Rivka’s Story #30Inks30Day, 20 June, 2020

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Colorverse Mariner 4

Rivka’s Story #30Inks30Days, 15 June, 2020

Colorverse Spirit (tomorrow will be Opportunity!)

I couldn’t decide whether I liked the golem better as a sketched figure or filled in with some colour, so here she is both ways.

 

Rivka’s Story #30Inks30Days, 14 June, 2020

Colorverse Ham

Rivka’s Story #30Inks30days 12 June, 2020

        I decided that I need to move the story along a little more quickly, so there are six pages today. The ink is Colorverse Dark Energy — one perfectly suited for this installation.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Illustration and photo copyright Meredith T. H. Feiertag

 

 

What We Owe the Dead

 

I’ve heard a lot of people saying that they’ve stopped listening to
or reading the news, that they don’t need to know how many fell ill or died from COVID-19 in the last day or the last hour. Sometimes one of the people I hear saying that is me. And that’s all right. We all have to to do what we can to take care of ourselves — though there are so many many many people now whose circumstances will prevent them from getting what they need.

So I do step back from the television and ignore the headlines that flash across the screen of my phone. I put down the New Yorker and pick up Lord Peter Wimsey. I owe it to myself and to my family, to the nurses and doctors at the hospitals, to society in general, to stay as sane and healthy as I can.

 

But then I start thinking about what we owe the dead.

 

I don’t know any of them — yet. I can’t imagine that I’ll get through this time of coronavirus and sorrow and incomprehensible loss and criminal stupidity without knowing someone who gets ill from the virus, someone who dies — without, perhaps, falling ill or dying myself.

But whether I ever know anyone who contracts COVID-19 doesn’t matter.

 

 

 

While this pandemic rages, while it takes lives and destroys the health, happiness, and fortunes of thousands, of millions, of (for a while) most of us, let us witness all we can stand to witness. Let’s those of us who are fortunate enough to be able to do so, take our breaks and catch our breaths, and then, if we can, let us witness as much as we can take in. Let us learn and remember names of strangers who have died without the solace of their loved ones, of the families left to gasp and mourn. Let us remember the dead in the aggregate, the inevitable deaths and the ones that could have been prevented if more people in our government had given a damn. Let’s write letters and journals and blogs to record the losses, the emotions, the unforgivable neglect by government officials, the kindnesses of neighbours, the teachers driving through neighbourhoods to cheer the students who can’t see them at school, the sacrifices of first responders, of doctors, nurses, postal carriers, store clerks, delivery folks, volunteers — of anyone who gave more than could be expected or should have been asked.

Let’s make it personal.

Let us note too, the almost eerie benefits, the way the earth has
seized this interminable moment to clear the air, to calm the crust. Let us remember the resurgence of birds and the quieter days that didn’t grate along our nerves. Let’s give thanks for the cessation of robo-calls and phone solicitations.

 

And when we figure out how to live with this virus, when we have a vaccine and cure, we should remember all we can and share what we remember, for no one of us will remember it all.

We are bound to hear. And that, my friends, is what I think we owe the dead.

Inktober 2019, Day Twenty-seven: Oh My Stars!

Inktober Prompt: Coat
GoldspotPrompt: Outbreak

27 October, 2019

Dear Bridget,

My thoughts have been swirling so that I have been roused from my bed these several nights. I have bundled myself up against the chill of the darkling hours and gone to sit on my balcony to watch the Orionids. With the collar of my jacket turned up, I have watched the falling stars coat the sky with movement, one startling wonder after another, then returned to bed to dream of the woods, the pond, and the sense of dragon.

Last night ~ this early morning really ~ perhaps I dozed while star-gazing, but it seemed to me that there was an outbreak of brilliant meteors and that, in one of those elongated flashes of time, they coalesced into the same semblance of a dragon that the sunset casts upon the pond in my dream. The dragon-stars’ head was pointed toward your house, and all the meteors streamed in that direction so that the dragon seemed to fly.

I must have dreamt it; there was nothing in the morning papers about the occurrence.

I write this before the post has had a chance to bring a note from you, but I wanted to jot it down before the rational light off day could persuade me the vision was mere nonsense springing from the fevered brain of

Your
Hannah

#30Inks30Days 6 April, 2020

#30Inks30Days
Diamine Shimmertastic Golden Ivy

I’m still stuck on the story. It may be a lost cause.

#30Inks30Days 5 April, 2020

Organics Studio Limited Edition Jazz Hands 

Sorry about the disruption to the story. Maybe tomorrow my brain will come back.

Adventures Outside the House During Our Time of Isolation

Yesterday I ventured forth farther a-field than I have for three weeks. I had an health appointment and my son agreed to take me so I wouldn’t have to take the bus (I don’t drive). I thought I would be excited to leave the house, but in truth I was mostly nervous. I looked up how to make a mask from a bandana and hair bands:

You can find instructions on how to make your own COVID-19 fashion statement here. I had a hard time getting the elastic bands to stay looped over my ears, so when I got home, I strung three together, before slipping the bandana through the end two, to allow the elastic to go around my head. I haven’t tried wearing it outside as I walk around yet, but I have high hopes it will stay in place a little better.

 

 

 

 

 

 

On the way in, there were some cars, but many stretches of the road were almost empty.

We passed my favourite pond. There were two grey herons on it, a bird I hadn’t seen there before. I hope they’re nesting. Someone pointed out to me that the birds have been loving the quieter days and the cleaner air, and since then I have noticed that there are indeed more birds around than we’ve had for a while.

 

      After my appointment, we had a couple errands to run, one on the pedestrian mall. It was stunning to see how empty it was. The homeless folk had gathered primarily in one area, but most were keeping several yards apart from each other and talking about the pandemic.

I was surprised by how many restaurants were not limiting themselves to take out or curbside pick-up. Quite a number were open for business as more-or-less usual. THIS IS WHY WE NEED A NATIONAL SHUT-DOWN, PEOPLE. We can’t count on folks to stay away from each other if it isn’t mandated as a necessity.

There were few shoppers around; many of them were wearing scarves or masks. We looked like a small convention of highway robbers.

Because I’ve been cooped up at home, my son and I took the scenic route home. We saw trees just coming out of dormancy, still all bones, but not for long.*

There were some mountains, too.

Honestly, I feel as if the world has undergone such a cataclysm that I wasn’t sure the Rockies would still be there. It’s like living in one of those SciFi movies in which most of the population has been swept away by a plague and everyone is afraid of everyone else, but it’s not a movie.

Be careful out there, folks.

________________________

* Winter trees remind me of the first and last verses of Theodore Roethke’s poem, “I Knew A Woman”:

I knew a woman, lovely in her bones,
When small birds sighed, she would sigh back at them;   
Ah, when she moved, she moved more ways than one:   
The shapes a bright container can contain!
Of her choice virtues only gods should speak,
Or English poets who grew up on Greek
(I’d have them sing in chorus, cheek to cheek).
………………………………
Let seed be grass, and grass turn into hay:   
I’m martyr to a motion not my own;
What’s freedom for? To know eternity.
I swear she cast a shadow white as stone.   
But who would count eternity in days?
These old bones live to learn her wanton ways:   
(I measure time by how a body sways).
(https://www.poetryfoundation.org/poems/43331/i-knew-a-woman)

 

The Peach Chronicles, Part II

Well, I am sure everyone had a sleepless night, worrying about the peach tree. I am pleased to offer a bit of good news: I think the lights may have worked! Take a look:

 

Not only do most of the blossoms that were there before seem to be there still, but there are even some new ones:

The foreseeable future offers some dips down to freezing temps, but no hard freezes. But then there’s the rest of April, squirrels (who literally will take one bite of a peach and then throw it as far as they can), bugs, birds…
Kinehora, all!