Statement by Former President Obama regarding the George Floyd murder

- Barack Obama, May 29 2020

Some Transformative Recovery links

40-million-health-workers-endorse-green-recovery

Global Carbon emissions Drop 17% during COVID-19 lockdowns

Most Farmers in the Great Plains Don’t Grow Fruits and Vegetables. The Pandemic is Changing That.

Amateur archaeologists make discoveries during lockdown

New York breaks record - 58 straight days with no pedestrian fatalities

Transformative Recovery link

Here's the link to the "Transformative Recovery" article I mentioned last Friday.

The Middle of the Street / April 11, 2020

Having a view from my front window that looks up the center of Ashbury, until it stops up on the Twin Peaks hillside, I’m interested in the middle of the street. Also because my mother always instructed me not to be in it. 

Here, as we enter another week A.C., (I’ve not kept count), the roadway is, or was, being reclaimed from the cars. The first week, of course, was post-apocalyptic. Few people, few cars. Then people started coming out, and more and more joggers appeared, (in addition to the already ubiquitous dog-walkers and pram-pushers). As often as not, they run in the street. People cross intersections on the diagonal. Bicyclists are out with their children...and cyclists in general are riding in the middle of the road, just because they can. All have drifted there due to the absence of restraint a lack of oncoming multi-ton death machines tends to encourage.

Until cars started reappearing after the near-disappearance of public transit, skateboarders began skating formerly busy Fulton street during the day. As long as I’ve lived here, this challenge was only answered late at night or early in the morning, when traffic is minimal. 

With MUNI changing their schedule, this brazen post-corona drift has been curtailed some, but centrist behavior still persists on neighborhood streets. Some people simply walk there, and do so simply because nothing has knocked them back yet. And some people wander in the road stopping traffic with a sleeping bag over their head..

So, last night I got back home from the hospital at about 4:30 pm and saw my neighbor Vanessa up on this large deck that is shared by the folks in the 50 apartments that are part of the complex. She was helping her co-worker Jane record herself reading a storybook to the preschool children they both teach, from whom they are now separated by the coronavirus.

The story was Grumpy Monkey, about a little monkey that wakes up one day, out of sorts, and resists all attempts to snap him out of it. There was no discernible reason why the monkey was grumpy. Beautiful day. Everything's fine. But he was grumpy, nonetheless.

Well, these days, there is reason to be grumpy, but somehow I'm not. Tired, certainly. A little scared, check. But not grumpy. I might even be energized. I certainly feel purposeful. Sometimes crises demand that you just rise to the occasion. All the extraneous stuff seems to drop away. I'm grateful for whatever is happening. I'll be grumpy later.

Hmmm....
Last day of work today.
Not that work didn't stop on the 16th of March.
In fact, it had been starting to melt the beginning of the month.
The saying goes: "We're the Y. We punt."
Each phase started with a sigh, then a hope.
What a difference a day makes.
Service organizations closing until the first of June.
Furloughs for the hourly and paycuts for staff.
Unemployment applications.
So different, and yet not so different.

You expect large changes are, well, large everywhere.
Truthfully they just creep along, like the tide-you just have to wait.
You have those things at home to which you've always said "I'll get to it when..."
When is here, and yet your mind drifts like flotsam. One day motivated, the next-
Wondering.
It feels like a war.
It feels like a reset.
It feels like a break..from?

I recall the day I walked out onto the Main Floor in 2011, just as the helicopters were sending footage of the tsunami from Fukushima. I thought at first it was a trailer for a new apocalyptic film, then felt the slow freezing of my body as I was informed otherwise.

The year before, frozen as we watched San Bruno explode in flame when the gas pipeline failed.

That's a bit how it feels now. Frozen, and yet not. It's like that "I'll get to it when..." no longer has any reason not to get done.

Saturday, March 28

March 26: People on the street fall into 6 basic categories: people walking their dog; people strolling the baby; people jogging; people just getting out and walking; people going to the grocery... oh, and people actually going somewhere to do something...

We are addicted to foraging - hunter gathering - going to the grocery. I noticed B.C.V. that I was walking down to Lucky’s every day. Now I’m determined to stay in as much as possible, but I still make trips to the dispensary, the library, and the clinic. And the grocery. No gloves for sale at Lucky’s. Trying to get into a pattern of washing my hands every time I get back from anywhere.

I miss human conversation a little. Chances are that both scheduled surgeries I have coming up are going to be cancelled, (boo hoo). And I can’t get Zoom to work.

March 27: The novelty has definitely worn off. If, as little as two months ago, I had proclaimed that the President of the United States was trying to kill me, people would have thought me delusional. Very difficult to maintain a center during all this - I guess I’m frightened now. Meditation helps.

Landlord in and out of building, sans mask or gloves. There’s a newly vacant flat and business must march on. Brings in lots of contractors and soon will bring in new tenants.

But it’s good to discover people who are willing to help. I’m reluctant to ask for it - everyone has their own life. But my next door neighbors, who are taking this seriously, took the bulk of my trash down to the bins on Wednesday, while the neighbor from across the hall took down the rest yesterday.

Found an old Poem. It’s a true story, too.

22 FILLMORE/ Survival

Green iron meat wagon

ice powered trolley

slaughterhouse businessmen

women of means

roll whine steel howl lights

strain, die, then live again,

flashes from cables, again, again

Death arrives, reeling

plunks down his quarter

a great leather belt

wrapped tight ‘round his fist

Too wasted to kill, Death

passes out, mumbling

the women of means

all shaking their heads

Death rides to the Marina,

unconscious.

Tuesday 03/24/20

It doesn’t suck to be me, just now. Right now. Here and now. 

Speaking as a slight agoraphobic, I’m used to living like this, very solitary, and it’s not driving me crazy, at least not yet. I’m even used to rationing toilet paper. I feel good about being at home. Keep remembering that I don’t have to hurry anything. Nothing depends on me arriving on time anywhere. Shit, I kinda like this...

I’m scared, of course. Of the virus, yes, but even staying at home still feels like a threat to me, given that the landlord wants me out of this space. Of course, my rent is taken care of thanks to Social Security and my grant from the Q Foundation, (but my fingers are always crossed). The landlord’s worries about getting the rent from his younger, working tenants might well be more acute. He certainly would have problems running around doing the paperwork for an eviction right now, plus the potential blowback... I think it sucks to be him right now.

But I’m still afraid. 

Not so much of the virus, per se... Of a breakdown in civilization when this goes on too long... or of the DOJ declaring martial law and assuming authoritarian powers.

Found an N95 mask which I’ve had for years and used during recent firestorms. Old, but better than nothing. I also located a roll of toilet paper at a Mom & Pop store on Divisadero. Great fat single roll with two rolls worth of paper = $1.29, which actually doesn’t seem like scalping to me. Especially from a corner store on Divisadero...

Went to the Dispensary, and my bus karma was flawless. Bus in sight, both ways, as I walk up to the stop. On a Sunday. During a pandemic. Thanked the driver on the return trip for driving during the outbreak. Told him to stay safe. 

This is going to be my mantra for the duration.

Everyone I see on the street is either walking a dog or moving towards the grocery. A few Starbucks fans - guess they’re handing the coffee through the door, one customer at a time... Bob’s Donuts, if they are open at all, will be doing the same. By and large, everybody seems to be staying inside, but for necessaries and occasionally, one by one, just getting out for air. A very few people seem to be ignoring the proximity issues.

People on the Street: 

The Smoking Man. Six or seven times per day he’s standing on the corner, older Asian man, dressed in black, smoking a cigarette, knit cap peaked upon his head. Sometimes he consults his phone, much of the time he just stands there, walks down the block and back. Smoking his cigarette. He looks kind of forlorn, but I don’t know that he is.

He’s the grandpa, I think, in a large brood living Chinese style (three generations under one roof), although the young husband is Caucasian. Husband and wife have a couple of young kids, grandma takes them for walks with the stroller. Grandpa gets kicked out of the house when he wants to smoke a cigarette.

Margaret. Woman reminds me of Margaret Rutherford in her brisk and spirited demeanor. Short, somewhat stocky, she marches in a fast and deliberate, hopping kind of walk that is hard to describe. She walks stooped over, which made me think she was older at first, but sometimes she dresses distinctly goth. The other day I caught her taking a hit from a vaporizer. I always see her apparently trudging to the bus - never see her returning. Don’t believe she’s staying home from work. Perhaps she’s an essential worker...

At Home - Friday, 3/20/2020

Wayfarers, navigating via their smartphones. Wet-haired people, running for the bus, joggers, school kids loading up in the family van. Women in black dresses. Ubers, schooling for prey, circling, ever circling. People I see every morning, walking who knows where. All seen through my front window. Or they used to be. Even the crows and ravens seem to be self-sequestering.

As it gets later, I see a trickle of people apparently not getting or taking time off from work, heading for the bus. One or two people walking their dogs. One Uber. A trio of young women ignoring the precautions and headed for Starbucks. A fellow in scrubs, with a pastry and a Starbucks, probably headed for St. Mary’s... A man heads to the laundromat with a basket of clothes.

A number of people begin to show up carrying shopping bags, headed to Lucky’s to see what’s in stock. Several query each other (from a safe distance) - is there any toilet paper? I have two and a third rolls...

Few cars, street cleaners, Recology trucks. Recology driver waves to a toddler, walking hand in hand with Mom, who smiles. Toddler is unimpressed. Fred Flintstone strides by... 

‘Fred’ is a large man, an apparently career homeless guy, always seen around nine am, marching to wherever, flesh burned dark, talking to himself, dressed in a tunic with a ragged bottom, just clearing the knees. His clothes are all Homeless Gray-Green. I don’t know how they all find clothes that are the exact same color...

Fred knows nothing of Self-Quarantine, but he's been Socially Distant for some time now...

*******

Daily patterns are eroding. Hit the snooze button twice this morning, although I’m usually up before it rings. Why shower - I’m not going to see anyone? I showered yesterday and I’ll shower tomorrow (probably), so I won’t unduly influence anyone at the Lucky’s... Should I bother to meditate today? (I did, sitting ten more minutes than usual as I set my phone to zero disturbances, forgetting that meant alarms as well...)

I have no excuse but to do housework...

So, isn't this exciting! Thanks for setting this up, Steph. These are surreal times, but this feels grounding and real. More to come. Kelsey