life

CHECKING IN FOR 2021

/ The Coastal Crone / 36 Comments

We were all ready to see  the past year of 2020 come to an end.  An even year that was odd in many ways.  A pandemic raged around the world and the President of the United States was impeached.  2021: The pandemic is still with us and the President of the United States is impeached…again.  Wait!  Deja vu will not overtake us!  There is hope:  democracy survived and vaccines are arriving. 

Meanwhile, back on the coast.  Odds and ends of life.

This year I will not be volunteering again for the Volunteer Income Tax Assistance (VITA) through United Way of the Coastal Bend.  I started out last year in January but COVID finally shut it down.  This year it started up again in February with different arrangements, again because of COVID.  Clients will be able to leave their documents of copies of documents in a sealed envelope.  Then they will be called back in about a week to review the return, make any changes or corrections and sign the return for filing.  I will really miss volunteering this year, but I thought it best to avoid additional exposure.  Maybe next year.

Good news on the exposure  side.  Husband and I had been on a waiting list for a COVID vaccine through our doctor’s office as the practice is affiliated with a large hospital.  Monday we were called in for our first dose of Pfizer and scheduled for our second one in three weeks; we are in Tier 2.    It was an easy process.  No side effects so far.

Yes, 2020 was a rough year as the pandemic affected us all in some way.  For many the financial impact made it even worse compounded by the uncertainty of when it would end.  Deaths continued as Americans debated the merits of in-person voting versus mail- in ballots to elect a president.  Schools opened and closed.

And life went on with love, laughter and loss. Babies were born and couples married. New careers were launched. I have learned not to take anything for granted.  Each day is a gift.  The seasons came and went as usual while we modified holidays and activities to include masks and social distancing.   Yes, we are  still a divided country in many ways, but surely there is more that unites us.  We will get through this.

New Orleans cancelled Mardi Gras parades this year because of the pandemic.  But you cannot stop the spirit of NOLA.  Residents were encouraged to transform their homes into floats.  There is a book, Porches on Parade, How House Floats Saved Mardi Gras.

Laissez les bon temps rouler – Let the good times roll!

Below is a link for the book.  A portion of the proceed will be donated to local artist funds.  If you scroll down, you can see some of the houses.

https://book.pediment.com/mardi-gras-2021-porches-on-parade-hardcover-book/?variant=328993671414

LIFE GOES ON

/ The Coastal Crone / 47 Comments

Just what we didn’t need, a hurricane in the middle of a pandemic. Hurricane Hanna chose not to keep her distance or stay at home. Instead she chose to waltz into the Gulf of Mexico and make landfall on the Texas coast as a category 1 hurricane without much warning. The eye of the storm came in just south of Corpus Christi with some wind damage and flooding caused by rising water but no loss of lives. We were fortunate but hurricane season is just beginning.

My plumbago blooms; the cactus blooms.

President Trump tweets daily and plays golf on the weekends.

We order groceries online and do curbside pickup. A sister dies.

And life goes on. I am grateful for every day.

THREE SCORE AND TEN

/ The Coastal Crone / 24 Comments

Thirty-three years ago I wrote a simple poem for an old friend (REALLY old, I thought at the time) for her 70th birthday.  She has been gone for many years, but as I approach my own 70th year I remembered that poem and dug it out of my files.  It was composed in longhand and then typed without the assistance of  word processing.  In those days I often wrote basic rhyming poems for birthdays.  I am sure family and friends cringed inwardly when they got one!  Here is the poem.

For Nettie…in her Seventieth Spring

Nettie,
Ms. Lynn, if you please,
is a friend of mine,
but hard to define.

A gentle soul,
courageous fighter;
giving much,
reaching out to touch.

I see in her past
glory and sorrow.
Yet she’s come through it all,
still standing tall.

She brings sunshine and hope
wherever she goes;
a reminder of giving,
a vision of living

Happy birthday to a
lovely lady!
3/3/83

Nettie Lynn was Jewish.  Her family came to the United States from Russia.  She had only one child, a daughter, who would have been about my age had she not died as a young child.

As I enter my 70th fall…I remember Nettie and look both ways…past and future…and embrace today.

makeup

A POEM FOR THE NIGHT…

/ The Coastal Crone / 29 Comments

Waterview

The Peace of Wild Things
by Wendell Berry

When despair for the world grows for me
and I wake in the night at the least sound
in fear of what my life and my children’s lives may be,
I go and lie down where the wood drake rests,
in his beauty on the water,
and the great heron feeds.

I come into the peace of wild things,
who do not tax their lives with forethought of grief,
I come into the presence of still water,
and I feel above me the dayblind stars,
waiting with their light,
for a time, I rest in the grace of the world,
and am free.