No Promise of Tomorrows

 One of the challenges of mortality is balancing preparing for tomorrow and living life today because tomorrow is never promised.

If I absolutely knew I would have no tomorrow, I would be home playing with my babies, doggies, soaking up every ray of sunshine, taking one last sweet shot of sex with my hubby. I would drop all worries and go for comfort and experience, squeezing every golden drop I could from the last rays of light, and feel gratitude for the life I have had. I'd tell my children "Tomorrow, we go home to Christ."

Somedays, as the world tilts more into making tomorrow less likely, you begin to question the drive we have to carry on, as if nothing unusual is happening. Especially when that drive seems to eclipse both the actual preparation for tomorrow and the living life today.

Why go to work, go to school, when it reduces my current joy nor prepares me for what tomorrow will most likely bring? Why are we so good at pretending that tomorrow will just be another today?

This is a collective pretending. If enough of us pretend, it generally works, unless a disaster of man or nature actually befalls us, today will lead into tomorrow and be mostly normal. But as soon as enough of us stop pretending, it will fall apart. The lack of pretending tomorrow is normal will actually allow tomorrow not to be normal.

This is a two-edged sword. We do need tomorrow to be different if we want any hope of having enough resources to prepare for the future if we want to forge it into a liveable shape, but we also need tomorrow to be the same enough that we can use our current skill set to get things done as we prepare for the future.

Therefore, I submit the following advice (to myself)

1. Carrying on is important, but not in the "everything is normal" category, it has to be a carrying on that is designed to create a tomorrow we can/want to have.

2. This requires a focus shift. Stop pretending. Willingly acknowledge that tomorrow ought to be different. Figure out how you want it different and make plans how to get there. Ideally, our leaders should be doing this on a local, state, national, and worldwide scale. They are failing because big business requires our collective pretending. Without large-scale leadership, you will have to forge the best you can with whatever community you can join with. Find that community. Start plans and prepare.

3. Accept that you might have work to bring in the money you need to prepare for tomorrow ( and yes, paying your bills counts here). While you are working, you may have to pretend all is normal to do your job, or maybe your job is help prepare your work for this future we want to forge.

What to do when you are stuck in Covid Quarantine?

 Sick and Tired?

Then Tired yet Boared?

What to do when you are stuck in a Covid quarantine, with no energy.

1. Sleep- I know if you are reading this then you are all slept out (at least for the next 5 minutes)

2. Read- novels are good, some nice fantasy, obviously you are not up to anything that takes real brain power, so don't pre-read your next semester's texts- just enjoy something fun

3. Watch something funny- the old saying laughter is the best medicine- some nice 1980s comedies might be right match for your brain power right now- maybe something with Leslie Neilson?

4. For the two minutes every hour you can handle standing- wash a dish or change a laundry might be nice. I've been trying to clean little messes. I got under 1 chair with a rag, and maybe tomorrow I'll get that pile of dirt and debris at the top of stairs (that has been waiting on me much longer than I've had covid).

5. Movie Marathon: like these quarantine days are great for nice long movie marathons, especially thing you can sleep through and not care about- every Lord of the Rings, every Star Trek, whatever floats your boat.

6. Write a string of really bad blogs, nobody will care anyways, except google, then they can pop up in somebody's search results and look promising until they realise it was nothing more then a direct phrase match.

Story Idea

 After global warming proved to be an extension-level event; the rich; the billionaires, set about using their money to ensure their survival on a MARs colony. They leave Earth after the seas have officially started boiling. And after their arrival on Mars, they have to become pioneers and have to learn how to do daily chores to ensure their own survival. They learn the essential survival techniques of putting their nose to the grindstone, from the underclass they brought with them to do the cooking and the cleaning. Because the cost of hauling the underclass to Mars, they only brought a few. But the cleaning lady rises to prominence as she becomes the source of essential knowledge and character. By the third generation of human Martians, she is regarded as the only reason they have survived. The billionaires forgotten.

 It feels amazing to.live in paradise, weeks of perfect weather, green plants growing out of every Crack. 

It's also heartbreaking to know the rest of the world is burning, like cookies in an oven left on too long.

She sang

 "Prepare, oh prepare"

she sang as she planted her garden

 "Prepare, oh prepare"

she sang as she hung her solar panels

"Prepare, oh prepare"

She hummed as the wildfire smoke made her eyes tear

That wasn't fun

plague and earthquakes elsewhere were enough

but for it to come home

that was not fun

But she ate her saurkraut

as the world burned around here

tried to stay grounded 

doing daily chores,

 of which there were never any lack

New she sang songs of redemption

as she hung on

waiting through the dark

waiting for the light

Old nonsense

 I'm not done with my old nonsenses

I've got stars to watch and clouds to name

I've got flowers to befriend

asparagus to apologize to

before devouring it

I have toddlers to make messes with

kid to hop stone with

stream to majestically ford

and wet feet to let dry in the sun

mullin to pet

dirt to dig

spontaneous somersaults to perform

trips out of the blue

so many things to do

I'm not really ready for something new

March 1st

 I smiled today as I walked in the storm

covered in snow

wind whipping my jacket and hair

was it the beauty of a winter storm that made me smile?

was it the wind pushing me backward on the snowy ice?

or was it the beauty of weather living up to its legendary forms?

maybe, it was peace in Christ?