ellenspictures

Category: natural culture

Adjusting. It’s what life is. How well we do it is individually determined.

I grow orchids.

It’s not a hobby or anything. I’ve been given orchids as gifts, and have seen them at Trader Joe’s, picked them up because they were cheaper and nicer there, and given them to people as gifts… but, whatever, I have ended up with some – kind of fostering them for a friend – and so, I keep them alive… mostly.

They are interesting, orchids. They adjust to their environment. If they don’t, or something is not quite right, they begin to look a bit sick – the leaves turn yellow – or they just shrivel up. I always try to figure out why they are unhappy, when this happens. What do they need, or have too much of that is making them feel unwell? Not all of them are the same. Obviously, each one is a different variety, so they do have their own individual needs. What makes these different? Ah… quite the mystery, but nonetheless.

They can bloom for weeks, then the blooms begin to dry out. You can’t water them to keep the blooms alive. They have a life-cycle, like any other flowering plant. It’s according to their own clock as to when they bud, bloom, dry out, drop off, and the stem begins to dry out. Then, if we are lucky, and the plant is feeling good, it will do the same thing all over again… until it doesn’t.

They really don’t live forever in captivity. I’m not sure if these plants lived in their tropical native homes if they would just go on. Probably not. It’s a life cycle.

Nonetheless, they are gorgeous. They make the room cheery. And they adjust pretty well to living there, most of the time. But in captivity, they are dependent on us to make sure they are watered and not too much. They can adapt, but there are limits. Just like with us humans.

We humans are soft flexible forms, but we can break. Obviously. Adaptation is critical, but if we can’t adapt, we disintegrate or de-compensate…or both. In some ways we are actually like orchids. Think about it.

May 7, 2023
It’s a lot. Ch Ch Ch Changes. Wish we could talk to the dinosaurs, but that’s not going to happen.

Life is change. How it differs from the rocks.
Jefferson Airplane

Although it appears that rocks don’t change, they actually do. That’s where they got it wrong. Rocks are constantly in a state of change, and depending on the type of rock, some are just being born – chemically, physically, seismically, but one fact remains – everything on this planet from it’s birth is still here and there will not be anything added (significant mass) until the planet vanishes. OK, so the occasional meteor or meteorite crashing into the planet might add a smidge of matter to Earth, it is just a smidge and kind of like when another vehicle rubs on your car and leaves some paint – except maybe a meteor crashing into the earth might have significant planet changing effects, which is a bit different than going for the buffing compound to remove the paint smudge from the red car that bumped your white car and left a smear of red.

So, I digress.

Change is constant. Some change is disturbing. Some change is happy. But nonetheless, change of any type shifts our attention, may seem to shift our personal axis, and may also make us change direction entirely. For every change there is some adjustment, no matter how tiny. This breaks, you fix it. You get a minor illness, you either wait and take temporary symptom relief medicine, or you go to the doctor and ask for something else based on the doctor’s exam. You get through whatever it is. If it is something major, then you have to make more major adjustments. Life goes on. Somehow.

This week, in the space of a week, I have been reminded of lots of changes and the ongoing changes that are taking place continuously. A guy fishing in the park apparently, silently fell over and passed away within a few minutes and some kids found him and called 911 and for hours afterward, we witnessed that police investigate thoroughly even though it appears no foul play was involved. Not just one officer, but several were on the case. Nobody knew what happened until the next day. The rumor mill was going nuts. Always amazing that people without information will engage in conjecture to fill a void.

One neighbor who prides herself for knowing everything walked by on her way to investigate. I told her she might not want to go that route, and she got all weird about that. “Why?”, she said. I told her that some kids found a guy who was unresponsive and the paramedics came and turns out he died. She said she already knew…wait for it…because her son is a doctor (she tells me this every time she sees me – for years)… even though he lives out of state, somehow her having a doctor son makes her an expert about everything. Sorry, I’m sounding catty, but truthfully, its unhelpful. She said she had to hurry to finish her walk before dark. I told her to have a nice walk. What else could I say?

I couldn’t help thinking about the guy who didn’t come home for supper. People fish in that area all the time. Some bring families with them. Some fish alone. Most are not from the neighborhood, and possibly not from nearby. It’s a good fishing spot as we have heard. But, when things like this happen it’s sort of a leveling that when it’s your time, it’s your time. One would hope that the guy was loving his fishing and passed away doing what he loved. What could be better except remaining alive to continue doing what you love. It makes everyone else take a pause, however.

I watch and family members are going through life changes. We go through life changes. Even though, day to day, sometimes it feels like it is the same as it ever was – but it isn’t. We definitely are reminded of changes when we witness major events that affect others, that is for sure.

The ongoing war in Europe, the massive earthquakes in Turkey and Syria and the surrounding region, the horrid weather in the South Pacific region, many many lives affected in major ways – suddenly, or perhaps not so suddenly – but this points up that something is happening, and we should pay closer attention to the details…

…Something happening here. What it is ain’t exactly clear. There’s a man with a gun over there, telling me I’ve got to beware. …Stop children, what’s that sound? Everybody look what’s going down…
Buffalo Springfield

March 8, 2023
Pandemic Version 20.22? Entering Year Three…
Favorite old phrase from a Neil Young song title… “Here we are in the years…”

2022 kicked us off with one of us having a moderate case of COVID-19, Omicron Variant presumably. The rest of us were either mildly affected briefly, then asymptomatic. Some of us got tested and that is how we determined that we actually had the virus – else, our symptoms would not have driven us to be tested. That was the vaccination effect – according to our doctors, that is what the vaccinations do for us. Our moderate case likely would have been more severe, and could have become a hospital case, without the help of the vaccination immunity boosts.

We didn’t lose our taste or smell, thank goodness, and our lungs were not impacted. The rest of it was headache, cough, sore throat, fevers and chills, and brain fog – then the residual tiredness that you hear about, that comes on suddenly and says “whoa, stop and rest…”

The asymptomatic of us never lost energy, had fevers or chills, or were impacted any more than having a sinus headache and itchy eyes for one day, then a bit of stuffiness – but at the same time we had a high pollen count alert, due to the warm weather – so, who knows? We had both.

It’s difficult now to say how to approach this. We continue to mask-up, avoid large crowds, don’t eat out unless it’s outside… We go outdoors and that is our haven. I find going into stores extremely stressful. I come out and am relieved to be out of there. People are weird and rude and it’s just a strange experience. Some without masks look defiantly at those of us that wear them. But, it’s hard to tell.

We have the attitude that we will still do what we can, because we believe that we could get infected again. It’s like I feel about the flu – even if you had your shots, you may still get some variant that wasn’t in the shot. Vaccines for COVID-19 are different, but the main thing is to keep your immunity up as much as possible.

If you think about it, it’s grim – but, there are those of us who try not to lose hope…

We haven’t seen some our family for going on three years. One of us has parents, still living, that are advancing into their eighties. We have missed birthdays and will miss a wedding. My mother-in-law is very sad and breaks out tearily, but tries not to upset us, but this actually does bring on the emotions that are being kept inside.

All sorts of prickly emotions happen these days. Adapting since early 2020 has meant more isolation, and less socialization, which really plays with how you interact with people. It’s very tough on some of us.

We hear news that gives us glimmers of hope for what may be opening in six months – but that, we know, is really too far away to make plans – we now know that something could emerge in a short period of time that could change everything.

Coping is Hoping

What we now do is try to anticipate hopeful times. There are countries where this virus variant is just now arriving and spreading. Let’s say that we were third, maybe fourth in line… that leaves many countries at risk, and the virus will ravage their unvaccinated, and leave behind the vaccinated and those who would never get the virus or not know that they have had it – even though science says that most everyone will.

We have to cope and anticipate what we have to do differently with every wave that comes along. We believe that this will be versioned and each version will require a slightly different surfboard to ride the waves – hopefully, we can still do that without falling off.

Hope for 2022?
- That our coping mechanisms will be refined.
- That we will have better structures and rules to deal with this that can lend us the ability to travel confidently again.
- That we will be able to travel to see family and friends more.
- That we will be able to understand how better to bring fun into our lives, rather than the doldrums of work and everyday routines.
- Anticipation of every visit from our grandchild, or friends who are brave enough to venture out and socialize with us.
By this writing, we are still here. We hope to be here. I have health on my agenda. I swim every day that the weather permits. I try to eat healthy and do other things with my time towards health – because it’s up to me to do that.

-Hope Never Vanishes

January 24, 2022
January 24, 2022