Time to think

Mask wearing is now de rigueur if you want to be inside a place with other people besides your own home or private office (I now wear a mask inside the building where I work).

Luckily, neighbors down my street have been making and donating cloth masks, by leaving them on a table on their front porch. I always make sure to leave some money, because these people are not only thoughtful and community minded, but also because they probably could use some handy cash. 

Meanwhile, people want things to go back to normal, not accepting the fact that we need to build a new kind of "normal" that must take into consideration mistakes that we made that led to where we are now. And there are many mistakes. I don't mean for this blog to become some kind of moralizing pulpit, but we have all been given gobs of time to think. So let's think, let's think hard, and when we step outside, let's accept that we are not stepping back in time, but forward, to what, I don't know. 

Time to take a walk with a friend, mask at the ready. 

imitation is the greatest form of flattery?

 Lately, people stuck at home have been doing some pretty amazing reenactments of real paintings. It's been a huge source of amusement for many, amusement being something we badly need right now. It's also been lovely to see the attention being paid to paintings, as museums, among many arts institutions, are closed to the public.

Ah the public. We have been hearing a great deal about what the public wants and doesn't want. It seems that, keeping things on track with museums, before the Covid outbreak, museums were doing okay. But, judging from the lack of knowledge displayed by my students about museum visits (the lack of memory? The lack of deep exposure?), a true understanding of and appreciation for art seems to be on the decline in our everyday practice. Until now, perhaps, with those reenactments.

What I have done here is not art, but it is a sort of reenactment. It's just that I finally dug out from my closet an outfit I have been meaning to wear as soon as the temperatures allowed it. I spotted this woman (top photo) as I came out of my parents' building last August (2019). I snapped a photo, knowing that the assemblage was one I could do with 1. old Gap jacket 2. Eileen Fisher tunic bought used at a consignment store and 3. J.Jill tan linen pants bought at a consignment store. (The buff around my neck is now a permanent fixture as it is ready to be pulled up over my face for instances of proximity to others).

I look nothing like that TriBeCa apparition. What was she carrying in that enormous bag? I could have put on my black booties to really seal the deal, but, come April, boots are put away with the exception of one pair of rain boots. Come May, those must also be put away.

We do have six months of winter here. It snowed last weekend. We call spring something that looks like winter. We call spring something that feels more like summer. We have perhaps a grand total of two weeks of something that feels like spring.

Unlike many who are stuck in apartments and looking for ways to pass the time as we await the passing of Covid, I have freedom of movement, in my garden, in my neighborhood and in my region. I am fortunate to have this freedom, a freedom that many who do not have it are perhaps considering as they contemplate a post-Covid future. Time for a more rural existence?

Will everything go back to the way it was before? Very doubtful. Will droves of young people spearhead yet another back to the land movement? That would be lovely. Please come and till the land. And, at the end of the day, come on over. Play some music, talk about art, and, once in a while, go to the city and visit and exhibit or two. As the bumper sticker on my car says, "Earth without Art is just Eh."

why the blazer?

Ok Covid Lady, you are challenging us to rethink our way of being. Good for you! It was high time. 

Seriously. People, how much longer can we keep up this frenetic pace? 

I just read in the Boston Globe that maybe cities are not the greatest place to live after all.

That's a tough one. I grew up in cities, and travel to cities when I want to go somewhere on vacation, because I live in the country. I love walking in a city, and all the cultural offerings of cities, not to mention all the random stuff that one sees, just sitting on a park bench or at an outdoor cafe. I will never forget, just to name one random sighting, back in Amsterdam, a great city to people watch, but also to savor all the ways people travel on two wheels, an Irish setter sitting upright in a front basket of a bicycle pedaled by a man behind him. I wondered how the human could see behind the head of his dog!

During this moment of isolation and confinement at home, I am ever so grateful that I live in the country. We can walk as much as we want, and we can drive to other places to walk. We do not have lines going into supermarkets. Things are pretty chill for the most part. I had trouble finding seeds for the garden actually. That's fitting. 

I can talk to my neighbors outside their homes when I pass by. That has led to some lovely moments of socializing, which I savor and which have made me appreciate more and more the neighborhood where I live. 

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This period of low consumerism has made me reassess my proclivity to spend money on things I really do not need. My daily trip to the closet makes me face my overabundance of clothes. And that is only the beginning. How much air travel can this planet endure? How much road travel? It's so lovely that animals have regained "droit de cité" quite literally. 

Before it all went into shut down mode, I bought a grey jacket at the local Talbot's, literally on the last day that they were open before the big lockdown. I felt sorry for the salesperson who looked super stressed out. At least, that was my excuse at the time. 

It's so strange to dress up for almost no one. My students see my head mostly, and maybe, if they are at all interested, they take a closer look at what I am wearing. 

Jackets will transition me into "old" age which I put in quotes because I don't quite know when that will begin. Sometimes it feels like it already has. The body certainly is sending a message. When the monthly paycheck ceases, a year from now, that time will mark yet another milestone in my ascent to old age. I'm glad to be ready with those jackets waiting in the closet. They make me feel like I need to accomplish something today. They are the antithesis of sweatpants. 

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I have been riding our free bus to work mostly because it's there, it's almost empty, and I want to keep it going. Taking selfies with my eyes directed sideways has become yetvanother "hobby" of mine. 

That face says a lot though, like, WTF is going on? And what will happen when all this is over? Will we go back to our old ways, I certainly hope not. Will we wear masks in crowded public places? Already mask wearing is beginning to feel normal. 

Fortunately the blooms in and around town are a beautiful distraction from the ugliness of the politics surrounding Ms. Covid and who is responsible for it. I name her female, because it's so much easier to blame a woman, doesn't it? 

In the meantime, here's to the beauty of spring everywhere and anywhere that you can find it. Including in the city.