Self Isolation and Covid-19

Coronavirus. Covid-19.

I'm fairly certain that 3 months ago Covid 19 was something I had "vaguely" heard of.  Now it the center of my life, and the lives of everyone in the world. I wanted to start journaling what life is like through this whole thing, but I'm not so sure it will be very interesting. 

By the time this is posted everyone in the world will know about it - probably more than we know right now. 

Today is March 29. There are 6,243 cases in Canada and 661 cases in Alberta. Currently in Peace River there are 8 cases - those are the cases closest to us. 

On March 15 in Alberta all of the schools were cancelled. It was also the day I started to work from home. I have my laptop and my phone from work and I am completing all of my meetings via phone and zoom conference. When I got the news that I was to work from home I was super excited. I thought for sure my home was going to be spotless and I was going to have delicious home cooked meals every night.  Number 2 son - whom I will refer to from this point on as "Hurricane" has thwarted my designs on being a domestic goddess throughout this self isolation thing. 

It is crazy hard to have a work schedule and a home schedule when I'm home all day. I am on call all the time so even when my work hours are officially "over" I feel as though I am never off the clock. It was a lot easier to do when I was in the office and would physically walk away from work, even though I was still on call. 

My plans for a spotless house are not even CLOSE to fruition. I gave up on that plan and decided to make a list of projects I would like to accomplish while I am working from home.  I thought I would work on doing one thing a day so that I would still feel like I was getting somewhere, but even that has not been successful so far. Then yesterday the blower motor on my furnace died. It was -28 degrees C yesterday. I have space heaters in the hallway, the bedroom, and the living room. Unfortunately the space heaters keep tripping the breakers. Ugh. It's all a huge mess. 

I called the heating guys in Fairview yesterday and they sent out a motor. Ben came to put in it but it is the wrong size. It has been storming here for a few days already and the snow is not scheduled to stop anytime soon. 

I have a full day of work tomorrow but I also need to get the furnace fixed. Negotiating all of this is a struggle - and doing it alone makes it harder. 

Collapsing Stars

Carl Sagan said " The nitrogen in our DNA, the calcium in our teeth, the iron in our blood, was made from the interior of collapsing stars. We are made of star stuff."

The first time I read this I felt as though it meant I was part of something infinite - which is motivational when infinity is a happy place. I believed that it meant I am a part of something that existed before and will continue to exist after I am no longer here. I felt a connection to the universe in an elemental way and the connection felt good.

Right now I am equally convinced I am made from collapsing stars, but not in the way I first interpreted Sagan. 

Collapsing stars are black holes. The infinity of this moment is exquisitely painful - as I would imagine the gravitational force of a cosmic implosion and the creation of a black hole would be. The absence of light, complete destruction. 

My pain feels as old as the stars and as expansive.  It's not a tap root that I can pluck out of my soul. It is Pando, the trembling giant. The largest single living organism, 80 thousand years old and 6 million kg. Heavy, alive and growing. The only connection I feel in this infinite moment is the connection to greater and deeper root system of pain. This infinity is lonely, and dark, and burning cold. What I think I know about black hole's is that nothing that we suspect has gone in has ever come out - at least as we know it in this dimension. It is theorized that black holes in our universe are the beginnings of universes elsewhere. If this infinite moment ends I won't exist anymore - not as I have existed before. Is that creation then?