‘Home’
Dear Editor: Thinking about what “Home” means today....
I was talking with my son this week, who lives in New York City...and he mentioned...that it doesn’t feel like the home he moved back to, (after living and working in Italy for a few years)....
He’s been “back home” in NYC...for well over a year (maybe two years now? – I’m losing track of time)...
When he steps out into the street...everything is changed... When he looks out the window.... everything is changed...
He can’t go to all the shows or the movies, or sit down in restaurants...all that has changed.
No more bumping into people, on the busy sidewalks of a city, that almost never stops...all that has changed.
All the loud noises on the city streets, the screeching/honking car horns, the sirens, the subways...all of that has changed.
There is a silence...
All of us, no matter where we live, have moved to a new place now...whether we wanted to or not.
This time of the COVID 19 pandemic has uprooted us all, from the familiar places we have called home.
There is a silence...that leaves us, worrying...longing...wondering...what’s next?
There is a silence...in which new ideas are emerging...creative energy is bubbling up...and imaginations are free to roam.
There is a silence...in the unknowns of today, and for the days ahead.
But, it will be there, in that silence...where we will find our true home again. Peace,
Rev. Julie Platson, Sitka
Many Thanks
Dear Editor: Many thanks are to be given to Birch Equipment and Nahum Motors for their generous donation of equipment used to establish an upgraded donation area for the White Elephant Shop. We are very grateful to them for helping us in this way.
The White Elephant Board
Pandemic
Dear Editor: I goofed. Big Time. Yesterday. Early. And it ruined the whole day.
This was my third week trying to do an itty bit of disaster research here in the most beautiful town in Alaska.
Bad start.
The Mouse did it.
For the second day, The Mouse was telling me the batteries were low. So, the weary night before I found two AA batteries, turned over The Mouse to remind me to fix it.
So I did. Replaced the old batteries with two new ones in the dim light of dawn.
But The Mouse defied the Fix. Wouldn’t work at all! Shake. Bang. Flip. Nothing. The screen was more blank than before. Not even a cursor. So, rather than writing an inspired bit of insight, I left frustrated, frazzled, furious with the darn technology and my utter dependence on the darn Mouse and just about everything else in this modern world of globalized everything. I left to stew and get some coffee.
When I returned to speak severely to The Mouse, I discovered I had inserted those two batteries firmly, but upside down, wrong way around, the plus to the minus, the minus on the plus. By then I had dissipated all interest in writing. And went back to bed.
But today, I’ve decided I must write. I’ve got a lot to say before I kick the bucket. So here is my summary of a few thoughts, randomly gathered this week:
Disasters generate new terminology. In 1964, “tidal wave “ was replaced by “Tsunami.”
In 1989, The Exxon Valdez Oil Spill became “EVOS,” and in 2020, so far our vocabulary has added COVID-19, N19 and PPE.
Human disasters also rearrange people and stimulate new ideas. Responses include moving, new connections, regulations, research, and sudden science.
Where, I wondered this week, are the Social Sciences in the Covid 19 Pandemic? What has happened to anthropologists? Sociologists? So far it seems information is dominated by economics, money, the rule of “models,” numbers, infections, death, and incompetence. And Task Forces. Ad naseum. But now, finally, mental health. What a boost to psychologists! I hope they keep track and develop some good wholesome words and ideas. Like Depression is Normal. Anxiety can be creative. Also, the richness and the beauty of our cultural and genetic diversity is good stuff.
Might human disasters be to society what mutations are to biology?
Sitkans keep track of the new words, your own creative steps to maintain sanity, wave friendly, supportive vibes, and consider supporting our newest potential cottage industry: buy a home-made mask. I hope I can find a wild one. Or should I buy several to match my Mood of the Day?
Check out a nearby salmonberry bush, watch it bud, and think about those colorful, juicy berries on that same bush soon. Yum!
Nancy Yaw Davis, Sitka
