slivers of sky
the photos i'm editing right now are from april 26, 2019. on this day heather and i were in northern new mexico and we visited kasha-katuwe tent rocks national monument. the park is full of hoodoos made of similar stuff of the rock formations in cappadocia in turkey. "The cone-shaped tent rock formations are the products of volcanic eruptions that occurred 6 to 7 million years ago and left pumice, ash, and tuff deposits over 1,000 feet thick" that's what the website says. the trail we took, took us through a slot canyon which was quite narrow in some places. you could hike all the way to the top of the canyon and look down on the tent rocks but heather and i were like no bueno. we went as far as felt comfortable to us and then went back. heather felt kind of freaked out about the closed in space but i was like this is the coolest thing ever. haha.
back to july 2020, yesterday was my first day working at 'open pathways'. it was nice to have members back in the building. it's a new feeling, being together but also weird strict rules. i had lunch in the dining room and food and fun had left their big tv on a zoom call so some members were watching us and talking to us while we were sitting and eating which was pretty weird and funny. as i walked by in the line up i could hear judy say "oh there's laura, i like her water bottle.." and then martin comment. like were live tv for them. then when i was sitting and eating my beef and broccoli rice bowl talking with martin on the big screen off and on. what a weird world we live in now.
news n views has been on hiatus during the time we have been closed but we are starting it up again so now i am getting ready for an august publication. at the same time it seems we need our fb page less and less and so i'm doing less on that which used to consume all my time at the beginning of the pandemic when we were all at home and it was the source of all of our connection. so things are changing and it calls for adapting.
last night i was watching tv and i got a call from a member named michael that i'm friends with. it's unusual for him to call me that late. he had an english question for me. usually it's a vocabulary word. so we talked about that and then he was telling me about all the things he did the day before. michael has been super super careful about all his transactions with people and places since january. he was freaked out from a point when the rest of us were really quite blind to what was coming. so he's been isolating a long time. but i noticed in his story that he was seeing a lot of people and going a lot of places with them and i asked him about it because it was so different from what he has been doing. we had a long conversation about it. he was feeling so tired of being careful and just wanted to feel normal with his friends on that day. but now he was feeling scared about how far he had let his guard down. what a toll this pandemic time takes on us. i totally understood both the things he was feeling. so exhausted from keeping your guard up all the time and so happy just to be normal with your friends and do normal things and then scared about it after, like it was stupid to be so careless and what will the consequences be etc etc. we talked a little bit about how to let your guard down a little while still being careful.
the weather continues to be so spring like. i put my duvet back on my bed. i wonder when summer weather will start. likely when it does i'll complain a lot about how hot i am. haha.
my porch is growing more and more into an oasis. the hanging fuchsias really give it that feeling and i am so happy i got them. i do my scripture study out there and try to spend most of my working at home out there. sometimes a traveling wasp buzzes in jolting me from my tranquility. i try to stay calm and stay still but in variably it will get too close to me and i'll have to bolt towards the door. i've been visited twice by a humming bird. the first time she went to my pink dahlias and hovered over each flower and then buzzed out. the second time my back was turned. she must have entered the same way but she came right in under the covered area and when i turned i saw what at first seemed like a really large fat bug flying towards me and i jerked back in fear. i think she was going for the fuchsias which are hanging right in front of where i sit but my fear response sent her buzzing out and away but not before she left a little bird splat on my floor. i hope she comes back. maybe we can be friends.
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