Month: March 2021

Free at last!

For the first time since Covid-19 became a reality here in the U.S., I’m beginning to experience something that approximates normalcy or at least something that passes for normal.

The weekend before last, my friend of 40 years, Leighton, had his birthday.  It would be impolite to say which birthday but, he’s had a lot of them.  Renee, his wife, had planned a kayaking trip down the Trinity River and a box lunch picnic afterwards.  Even though everyone attending had be vaccinated, it was still planned to be outdoors.

The weather on the 20th was cool and windy, not ideal for kayaking so we postponed that event, but she did still have a birthday celebration on the 21st with all of his friends and family who could make it.

As I mentioned, everyone in attendance had be vaccinated by this time so we decided that for this event it would be mask optional.  I guess as some point, you just have to let go and step out the door of the airplane and trust your parachute, which we all did.

Many of these people were in the last group meeting that we had the first weekend of March in 2020, just before the stay-at-home order and all of the other joy of the past year.

What I missed most during this time was being close to my friends.  Hugging, touching and being within close proximity to them.  I’d lost the sense of community over the last 12 months.  This lunch was a huge emotional release for me, them too, I think.

This past weekend, we finally took that kayak trip down the Trinity river.  I told my friend Katja via a text that it was the most normal day I’d had in over a year.  For a brief time, a group of friends who enjoy being outside, together, were able to do just that.

Kayaking Route Down the Trinity River

Kayaking by its nature is spatially distancing but, it didn’t feel contrived or forced.  We wore our masks in the van to the put in but then, free at last!  We laughed, enjoyed one another’s company and soaked in the glorious sunshine.  For 2.5 hours, Covid-19 never entered my thoughts.  This trip was an emotional and psychological cleansing.  One that was long past due.

We finished up with burgers and beers at Twisted Root Burger and if anyone is counting, I had the Vegebond (that’s for MGS the vegetarian vagabond).  More importantly, even though we wore masks inside, sitting there on the patio with my friends talking about anything and everything (except CV-19), we all agreed this felt as close to normal as it gets.

I hope I have many more days like this, so many that we’ll forget about the loneliness and isolation of the past year.  I hope that my friends around the world will soon also enjoy days like this.

And, if I were a person who prayed, I would pray that this is not an illusion and that we never return to the sadness and despair of the past year.  I’m not but hopefully my friends can pick me up here.

Guilt?

I’ve now received the second dose of the Moderna vaccine after driving another 150 miles round-trip to Granbury, Texas to get it.  The process was much easier this time and the actual vaccination was absolutely painless, I did not feel the needle at all.  Neither of us had any complications of consequence.  The first dose there was a little soreness at the injection site.  The second dose I had some body aches and joint stiffness (beyond the usual) the next day which lasted 4-6 hours.  All are “normal” possible side effects.

While I’m happy to have been lucky enough to qualify for, locate a site to get the vaccination and to have now almost completed the 2-shot regimen, I’m feeling a bit guilty.

I’m not sure why I feel guilty, I didn’t do anything wrong; I went by the rules in place for each group and struggled with the arcane and sometimes idiotic sign-up process as did everyone else, I still have this nagging sense of guilt.

I feel a bit guilty as I watch other counties around the world continue to struggle, as we are, with getting people vaccinated.  I feel guilty because we have the vaccine when most of the world does not.

I feel guilty because here in the U.S. we made it so complicated and so time consuming that many people didn’t have the time, technical knowledge or even access to the technology to find a working site or sites or to navigate those sites if they found one.  Some can’t get to a mass vaccination site and there’s really no assistance for them to do so other than a rag-tag volunteer system.  In many cases these people are also in groups that are hardest hit by this plague.

I feel guilty that the system created an immediate entitlement.  Those who have money, were younger, had technical knowledge and access to technology and those who had easily accessible transportation.  Accessible transportation in the U.S. generally means access to a private car.

I’m not wealthy but I’m better off than many.  I worked hard all my life for what I have but higher income still provides a natural advantage.  And even while I’m older than some, I do have technical knowledge and access to technology, primarily the internet. Many older people do not.  I also have access to transportation which is good because I had to do two 150-mile round trips to get both doses of the vax.

What about those who don’t have money which makes many of the other items I listed more likely.  So, I guess I feel guilty that my un-sought privilege sort of automatically put me towards the front of the line.  While I’m happy to have completed my course of the Covid-19 vaccination, I worry about those who have not whether they’re down the street or on the other side of the world.

How do we level the playing field?  How do we insure that if we ever make it out of this viral mess, when the next one comes along that it doesn’t play out the same way?  I have no answers and I feel guilty about that too.

One final thought. The Vax has not changed my habits. Even though Texas opened up 100% (bad idea) and we have no mask mandate (another bad idea) I still don’t go out for indoor dining, I avoid crowds and I still wear a mask. So, the vax is not the end of our worries and the world is not anything like it was before Covid-19 but is is a lot like it was last month.

Flashback

My friend Chris, one of the Professors I met in 2017 on my Camino told me about a recently released Prime Video series called 3 Caminos.

The premise of the series is that 5 people meet while walking the Camino de Santiago in 2000 and become fast friends, not an uncommon experience I know personally.  The story carries on as the characters grow and mature.  They meet again on the Camino in 2006 and again in 2020. 

Many things change during the 20 years of the program, some for the better and some for the worse.  But the writers did a fair job of capturing the emotions, the conflict, relationships and hardships that real life people experience.  Things that you experience while living your life or walking the Camino which are one and the same.

I was particularly touched by the relationship between the characters of Luca and Roberto.  Many of us experienced similar bonds, bonds of friendship and compassion that spanned age, gender, and nationality.

While watching the next to last episode, they showed the Pilgrims climbing up towards O’C and the path up to the Galician Frontier.  Along this way, they show the beautiful valley that leads back towards Villafranca del Bierzo, to me a stunning view.

So beautiful that this path is where I chose to leave a stone for my Grandmother. It’s a black river rock, well smoothed with time and the actions of tumbling and being scrubbed by sand, water and other stones.

As the Pilgrims trudged up the path toward the frontier marker, I was looking at the few fence posts shown along the way…hoping to see the stone.  I didn’t, by now it may have fallen or have been moved but, for me, it will always be there.

Galicia with friends

When the Pilgrims arrived at the boundary marker, I paused the show and took out my iPhone and looked at the picture that my friend Katja took in 2019 and compared it to that in the movie, taped I guess in the Spring of 2020.  While they’d scrubbed a lot of graffiti off the marker, much was still there that I have in my picture.  Dumb as it may sound, it took me back there for a moment and made me smile.

I miss those moments and I miss the friendships and something as mundane as a short television program reminded me of just how much.