Zoom has allowed me to continue with my beloved Taos writing class. This means the world to me as we read pages from the memoirs we’ve all been working on for a while and offer comments.
And connecting with friends and family when we can see each other’s faces is fabulous.
Because of Zoom, I have several new projects in mind, one to learn Spanish with my daughter-in-law’s help by reading an Antonio Machado poem over Zoom and asking her to correct my pronunciation word by word. A challenge for me!
I am enjoying other daily miracles. Since my life has slowed down, I am finally able to move toward my long-time goal of observing and appreciating everything I see. Since I live in one of the most beautiful places in the world and spend time outside in the warming spring weather, all this requires of me is the time and the patience to stop, look and reflect.
Gratitude. I don’t know how I ever lived without it, or with so little of it, blessed as I am. I’ve been guided by CD recordings of two of Thich Nhat Hanh’s retreats, listening to them while I’m cooking (although a friend advised me against that). The secular version is the Great Courses series of CDs on the Classic Novels by Brown Professor Arnold Weinstein. I just heard him open up William Faulkner’s novel As I lay Dying. Professor Weinstein is an original thinker, and I’m grateful to the estimable Great Courses to have given him this opportunity.
The series is short on women novelists, only including Virginia Woolf with an extraordinary examination of To The Lighthouse—a great favorite of mine. But this historical imbalance is in the process of being corrected.
But more about Zoom and its benefits. I am supported by appearing on that screen in my decision to “dress up,” with no regard for the fact that I see no one except Pip as I begin my third week of total social isolation. I know the temptation to spend the day in my pajamas but for me that would be disheartening.
So I’ve decided to wear another item from my jewelry collection every day, at last putting on the brooches, necklaces, bracelets and pins I’ve bought or been given for decades. Many of them I’ve never bothered to wear!
Next I’ll rotate through my clothes in the same way, without attention to the fact that Zoom only shows faces and shoulders.
And of course that means make-up!
I’ve always been comfortable with what I think is my healthy dose of vanity. Don’t we all need it to enjoy our blessings?
Leave a Reply