I have been cat sitting Lily, for my friend who is in a nursing home.
Lily is worried about her human and I am only in for about an hour and I don’t know her habits. And I am not her person. However, we have finally figured out how to play. Lily has a tent, a small one. I started scritching it one day and Lily reveals her tendencies: she is a bag stomper. She played with the tent until I get the picture above, with her sitting on it.
Next I bring a stick with line and various things tied on, including a toy mouse. Lily and I play and I don’t leave with large hand scratches. I could grit my teeth, but it was not that fun. Lily wants me to pet her now too.
I think safety is an illusion. BUT it is also nice to feel safe and embrace the illusion.
I sleep best in tents, because as a child, I felt safest at our families “shacks on a lake” in Ontario. Cabins, but pretty much one room cabins. No electricity, outhouses, and my family lived in tents. I loved it. I was more afraid of people than bears.
The pandemic, or this pandemic, has made people feel less safe. But that safety was an illusion too. I had influenza in 2003 and was out sick for two months. I had a racing heart and it hurt to breathe. No asthma. Only rest seemed to help. My doctor and I had no idea when it would resolve. It resolved after two months. My partners accused me of malingering and lying.
A fast heart rate can come from a panic attack, but it works the other way too. If your heart rate is very fast, you may feel panicky. When I nebulize people with albuterol for the first time, I warn them that it may feel like adrenaline, it may speed their heart and they might feel panicky. A friend with Long Covid kept saying that maybe they were just anxious. I got them to have an Urgent Care test them: a resting and a walking heart rate. At rest 72 beats per minute. Normal. Walking, their heart rate jumped to 165, very abnormal! Normal is 70-100 beats per minute, though if one is out of shape, 110 or 120 can result from unaccustomed exercise. But there is no way an athlete in their 20s should jump to 165. The Long Covid heart rate was driving the anxiety, not the other way around.
After I had the 2003 influenza, I read a book of essays about the 1918-1921 influenza pandemic. And I realized that we would probably have a pandemic in my lifetime. I thought it would be influenza, not coronavirus! Hopefully the world will learn a little from this one and change a little over time and be a little more sane if (ok, when) there is another pandemic.
I saw this video today. Wow, what costumes (all 1970s) and dancing! Wonderful! And such a sad song about a broken friendship that used to feel safe.
I hope that you have places or people that you feel safe with. Elwha sometimes likes to sit in the cat tent, even if it is partly open. It feels safe.
I am practicing the soprano part of the Brahms Requiem to sing in early May.
The second movement is amazing. It is in 3/4 time, waltz time, but slowed to a dirge, a march, a crawl. And by adding movement on the last 16th note in a three beat sequence, so the 11/12 beat, it sounds threatening and frightening. It builds and builds and then quiets, only to build again. It is terrifying. What an amazing piece of music!
And the words, too. “For all flesh is as grass, and all the glory of man as the flower of grass. The grass withereth, and the flower thereof falleth away.”
At last it opens into a fugue and glory, but still with intensity. “But the word of the Lord endureth forever. And the ransomed of the Lord shall return, and come to Zion with songs and everlasting joy upon their heads: they shall obtain joy and gladness, and sorrow and sighing shall flee away.” There is still the undertow of grief and confusion and fear.
The building is at Fort Worden and is certainly falling away.
The Seattle Art Museum has a tree in the lobby, hanging. It’s a copy of a tree. It hangs from the ceiling and walls. It is beautiful. It is extravagant.
Discover and re-discover Mexicoβs cuisine, culture and history through the recipes, backyard stories and other interesting findings of an expatriate in Canada
Engaging in some lyrical athletics whilst painting pictures with words and pounding the pavement. I run; blog; write poetry; chase after my kids & drink coffee.
Refugees welcome - FlΓΌchtlinge willkommen I am teaching German to refugees. Ich unterrichte geflΓΌchtete Menschen in der deutschen Sprache. I am writing this blog in English and German because my friends speak English and German. Ich schreibe auf Deutsch und Englisch, weil meine Freunde Deutsch und Englisch sprechen.
KO Rural Mad As Hell Blog 
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