skydives, much of them under rounds, rather than the square canopy design that I would learn under and use, almost three decades later.

I was only going to make one tandem skydive with my instructor, but that isn't what happened. I was completely and totally in love with the feeling of being in freefall and wanted to experience it again. I made two more tandem skydives before enrolling in the First Jump Course at Skydive Colorado in Longmont that September. Before the year was over, I had purchased my first skydiving equipment and would end up making more than 4,000 skydives in the quarter century before I made my last one in February 2015, at Skydive Snohomish here in Washington.

I met SG on a now-defunct skydiving message board, where he would post stories about his skydiving career, and I couldn't get enough information about skydiving there, so I sent him a private email, and the rest is history. We corresponded by email and then phone calls for several months, before deciding it was time to meet. After several months going on like this, he eventually quit his job in San Francisco and moved to Boulder. It was a rocky beginning, but we eventually decided to get married, which we did in freefall over the Longmont Drop Zone.

May 5, 1994 over Loveland, Colorado

I was wearing my "wedding dress," a custom-designed jumpsuit with rainbow grippers, since he loves rainbows. He passed to me what we called the "baton of commitment" in freefall, and we specified in our marriage certificate that we would be married when we passed through 5,500 feet of elevation on May 5th. (We left the airplane at 12,000 feet above the ground.)

So, as you can see, this post is about several anniversaries: our wedding anniversary and our first jumps. Although we are no longer active skydivers, we will always be connected to the sport. Some couples might say (for example) that they still have Paris, but we will always have skydiving. Although the memories might fade as time goes by, the amount of time we spent in freefall will never change.

Since it has now been so long ago, we have incorporated a kind of shorthand in our language that recalls some of those moments, but other than that, we are simply octogenarians with an interesting past. The sport has moved on, and much of what people attempt in freefall these days doesn't interest me. I learned how to fall and control my body in a belly-to-earth position, but now people like to make formations while attempting to hook up in a vertical position, head down or feet first. It makes for a faster fall rate and therefore a shorter skydive. I was quite accustomed to having almost a minute of time in freefall before needing to separate from my companions and open my parachute. As I've said many times before, nothing stays the same, and change is the only constant in life. Even freefall positions.

I would never have been able to even dream of the life I have lived, since much of it was way outside of my ability to imagine it. Who would have thought that a casual incident of making a tandem skydive would have caused such a major shift in my life story? Certainly not me. But my partner of more than thirty years still sleeps next to me, and although I have some injuries that will never leave me, I wouldn't trade those years for anything. If I think about it, I can still remember the feeling of the nylon of my canopy as I prepared to repack it in order to make yet another skydive. But life moves on, and as amazing as it is to me, I have little to no interest in pursuing stories about the sport. It's like remembering my school days; they are still there in my memory, but don't hold much interest to the person I am today.

I do hope that the holiday weekend, Labor Day, will be a good one for you, if you live in the United States, that is. I don't think it's a global holiday. I am so fortunate to have plenty of sunshine without terribly hot temperatures, surrounded by signs of the fall season to come. My favorite time of the year. Please be safe and don't forget to think of all the reasons you have to be grateful for your life. It too is not permanent, and we need to remember every day how lucky we are to have this time. Be well, dear friends, until we meet again next week.