I feel it is important to have a written account as I bear witness to this special time on our planet. I am more at ease now as my mother have recovered her vision in her left eye and her shingle pain is less. She has finished her 2 week course of valtrex of 1000 mg. 3 times a day. Now she is on 500 mg. daily for a month. She called last night to ask if she could go back to taking tylenol instead of gabapentin. She talked about how difficult it has been – the pain and the medication side effects.

Being her daughter, I understood perfectly how hard it has been. I am a too highly sensitive person for my own good. I’m too permeable to others’ pain, especially my mother’s. I dread getting ‘those’ phone calls from her. But I’m much better this time than the previous episode 3 years ago. I had thought that she nor I would make it. She did. I did. I guess we’re all of us are crossing the Rubicon now.

Today the sky is blue. The sun is shining. There is fresh snow on the ground. The streets are quiet and mostly empty of car and foot traffic. So peaceful! I could enjoy this new way of life if not for the Coronavirus and its death toll world wide. The world feels saner. No hum of constant traffic. We can finally hear our own breath. There is stillness. We are stopped dead in our tracks. It’s good to know that we can. Now we have to pay attention and listen to what the planet is telling us.

Life, as they say, is changed forever. I do not want to go back to the way it was. I do not want our constant craving of more and more, of filling up our lives with busyness, of filling up our houses and garages with useless knicknacks and ‘stuff’. There was no real life, no real time. WeI  lived mostly in the virtual world or in my head. I found my attention span getting shorter and shorter, scrolling through the day. Maybe now with less noise and distraction, I can find my way back to my physical self and world.

As I light my candles tonight, I pray for a greener, cleaner and safer world. I send my prayers to all those in need. May we love one another. May we come together in this time of need to heal ourselves and our planet.