Trying to live my best life by Vivian W

I’ve known Vivian for more than thirty years. She is a loyal person with a generous, playful spirit, and I am glad to read that she is doing so well. One of the things I enjoy about doing this blog is the opportunity to give people a platform to focus on different aspects of how they’re dealing with life today. We are all in this together, and we are also having radically different experiences.

Supreme Court blocks Trump effort to wind down DACA program—CBS News

Florida, Texas and Arizona are among the 22 states reporting a rise in coronavirus cases; Oklahoma is on the list—USA Today

Facebook Removes Trump Ads With Symbol Used By Nazis. Campaign Calls It An ‘Emoji’—NPR

June 18, 2020

Trying to live my best life
by Vivian W, Medford, Oregon

Well, I have to say that in my small town in southern Oregon where we have had 78 cases, 5 deaths and 67 recoveries, it can’t get too much better. I can’t live my full life but am trying to live my best life under the circumstances. I can’t go to the movies or fly anywhere, but I take walks and talk to a few friends on the phone or at the 6-foot apart level in my, or their, backyard. I go to the store when I need to, with my mask on. I accepted my hairdresser’s wonderful invitation to come to my home and cut my hair in my backyard (both of us masked) and now I look less like Harpo Marx than I did. I walk and I play tennis and pickleball. I write, read, and meditate. 

Now I can eat inside a restaurant but have only done it twice. It still doesn’t feel quite right. 

I feel frustration and anger over our recent events in Minneapolis and how very uninformed and misled so many of us are. I don’t feel safe protesting myself, but grateful that there are people lifting their voices.  

I was, as well, confused and ungrateful for people lifting rocks and bricks through windows. 

But mostly I am in gratitude. I signed up to the group “Survivors Corp” on Facebook just to read the stories of survivors of Covid and their experiences, both from the illness but also what happens afterwards…..  And found, after 10 days, I couldn’t read anymore. I literally get down on my knees and thank the powers that be for the ability to take that deep cleansing breath every time I want to—to walk, talk, eat, smell, see, hear and feel anything and any time I want. And all on my own. I’ve always talked about this gratitude, but now, more than ever, I truly own it and let it sink in to the depths of my soul. And hope that I will always get to be grateful that I am, as yet, not affected.

I help my neighbors where I can, talk about gratitude with those that will listen, and continue to try and believe that this will soon change and many people will recover with potentially a new lease on life, the earth and our potential as a larger community.

As I sit and pet my dog and listen to the wind chimes, and the small beginnings of people talking and laughing again from a safe-r distance—how grateful I am, being exactly where I am, and thankful that I somehow, got to be here.