Lockdown

 

It's been - how many ? - 313, no 328 days today since we were first advised in this country to stay at home. 

Every day we have been told how many people have died from 'the virus' and I always wonder, along with everyone else no doubt; who are they ?

Are they old ? Are they frail ? The two don't always go together. 

Are they vulnerable ? 

What makes us vulnerable ?

When I think about vulnerability, I imagine openness;

a baby, a small child, crying, arms wide open to be held. 

The need to be looked after. 

A baby, a small child, needing so much to thrive in terms of time and care,

undeveloped, including their immune system. 

Apparently exposure to the world and it's dirt and infections builds strength as the child grows,

but, not always.  Perhaps,   perhaps not always. 

Pondering this I wonder;

At what point do we become independent ?

Strong enough to thrive alone ?

This is when I become the Devil's advocate because, actually, I believe every living person and creature is never fully independent. 

Each stage of our life makes us dependent on or vulnerable to different people and things. 

Should we be disabled in any way, at any point, young or old, then we learn about these points, these places, these states of vulnerability and we can feel stripped, laid bare and open to the vulgarities, the insensitivities of the rawness of our individuality and how very incomplete and dependent we are. It's a revelation of the fundamental state of being human. 

As the human world order changes and the natural world order adapts, making huge and small adjustments according to what the virus, economics and human statistics dictate,

I think about how the presence of death in our life has become a norm. 

It's something some philosophers and wise ones tell us we should always be aware of,

but this doesn't feel like the lesson we wanted. 

I wash my surfaces and spray them with anti-bac stuff. 

I've even bought a spray bleach gun thingumajig which pleases me at the same time it fills me with dismay because,  all this plastic, all this toxic stuff, going into our water is bad, 

although ;

is this stuff circular ?

Everything in our life comes from the Earth. 

Being in the world, living in it, changes it as it changes us. 

Existence is change. 

That's it. 

That's it. 

We have to account for it somehow.