Flypaper thought pandemic edition

• I have been in the woods of Texas lately and offline
• Spent a lot of time with the wildlife and my own life
• Felt due after retiring from teaching this year
• In a few days we head home
• Early because of this Corona thing
• The Canadian government is calling us back to the mother ship
• A cooperative healthcare system means you cooperate
• We will be going back for two weeks of self isolation
• You know what in other times we called a sewcation
• Completely fine with being stuck in the house with food left at the end of the driveway
• Of course we have to get there first
• Only thing on my mind is my niece who nurses in long term care
• And my daughter with her own immune issues due to MS
• But of course she will be working because her patients are kids with cancer
• And they need her
• I am thinking of all I know about epidemics
• My mom nursed polio and TB patients
• She terrorized us all through our childhoods
• My dad used to say with pride "your mother could stop the bubonic plague in its tracks"
• When she used to come to visit she starting disinfecting the kids' toys before her coat was off
• Books people gave us when we were kids were baked in the oven before we could read them
• I only found out that all books didn't have warped pages once I was old enough to join a library
• Home sick
• Quarantine
• Isolation
• Used to be a thing
• Remember germs?
• Even those rounds of measles, mumps, and chickenpox we all had in grade two one after another
• Meant long stints in dark rooms and no one to play with
• Now there are commercials on TV for a pill you take so your flu vanishes and you go out the door to work
• Hard for that generation to get this lie low thing
• Time for thinking about the public good
• Which would do us all good
• So even though it broke my heart to tell the kids in California I wasn't coming to babysit
• And even though I had had patterns and fabric shipped there ahead
• That house didn't need someone flying in to see them
• Another time, a better time
• In the meantime on my way home
• Restored by the trees and the owls and the camping life
• To sit tight until this cloud passes
• And try to learn the lessons that this time offers
• While I sew myself some seams