- 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
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