Yesterday the three of us from last week met again for a swim, a game of scrabble and dinner. There were no cops on the way luckily. However, the guilt factor has multiplied several times over. So this morning when I woke up and sneezed several times, I was convinced that this was it! Luckily it turned out to be something in the air that had tickled my nostrils.
As of today, one person in 1.3 lakh people has tested positive. Why take the chance that you might bump into that person? A friend asked me why I want to play Russian roulette with corona.
During the evening, we discussed why the numbers were so low. Was it because we were not testing enough? Wouldn’t there be a lot more deaths to indicate hotspots even if there was no testing done? Maybe it is true that we are immune because we live in such poor conditions anyway! Or is it is the BCG vaccine, as is the popular theory, that is protecting us? And finally the heat - no one can survive it, least of all a virus! All theories, all speculation - no evidence yet to show any of it as either true or false. That is the beauty of these times - everything is uncertain. And it has been sometime since the privileged in society have handled uncertainty.
I certainly belong to the privileged classes and yet, uncertainty is an old friend. As far back as I can remember, plans I make just do not become reality. When things occasionally work according to plan, I am very pleased and enjoy it while it lasts. Ask me if I am free tomorrow evening and I will hem and haw. With good reason! If I say yes, something is bound to come up. If I say no, then I can anyway join in at the last minute. For most things in Goa at least! Like the introverts are announcing, “I have trained my whole life for this!”
What I miss is going out for a meal, shopping, browsing in the library - the physical one, with books, dancing at Cavala with friends… I am sure we all have our own lists.
On Facebook, there are suddenly a lot of ads for courses that you can complete while in lockdown. And an equal number of posts from friends, asking how anyone can find the time to do that given that we are all struggling between house work and office work. It would be enough if we got through this with some amount of sanity left!
I decided to try at least and signed back into Coursera. There are 8 courses that I have signed up for in the last couple of years and not gone beyond the introduction! I am going to try and finish “Sharpened Visions - a Poetry Workshop” and “The Craft of a Plot”. Let me see how far I get.
On the meditation app, Insight Timer, I am working on ‘Healing and letting go’ - the toughest chapter that I have faced so far while working on myself. The person who is guiding these sessions is called Sarah Blondin - her voice is calm and soothing and firm - like neem honey. I find all her meditations very practical and about getting to the core of issues that I personally want to resolve. I have been using Insight Timer for about a year now - and it has helped a lot. Right now, it brings me back to even keel every time I am getting overly anxious and panicked. The PM is addressing the nation tomorrow - need to meditate a bit more now!
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