Tag Archives: COVID-19

Character, Emotional Health, Health and Long Life, Relationships

Delayed Reaction

May 8, 2021 Cherry Leave a comment

When it comes to preparedness, I’m your boy scout.

I read a verse in Proverbs when I was about 13 – the verse that says, “she is not afraid of the winter, for all her household are clothed in scarlet.” I like red, it’s my favorite color – second only to black. I like sale shopping. So, yes, consider my household clothed for the winter. I like to shop ahead, make sure my / our needs are covered so there is no frantic last-minute push. We are prepared for any emergency. At any given time, there are three little black dresses in my closet. A hiking pack, extra water, PFD and swimsuit stay in the car. My purse holds an emergency sewing kit, measuring tape, wallet knife, and dimes for the potty and payphone. Dimes for the potty? Now there’s a historic artifact.

Anyway, I try to be prepared. But that can also make me overconfident. Yesterday I took my kayak out on the river for the first time this year. I’ve had it on the roof of the car just waiting since April. My kayaking bag is in the hatch. All I really had to do was switch to my swim shorts and drive away from the house and 22 blocks to the put in. A ten-minute drive. Thirteen minutes untying and unloading the kayak and I was in the water blissfully paddling upstream, against the current as usual. Three quarters of the way to my turn around point I realized something: No sunscreen. Blue sky. Sunshine. Swollen river. 80 degree weather. Immediately I was thankful for a sit-in craft – at least the tops of my feet won’t get burned. I took a few more powerful strokes and remembered something else. I usually put moleskin on the thenar webspace between my thumbs and forefingers. Do I feel blisters coming on? Both moleskin and sunscreen are in my daypack – back at the car. So much for my preparedness image.

In much the same way COVID-19 did not catch me unprepared. I was not out of toilet paper. I had food for a couple weeks already in-house. I even had a collection of bandanas to use as masks. Who cares about social distance? I was new in town so there was no one to miss. No reason to repine and whine. I was used to hiking alone and living alone and I’m an introvert.

But the delayed reaction now, fourteen months later is about to do me in. During the long months of quarantine I practiced piano, I practiced guitar, I learned to play bass, I took some classes by Zoom, but I am woefully out of practice at this social thing. I’m fully vaccinated as are most of those in my would-be peer group, but there is no place to go, no one to see, nothing to do. 14 months later it is time to scramble and catch up with all the things I meant to do when I was new in town. Otherwise I, even I – the loner – will become lonely and blue. Intentional friend-making and job-hunting, inserting myself into the lives and worlds of others has never come easy for me. But delayed loneliness is no laughing matter, folks.

Character, Emotional Health, Family, Health and Long Life, Travel

Presumed Introvert

April 11, 2021 Cherry 1 Comment

He was the one who went straight to the car after Sunday evening church service, often taking one of the children – whichever was most sleepy or squirmy – with him while her mother chatted with friends, attended to choir business or emergency young peoples or women’s board meetings. Oh, she had heard him be noisy, coaching from the sidelines without benefit of in-ear amplification; training basketball players who were running gym laps, calling instructions from the bench as needed. But for as long as she had known him – and that was all her life – she had presumed him a quiet introvert who favored being alone.

When she planned for a long road trip to visit family, she opted for out -of- the- way solitude, quiet airbnbs that suited her need to be away from the crowd. It was near the end of COVID-19. Old people had been vaccinated. Hope was beginning to dawn. But still, out of caution and scrupulous attention to rules and suggestions, she pursued contactless check in, single family lodging, places where families could cook their own food, avoid crowded diners, stay in their own bubble and not brush shoulders with strangers.

But Dad didn’t see it that way. On a preliminary trip to Capitol Reef, just before the second wave of COVID, while bnbs were barely making a comeback, but doing it with contactless check-in, it worried him that he never saw the hosts. Once the long road trip commenced, he inquired at every stay for the names of the hosts, worried at their absence, began to suggest stops for meals at this roadside café or that diner. A high point for him was exiting the interstate somewhere in Idaho and breakfasting at a restaurant with an intriguing name and a chatty server. Violia was of late middle-age and knew how to joke in the old-fashioned way trading cliches and rolling with whatever eccentricities came from the lips of an 88-year-old man with half his hearing intact. He remembered this as one of the highlights of the trip.

On the other hand, highlights of the trip for his 66-year-old daughter and millennial granddaughter included staying at isolated mountain cabins, lighting wood stove fires, and hiking alone to rainforest beaches. He was gleeful about having met a host accidently on a gravel walkway whilst taking out the trash. He loved to see people. He loved to see faces – even if they wore masks – but especially if they didn’t. He reveled in talking with strangers though he saw and heard only half of what they did and said.

In reflecting on the trip, she realized that for many of the miles and days, she and her dad had unwittingly been at cross-purposes. While she had been industriously planning social distance and solitude, he had been deeply longing for close contact and society – not just with the family members they were carefully trying to visit, but with people, strangers, hosts, waitpersons, the vast outside world that had too long been withheld from him – most lately by a pandemic, but cruelly for the preceding years while he and his invalid wife became increasingly shut-in.

This was so clearly brought home to the daughter – she who craved solitude and independence – on the return trip. In Leavenworth Washington, in lieu of the desired secluded single-family cabin with kitchen, she booked an old motel turned Airbnb, complete with – well, it wasn’t complete at all-it boasted only a microwave and dishes were washed in the bathroom sink. Her dad inquired as to the name of the host. Jessica. She reminded him this was a contactless check-in and they would not see the host.

Whereupon Dad replied philosophically, “Well, miracles do happen.”

Emotional Health, Health and Long Life, Spiritual Well Being

Happy Quarantinaversary to me!

March 16, 2021 Cherry Leave a comment

Today is March 16, 2021. Happy Quarantinaversary to me! On this day in 2020, I rose before dawn as is my habit, wrote a little, ate my oatmeal, showered, dressed, made my bed and prepared to sally forth and land a job in music, art, or history – just a little something fun to supplement my retirement, make new friends and get me involved in a new community. First stop on my list was the library where I would print off résumés and network. Before going out the door, I googled the library to confirm hours of operation and found the library; CLOSED. Shut down. The library, for heaven sakes. The sanctuary of writers, researchers, the homeless and the itinerate. I have not been in a library for over a year now. I turned instead to electronics and music, solitary hikes and writing.

In the 17 days immediately preceding March 16, I had completed my move to Durango, settled in a Victorian apartment new to me, made two trips to Grand Junction to visit my parents, purchase a vehicle and coordinate details with my daughter. As of March 16, all commerce came to a halt. I dug out my wardrobe of bandanas – currently known as face masks. I commenced making chalk marks on my front porch; eleven days, twenty-one days, thirty-days. And then the lawn sprinklers washed away my record of confinement. The streets of bustling, resort town Durango were deserted and quiet, fit for walking and window-shopping. My only retail therapy was food. I found the grocery stores more crowded during senior hours than at other times. We are, after all, the baby-boomers. I shopped only when absolutely necessary.

I chose to receive the quarantine as a gift and a blessing. I savored the solitude, the uninterrupted time to write and sing and play music. True, I re-read every paperback book in the house – and all the books I had been purchasing and storing on my phone. I re-watched old DVDs. More importantly, I attended to my physical health by hiking every trail I could find.

I did what I had always wanted to do but never had time. I finished and published two books- rereleased a children’s book long gathering dust. I learned to play the electric bass. I sang with a virtual choir. I built a website for my online bookstore. I did more than survive. I am content more days than not.

Though it has been a year in which I lost my job and my mother – neither to COVID – I have found a new normal; a more stress-free way of being. I want to keep it that way. Nevertheless, today, on this anniversary of my quarantine, I have an appointment for a vaccination. Do I think the vaccination is some kind of magic potion that will fix everything? I hang my hope no more on receiving a vaccination than on wearing of a face mask, yet I participate willingly in both – because they are a comfort and encouragement for those around me; a symbol of hope to all who long for freedom; that we are doing our best. Tomorrow, may we do even better. I will live – and live well – as long as I am supposed to. And then, may I die in a beautiful place!

Character, Emotional Health, Health and Long Life

It is Fall and She Wakes

September 13, 2020 Cherry Leave a comment

She awoke yesterday with the distinct knowledge that it was fall, fall 2020; an end to the record setting heat and the beginning of joy and vitality for fall is her favorite season. Never mind the calendar says fall will not arrive for another eleven days. Her body, her mind, and especially her spirit knows it is fall. Her favorite season. The season of her bloom. Did she know it was coming? Of course. As regular as the herald of any season, she smelled it on the breeze one day in August and then it retreated, faded again into the obscurity of 90 degree temperatures in a mountain town of nearly seven thousand feet where homes have no air-conditioning because repeated days of summer heat are not expected. She heartily believes in global warming because that is what the earth does. It warms, it cools, more regular than present day clockwork, though each heave and undulation spans more eons than her lifetime.

It is fall and life is perfect. Perfect outdoor temperature for hiking any hour of the day without overheating or freezing. Perfect indoor temperature for baking. Perfect weather for pairing shorts with sweaters. Perfect time for scorched dreams and waning energy to resurrect and move forward. Genius simmers on the back burner. Dreams and schemes once withered in the summer heat are urgently planted like fall bulbs to take root under the snow. The promise of spring again seems a possibility.

It is fall and she has escaped so far the fires, the hurricanes, the murder hornets, homelessness, starvation, and covid19.

It is fall. She will squeeze every last drop – like cider from an apple – until the freeze of winter. And then she will cozy up by a fire and reminisce.

She wakes and it is fall.

Or, more accurately said:

it is fall and she wakes.

Health and Long Life, Uncategorized

Evolution of the Bandana, as I see it

September 6, 2020 Cherry Leave a comment

First of all, using a bandana as a facemask is not a new idea. Cowboys have known this for a couple centuries. Nothing says the west more colorfully than a button up shirt, sweat-stained cowhide jacket and a red bandana. And yes, somewhere back in time I rode horses and I’ve been hot and dusty. I was a child born in the fifties to a mom who wore a bandana to keep every hair properly coiffed in the wind until she arrived at her destination be it church or office.

She called them bandanas. We called them scarves. They were not cowboy paisley. Rather, they were sheer and colorful and available in a rainbow of colors from the local five and dime. I hated them. Not because my mother wore them, but because she tried to get me to wear them. Bandanas were definitely not of my generation and they looked horrid with braids and later with my updated flip- until 1968 anyway. But I am really not averse to using these same rainbow scarves while dancing in worship – or in music and movement classes.

1968 saw the advent of the little three-cornered scarf, a sort of kerchief made of cotton print, designed to match a short cotton shift. These were worn by teenagers who were not really hippies, but not old-fashioned either. I made one of excess fabric when construction was complete on my home economics dress project. The shift and kerchief became my favorite outfit. The girl wearing it felt anything was possible because she finally looked like a modern woman. The shift was well-tailored, finished with detail and boasted a good fit. The kerchief, passing over the ears and tied under the curl of my pageboy haircut revealed just the smallest portion of earlobe. The mint green tiny floral print of the fabric contrasted nicely with formerly mousy brown hair and drew attention to the eyes. Alas, not even fabulous fashion trends last forever. Bandanas disappeared again before high school graduation save for those worn by the likes of Clint Eastwood and John Wayne on black and white TV.

Somewhere in the late eighties, bandanas made a comeback. My mother, of course, was still wearing the sheer variety. But outdoorsy folks were using them for a variety of purposes; towels, handkerchiefs, doo-rags; as they ran cross-country, camped, or rode motorcycles. Women used them for craft projects. I found a matching pair at a local discount store. They were bandanas with wide, fuchsia-pink borders and a black and turquoise floral center. These I purchased for a dollar a piece. I sewed them front to front fashioning a sleeveless pullover blouse. This minimal shirt looked great with my Levis 501s and chukka boots and was one of two outfits I wore on a 21-day motorcycle honeymoon across the continental US. There was also another bandana on the trip. Red. Harley-Davidson. Absolutely necessary. A wedding gift from an older friend. After learning a hard lesson about sunshine and windburn on day one, my red Harley-Davidson bandana protected my tender nose and cheeks for the remainder of the trip. It is the second oldest bandana remaining to this day in my collection.

The oldest bandana in my bandbox is from a place of work. In 1976-77 I sold women’s sportswear at a quality, Main Street, department store in the heart of Grand Junction. With my employee discount, I purchased from the clearance rack a wonderful, seventies-inspired button-up shirt which I wore until frayed and threadbare. A bandana of the same fabric came with the shirt. That bandana is my oldest and has remained my favorite for 47 years. It has passed from me to my daughter and back again and seen duty as a costume accessory, wardrobe scarf pulled through a ring, hiking must-have, and dresser scarf in both college dorm and cabin. Why do I love wearing my 15 bandanas collected over the years? Because I would rather tie on a bandana any day then negotiate my thick tresses to pinion the elastic of a facemask to my ears. Besides that, other daily hikers have referred to me as Jesse James – and it is nice to be a celebrity of sorts. At my age, you rock your vintage doo rags and take what attention you can get.

Rocking two old bandanas while hiking in 2020: the 70s bandana and the 1987 Harley bandana

Marking time in isolation with an entire wardrobe of bandanas. March 2020

Seventies bandana on the 1889 Boulevard in spring of 2020

Character, Emotional Health, Family, Health and Long Life, Uncategorized

What Massive Changes Time Has Wrought

July 30, 2020 Cherry Leave a comment

Let me tell you how time flies – how things change really fast. You see; it seems like only yesterday I was singing with friends in a Sweet Adelines quartette. It’s been eight years. Four years ago I was playing in a band. Four years ago my mother was still driving and walking and she and dad came to an outdoor band concert. That same fall, they drove three and a half hours to share Thanksgiving dinner at my post in the Needles district of Canyonlands. That was after knee surgery for my Mom and she was recuperating nicely. I didn’t even go back for Christmas that year. Instead, I drove from Natural Bridges National Monument to Durango to spend a few days with my daughter. By the time another year rolled around, I was meeting my parents in Monticello Utah to deliver a mobility scooter to my mother. Three years ago Mom was still driving. And she could still drive well. Dad would back the car out of the garage, pull it up by the ramp and Mom would navigate down the ramp with walker or scooter and step into the car. Dad would then load the scooter on the rack to the rear of the car and they were off. 17 months ago Dad had hip replacement surgery and we realized at that time Mom could no longer drive or live alone. We had to nearly lift her into the car. She sometimes got stuck in the bathroom. She died 15 months later after having been dependent for a year and bedfast for two weeks. Just last year I was living and working in Page AZ. Just last year we had no suspicion of Coronavirus. Just one year ago my son purchased my childhood home from my parents and embarked on a remodeling project-completely upgrading the existing 55-year-old house and finishing the basement and garage. Just last Thanksgiving, I drove to Durango to share Thanksgiving with my daughter in a threadbare and minimally furnished apartment. Three months later I became the roommate in that apartment and was almost immediately solitary due to Coronavirus. During these past four months my mom passed. My daughter returned to our apartment after two months of care-taking for my Mom. I am singing in a vocal group again – albeit virtually – and our apartment is more than adequately furnished.
What massive changes time has wrought. Changes, not just in my life, but globally. We will host Mom’s memorial service in early August but we will host it virtually – likely with greater attendance on Facebook Live and Youtube Live than can be achieved in a socially distanced church building. But through it all-whether online or in person-music-lots and lots of music. Times have changed massively. Our enjoyment and dependence on music for entertainment and comfort has not changed – only the method of delivery.

Character, Emotional Health, Health and Long Life, Metaphor, Music and Theatre, Musical resolutions, Uncategorized

The Naked Vocalist, aka Grandma Godiva

June 28, 2020 Cherry 2 Comments

She took a class. Because she is a life-long learner. Originally, she wanted to learn how to record and edit virtual choir. It seemed like a logical next step for one who has sung in choirs, worked in studios, directed voices young and old, recorded original song demos and cut rehearsal tracks. Like the model who becomes the photographer or the ingenué actress turned aging producer, it was the next step. She followed up. Signed up. There was no class available for the engineering of the thing. But participation often lays the groundwork of understanding, so she was game.
What you must know is, she is not a diva. She is not one of those luscious voiced, coloratura soloist girls. No, this is the girl who prides herself on being a most excellent second fiddle. She loves to sing harmony, and she is actually very good at it. She needs others. She can be the backbone, the support, and keep 40 other voices on pitch if necessary – but she rarely stands alone. She loves singing shoulder to shoulder, elbow to elbow with other vocalists. She loves leaning in and hearing the harmonies and blend. But pandemics require distance. And pandemics are also great incubators for virtual choirs.

She reads notes. She has paid her dues, honed her skills, and gently exercised her voice back to what it used to be before 60 – or so she thinks. Like the good girl she has always been, she does her homework. But this week’s homework was to record an audio cut, raw, straight, with no effects – just her part – one voice out of eight, naked, exposed.

Don’t get me wrong. She’s not a microphone or smart phone virgin. It’s not like she has never sung before. But always with her clothes on, so to speak. In fact, the thing she loves about the recording studio is the way her voice sounds when the engineer works with it. She can land a spot-on tone, and then she lets the engineer dress it.

So there she was, Grandma Godiva (her long, long hair, falling down about her knees), her voice perfectly naked, exposed for the world to hear. The engineer will gild the lily later. Attach and press send was the most humbling thing she has done in a long time. Truth be known, she’s always been a little insecure about the things she loves most.

Naked. That’s pretty much how it feels to be single sometimes, or standing alone – the only one raising a voice about any given issue. So here’s to you, all you naked vocalists. Be strong. Be brave. I don’t care if you are 30 and single or 65 and alone. Dare Greatly. Don’t quit on your music – whatever it is that makes your heart sing.

Sometimes you’ve got to go it alone – naked. And pandemic is one of those times.

Books and other Soul Food, Character, Emotional Health, Goals and Dreams, Health and Long Life, Relationships, Spiritual Well Being, Work

The Grateful Victim

June 21, 2020 Cherry 1 Comment

It was something of a miracle to wake for the ninety-sixth time with a feeling of well-being. Make no mistake; she had moments of sadness and loss – bereavement even; periods of anger and denial. But she soldiered through them like a normal person. Treated them like an acceptable result of life and death. Gone were the days of abject despond and paralyzing fear that used to seize her for no reason when everything was going well. Gone the constant feeling of victimization even in the midst of the best of times. These days gratitude is her trademark. Gratitude on waking. Gratitude on drifting off to sleep – solidly. She abides in Peace. And Love. And Creativity. She knows herself to be a victim of only one thing. She is a victim of God’s perfect timing. Yes. A victim of the unfolding of the Universe. This is not the way she chose for it to go. Her choices were snatched from her hands. All her perfect plans – and she laid many with her God-given analytical brain – were treated as nothing. She is now living in Colorado – the place she longed to be. But she didn’t get here with the pomp and circumstance and grace she intended. She was unceremoniously thrust out of hot Arizona and tossed into Durango without warning on the cusp of COVID-19. Did I say without grace? By all appearances it was not a graceful landing – it was more of an ignominious heap. But it was definitely Grace! Yes. She is a recipient of God’s perfect timing. Orchestrated by a Universe in which she is a miniscule particle. Quarantined in the mountains. Forced to not go to work for eight weeks – to not even sip from the bottle of workaholism. Forced to write and read and make music. Required to engage in no activity save those that were exactly what her soul needed. Prohibited from shopping save for health and nourishment. Absolved of any pressure to socialize the introvert within. Add to that, her mother was dying. She had known it for many months. It was no unnatural or sudden shock. The death of an aging loved one is as expected as paying taxes. These global circumstances, so negative to the entire world, again positioned her in proximity to be there the moment restrictions eased and her mother attained final peace. And for that she is eternally grateful.

There are years, years we live through without relief, where nothing happens for us. We are caught in the overwhelming mud of the flood. Bogged down in the Slough of Despond. We are not absolved from the responsibility of our own self-care nor, ironically, of the admonition to give thanks in everything. But let us not fail to acknowledge and be grateful for the miraculous when God steps in and victimizes us with a perfect plan. You can trust the Universe. Rest in that. And be grateful.

Character, Emotional Health, Goals and Dreams, Health and Long Life, Spiritual Well Being, The Rules

An Old Fashioned Girl and Sneetches

June 10, 2020 Cherry Leave a comment

First, let me say that I am aware there are far more important things going on in the world than my sense of fashion and what I ate for breakfast. Conversely, what I wear and what I eat may directly inform my immunity to disease and strengthen me to engage in meaningful activity whether active or passive.

An Old Fashioned Girl She had always been a little bit old-fashioned. Her high school classmates can attest to that. But after her release into adulthood, she gradually drew abreast of fashion, in some instances becoming a trend-setter. And so it was with the reintroduction of bandanas. She was like everybody else, yet ahead of the game. She had a collection of 15 and wore a different one everyday. But lately she seemed to be falling behind again. Increasingly fewer folk were sporting bandanas on the trail. And then, her city enacted a face-covering in public spaces policy. Sadly it met with open rebellion and scorn. Yet, she had always been a bit old-fashioned, and that often entails following the rules.The Rules If you bristle that your rights are being violated when you are asked to wear a mask – or a shirt – or shoes – or a uniform-or a bathing suit – please save that energy and zeal for issues of prejudice we have recently witnessed – like Stars Upon Thars. In my opinion, mandatory testing should not be for all – nor should mandatory immunizations – or immunizations that have not been fully tested. But hey, bandanas for all is no great sacrifice – nor is a six-foot rule grievous to she who rather likes her space on the trail or in the grocery store.Keep on Doing Good

If you would protest, stay fit and stay well. What you eat for breakfast and what you wear may be important.
If you would cry out, don’t cry “wolf,” save your voice for what really matters. Keeping your instrument (be it voice, strings or pen) well exercised will keep your music – and you – alive.
Be strong! Flaunt your fashion! Keep calm. Save your protestations for things that really matter.

Keep doing it – day after day! Keep putting one foot in front of the other. Be courteous to your neighbor. Fight evil. May Love be with you.

Music and Theatre

Music Heard Round the Neighborhood

May 8, 2020 Cherry 1 Comment

Did you ever wish to visit Bourbon Street? Not for the drink, but for the music? Did you ever walk into the music building at a university and stop and listen to the cacophony coming from practice rooms and see the students conducting to tunes in their heads in the lobby and breathe and say, “feels like home?”

The other night, about half an hour before sunset, she took a hike. Right there on Paul Wilbert Memorial Trail, a saxophone bleat caught her attention. She stopped dead in her tracks to listen. Clearly, from 300 feet below in the neighborhood, came squawking sounds of reed music. Someone was practicing outside. She was delighted. Memory took her back to childhood sessions lolling in a hammock with trumpet pressed to her lips. Was it a student? And then, reed properly wetted and adjusted, the musician eased into 60s jazz, bending a few tones, undulating, something familiar. This was no beginner. This was a gift to the neighbors. Mark it on your schedule, 7:00 pm every night.

She has pinpointed, in various forays around the neighborhood, a kit drum house, two guitar houses, the saxophone house and a banjo house. It’s a quaint Victorian neighborhood, four blocks from downtown old town, half degenerating and half up-town restoration. But, musicians live here. Artists thrive. Rich cultures mix. People walk their dogs – and their children – and themselves, every morning and evening. Skateboards trundle by, bicyclists call to one another and stop and chat. The weather is so fine, she opens her door each evening at 5:00 and plays through a piano repertoire for an hour. Folk songs, sixties, seventies, a nod to the eighties and nineties, something fresh; a river set, an Elvis Presley sampling. Good grief, she’s been playing for over 60 years. That’s a lot of music.

Last night as she launched into Danny Boy a particularly loud conversation caught her ear because it stopped right outside the window for the dog to do its business. Business complete, the human came right on up the porch, chattering on a phone all the while, and peered in the screen door. “I am talking to my friend in Buenos Aires,” she explained with thick accent, “She wants to know, do you know your music is heard in Argentina?”

“Hola!” the pianist called, waving to the screen. She continued to play with pride and an increased sense of excellence and performance. After all, she is going international. Her music is heard ‘round the world.

Cherry Odelberg