“Unprecedented,” was my friend’s word. An ex-policeman sworn to protect, his 4″ high text included stats on infections and number of deaths as sufficient justification for closing beaches, requiring all to wear masks, and sending patrol cops and cruisers to warn away anyone thinking of coming out on a ‘warm’ Southern California weekend. “Realize we are one or two steps from martial law,” he texted, although I don’t know whether he meant this as statement of fact, warning or prediction.
Another good friend Paul has a longer view and mostly sees history repeating itself in the most dire way. Whether you might have characterized the So Cal scene as It’s All About Me or We Just Wanna Have Fun covidiocy, it’s gone. It’s not exactly the proverbial ghost town since an empty beach volleyball court is still the seashore and an inviting place to wander and pick up stuff out of the sand.
Joggers and walkers are mostly lone, some daring to make eye contact, others who sport masks generally not. Daddys with children scan the parking lot before unloading bicycles or wandering onto the seaside path. Feels like the time of the Brownshirts in Germany, Paul says, taking a drag on his cigarette as we overlook the new beach scene. “I feel sorry for them,” he adds. I think he means all the frightened citizenry, and then he adds, “They’re just doing their job.”
I realize at that moment he’s talking about the police and that they’re just another chess piece in this game.
That’s the perspective that keeps me dropping in every morning for our Conversations on the Balcony. Consequent. He makes the distinction that if you are consistent, logical and just plain “make sense,” you needn’t strive for authenticity. The listener will decide that you are for them…or not.
I invite you to sit with that awhile. It threw me, although I sensed it was the why and how of his ability to be principled, non-judgmental and not a bit wishy-washy about either. So much argument, defense and ferocity over how one should feel about the mandate to Shelter in Place. I realized that instead of feeling frustration over The Man, it might serve me more to look at my own personal police state and free myself from being a prisoner of old mindsets and habits.
Funnily – although never coincidentally – I have recently pulled the Squirrel animal medicine card, its ‘magic’ the gathering. In this time of staying at home, I imagine that we are all looking at what we have gathered in our space, be it gadgets and broken things waiting to be fixed, worries or stress. As for me, I’ve pulled out the papers and endless jottings and shredded all chronicling and preservation of the past that doesn’t serve me any longer. And made room for an “untroubled heart and mind” instead. From prison cell to nest.
Fighting for Happiness 