so what’s new at the wuhan quarantine?
so..i haven’t written much lately. you’d think that with only a small apartment and a baby and my wife, and nowhere to go, i’d be swimming in extra time. the fact is that it’s the complete opposite. i get around six hours of sleep daily, plus maybe a nap if sophia takes one too. the rest is work. keeping house, entertaining my baby, keeping things exciting and interesting for her is a full time job. i wish i could take her downstairs. our residential park is quite nice. but it would mean taking a big risk. the best i can do is stand with her on the balcony, and wait for stuff to happen: someone walking, a car, birds beginning to nest. and if we’re lucky, a dog or a cat. my baby loves dogs, and like me, she isn’t that keen on felines..
a lot of things happened. a certain fried chicken chain which has a logo that “looks like a photonegative of Ho Chi Minn” has reopened and does deliveries. i was never a fan of them, but it was a nice break to go downstairs. chicken nuggets and barbecue sauce was all they had. i guess they still have supply chain problems. i wonder why.
we have a crazy hypochondriac a floor above me. she doesn’t dare go out , even with protective gear. she also would not accept food that volunteers could send her, because it’s coming through the elevator and they are contaminated. (in fact, we had only one infected in our building and he got the honor of solely using the right side elevator ever since..)
the lady still needs to eat. so she made a rope out of strips of bedsheets and loweres it down from the window. it looks like something from “the great escape”. it goes down and you see knot by knot, how it was made. but my baby loves seeing the rope going down and hoisting up bags of food... very exciting for her.
i got a food delivery a few days ago. food deliveries are not to your door. they are to the neighborhood gate. you pick them up, and it’s mostly organized by volunteers who risk themselves going to the supermarket and buying stuff in bulk, then breaking it down to smaller care packages. its mostly greens and rice. we need more things for my baby, so we got a private , more expensive delivery. the guy comes and he only has strawberries (by the pound) and chicken to sell. what a strange business to have... so i got a huge basket of strawberries and a chicken. i bring it home, only to find that it was not gutted or cleaned. just plucked.
so what to do? i’ve never butchered anything in my life, i also have a problem with blood. at first we thought to just keep the legs and wings, but that would mean throwing away a lot of meat. so i had free anatomy lesson...it’s not fun at all.
people share a lot. if there is anything you need, other people come forward and offer you. they don’t ask for money and they don’t ask to trade.
We got C batteries for a toy we had. the batteries can not be obtained in stores normally, even before this crazyness. when they toy stopped working , my baby was very upset. but someone just gave us a pack when he read we needed.
we also have a problem with diapers. ..had.. there is a jewish relief organization called Chabad. they have offices in many countries. i asked for help and got in touch with rabbai Shimon Freundlich. a very kind man . he arranged for a delivery of diapers from Beijing. really saved us..
these are just examples of good things that people are doing, caring and helping each other. while there are also bad things people do, focusing on them seem petty right now.
i want to close this post by saying i hope all of you are careful. the virus is spreading around the world. it’s probably heading your way whereever you are and it is NOT just another flu. avoid gatherings of people (movies...parties..). get gloves, masks and disinfectant before they run out in the panic that will come. keeping food and other things is also smart. there probably won’t be major shortages, but every time you have to go out is a risk, worth avoiding...
anyway keep safe and well.
Just Ralph
Pa calls me dumber than rocks all the time, especially when he asks for my help, but also when he doesn't. He called me dumber than a rock when I was sitting at the kitchen table stirring my Ovaltine and Ma was right by us fixin' breakfast on the stove. "I didn't mean to spill it." I said, cause I didn't and then cause he made me real mad I also said, "My name is Ralph, not Dumber, not Than, and not Rocks, and then he said, "You're dumb like a fox," and Ma said afterward, patting me on the back real soft, real nice, "That means he thinks your smart, Ralph." Why doesn't he make up his mind?
Ma calls me stupid, but never to my face, only when she's on the phone with Gertie late at night and she thinks I'm fast asleep, but I'm not. Sometimes I just lay awake for no reason at all listening to night sounds, the owls hoot and the squirrels scurrying on the roof, wishing I was one of them instead of me, cause they don't use words; just screams, barks, hisses and coos, which are much easier to understand and less likely to maim.
It would make me smile if Ma could call Gertie when I do things right, like turning the compost, or stacking the wood, or shoveling the snow, but she doesn't. She only calls Gertie to tell her everything I want to forget and hearing it again makes me sad twice in one day. I didn't mean to kill Miss Sarah's kitten. I only squeezed it hard because it was the cutest thing I had ever seen I forgot for a minute how strong I am. And I didn't mean to look in Mr. & Mrs. Gimbel's bedroom window next door and see them both naked. I thought I was supposed to go help people when they moan or scream. Gertie lives so far away, I never get to see her face when Ma tells her about my mistakes. That's what she calls what I do, mistakes, and then she always says, "He's just too stupid to know better. He's really not a bad person."
So if I'm a good person, what's so bad about being stupid, or being dumb? As far as I know there are lots of really smart people, that do lots of really bad things, and not by mistake. On purpose. And as far as I know, I've never done anything bad on purpose, so why can't they just let me be just Ralph, instead of stupid Ralph or dumber than a rock Ralph. I've never met a fox, but if I do, maybe I'll ask him, "Are you really dumb or really smart, and does it matter?" Maybe he'll answer and maybe he won't.
Johnson & The Sandman
Once upon a time sadness made a house of tears fall down and the house couldn’t stand any longer. So, the tears became a river that flowed alongside a trail of hidden meanings and found the sandman. Only the sandman knew there had ever been a house and that the tears were not made merely of water. The one thing he didn’t know was just who had lived in that house and where they had gone.
Of course, it being the man was made of sand, everywhere he walked to, the wind would steal his footprints and carry them in the air. The Sandman was as much a mystery as the residents of the house had been. No one could ever add the countless grains that were produced for creating such a guy. There wasn’t a soul in the world that had ever taken any notice of the fellow.
Yet, it was this sandman who walked every mile of the hidden trail, looking to see the eyes behind the tears that had created such an emotional river. As a sandman, he’d cried a lot of dry tears in his life and figured there had to be a reason for his search.
And then, just when Sandman thought he’d come to the end of the trail, there was a fork in the road. Either way he decided to go with it, he noticed the river was completely empty and the tears were gone.
He made a left turn at the fork, and kept walking with great anticipation. Soon enough, another house appeared and, it was not only a beautiful sight to see, it was filled with a family of people that lived in it. Even better than that, the people seemed happy.
“Would you folks happen to know anything about the river of tears?” Sandman called out, walking towards a woman who was watering the front yard garden and smiling.
“As a matter of fact, I do,” The woman said, “we were all pretty upset there for awhile but, yet, all those tears we cried were worth it. I guess you could say we had to go with the flow and see where life would take us. Somehow, we pulled ourselves up from under the river and decided to build on each other as a family. We don’t cry over the things that made us sad yesterday and I think we’re a little stronger now.”
“Miss, I walked on that trail forever but I only saw the tears. I wonder why that is so.”
“I guess there are just some folks who don’t see the people behind the tears and they have to look a little harder. It’s ok. Perhaps they have their own rivers to deal with.” The woman replied.
“and I suppose you think that when I look at you, all I can see is a sandman, am I not right?” With that, the woman handed the sandman a mirror and asked him to look at himself a little closer. So, the gentleman took the mirror in his hand and he was totally flabbergasted.
All of the sand the man thought he was made of disappeared like the river of tears. There, standing before the then 46-some year old woman he would someday marry, was an angel. The woman said she knew he was an angel right away.
“How did you know I was an angel?”
“Well, my love, you were a loner and you couldn’t see behind yourself but I spotted the wings when you said “Hello.”
The Sandman and Johnson have been married for years now and, to this day, believe that the things they cried over yesterday were worth the tears. It’s what the hidden meaning of the trail had been all along: find strength in yourself by letting go of what made you cry in the past. It’s not really a fairy tale when it all comes true. Life’s sad house of days gone by can turn into a beautiful place to live if we build on each other.
He had driven a couple miles and passed two signs for the interstate, lit and smoked one cigarette, been parked and stayed in the car for some time until somebody knocked on his window to make sure he wasn't seeking suicide, and had stood in line at the gas station pointing at a pack of Columbus Cigarettes--the clerk asking if there was anything else when he finally said out loud for all there to bear witness, what he'd been telling himself for four years he'd never do, could never do. A thought buried way down in his heart, the valves of which he'd never opened, a heart bound by sin and recklessness and divorced totally from commitment and sacrifice and decency that he finally decided to seek. He'd spoken the line ghostly, "I'm leaving my wife."
The clerk stuttered. A lady standing behind him wearing a Jeff Gordon shirt and holding a six-pack of Old Chattanooga beer slid down her star-shaped sunglasses to the tip of her nose and glanced upon him.
A Merle Haggard song had just started and was coming through the speakers.
"I'm sorry to hear that," the clerk finally said. And he rang up the cigarettes. "It'll be six dollars and seventy-seven cents."
The bell rang when he left and the doors parted like a prison cell opening. The chorus of Merle Haggard flew through the speakers as it were the chorus from angels.
When he got back in the truck he fiddled on the knob until he found the right station. Singing along and packing the new case of cigarettes against his palm. Rolling down the driver-side window--turning his wrist and his shoulder to do so.
He turned onto the highway and hammered down upon the pedal with the sole of his foot.
Singing with the conviction of having just sprouted wings. "I turned 21 in prison doing life without parole. No one could steer me right but momma tried."
He'd married her right out of high school and they’d married because she was with child. She lost the soul that had made home of her womb but his own mother didn't believe that to be true. And his mother would get drunk, then wouldn't mind telling him.
"She is a witch. I'm telling you right now. She ain't no good. She's a liar. You'll give and give and give but she ain't satisfied lest she gets your soul. She will work your heart til it is shattered."
"What's that they say," his father would hiss. "Takes a bitch to see a witch," laughing hog-like without any joining company.
He watched them with the terror of an acid trip turned wrong, as though he'd seen down a hallway of mirrors, himself, and the ultimate fate of himself.
"I can't breathe," he whispered.
When asked at the wedding if he'd take her lawfully--in sickness and in health, there were the buzzing of flies coming for his blood and he smacked one on his neck and said finally, "Well. I reckon I do anyway."
Not long after that she did bear forth a child into the world but it was not his. This was no mystery--plain as day. It hurt him, but he loved the child anyway, through pain and suffering.
This he was thinking about at near one hundred miles an hour.
He always figured he was doing what was good, what was decent. He decided he’d never done anybody any good staying miserable.
There was a sensation rattling and crawling through his body and snaking up his spine and it rang from his hands shaking and sweating on the steering wheel.
He'd left his wife and abandoned a child too. His heart had become begotten of a strange baptism and full of total boundlessness.
The beat of the highway straddled through his feet and the sun thrummed against the tin of his heart. He listened to the soft moan of his engine.
He knew he was coming to someplace he'd not known, ever considered seeing. Ever considered had existed. It scared him, made him sweat. Between his ears hummed tribal dances celebrating the west: war, the buffalo, the maps uncharted and the red heat of the sun seeping into and reflecting against his soul. His eyes peered down the spotted white lines. The dark gravel rumbling below. He exhaled and the cigarette smoke steamed out his nostrils, his mouth. Rising there from his tongue like heat off a river.
The valley itself echoed the roar of his motor, the shadow of his soul skating top the concrete, his soul searching, screaming for whatever it was which lay ahead.
She waited for him. "He's been gone a long time, ain't he?" The child asked.
"He just went for a pack of smokes. He'll come back." The sun painted red dripped down across the horizon. "He always come back."
They waited together while the stars danced top the highway.
The Place I Left Behind
The chains, the fear, the weary strife
I left them all behind, somewhere in a past life
They lurk like shadows, always behind me,
Death comes to life, and visions remind me
And haunt me in my sleepless hours,
And kill me in the dark alleys
I'd sell my soul to arcane powers
If that were sure to set me free
But no peace can be found,
Nor can I ransom my soul,
For my sins drag me down,
And return in the cold
I ran away from everything, but everything ran after me,
And now I don't know where to go to turn the nightmare to a dream
All those things, the woman who was once my wife,
I left them all behind, Somewhere in a past life
And everytime I try to forget,
The memories come to life,
And haunt me in my sleepless hours,
Walking with me on the streets.
I see them every night and day,
The helpless children I betrayed,
And left their mother all alone,
To wander off away from home,
But all those things are dead to me, and though it cuts me like a knife,
I left them all behind, somewhere in a past life
The prison sentence was too long for me to ever hope to return,
And though it was no fault but my own, I know I'll never learn
And though I hope to start anew, so little can I hope
That to my mind all that is gone,
Somewhere in a past life