DP's Online Musings

This was going to be a daily journal but it ended up being a chronicle of my illness. I lost any interest in most things except basic survival during that time so posting on a never-read blog wasn’t something I felt up to doing.

Since I last wrote I finally got over the aftermath of the virus — it’s only been five days since I finally cleared out the last of the lingering phlegm in my chest.

We spent a week in Olympia visiting Clare and helping her celebrate her book being published. We stayed in a lovely Airbnb and hopefully we can return when I’m feeling better.

Clare’s book launch party was a success. It was good to see that she has a solid support group, both within her neighborhood and throughout the PNW.

Since we returned on March 9th, I have not done much. I didn’t get my energy back until a few days ago.

Dean got sick babysitting Lassen, so he missed her birthday party on Friday and neither of us felt up to going to the equinox party yesterday — him because he was sick, me because my energy was drained on Friday and I hate to drive in DC.

Today it is supposed to get to 83 degrees. I’m planning on walking to the little library and dropping of a few books. I’m also going to make a pineapple upside-down cake for dessert.

Finally, here’s something I posted on Threads today. I’ve been thinking a lot about how fear (of change, of differences) is such a huge factor in how we act as humans. Then I thought about how I was raised and wondered why I wasn’t racist like my dad. Here’s what I wrote:

I was raised by a racist father and closet liberal mother in the late 1950s through 60s and into the 1970s. I could have followed in my dad’s footsteps but I didn’t. My mom was kind. When my dad said the racist things he said, my mom would either tell him to not talk like that, or simply model different behavior for me. In my teens she gave me a copy of a book she loved about an interracial marriage. That book completely changed who I was.

My mom cried when JFK was assassinated, when Hubert Humphrey gave his concession speech, when MLK was assassinated, When Bobby Kennedy was assassinated. I don’t remember what my father was saying because I was listening to my mom. I feel lucky to have had my mother as an influence in my life. I can’t imagine what life on the other side would have been like.