Birdsong, Human Song, Old Song, New Song

I thought I would step outside to see if the stars are brighter in rural Florida.  But I was too late--we're already at the pre-dawn time.  I stood on the covered walkway outside my door and leaned on the railing to listen to the birds waking up.  It's not surprising to find that morning birdsong is different here in a rural part of Florida, between Gainesville and Ocala.

I decided not to walk this morning, at least not before it's light.  There are no paved paths here at Luther Springs, the church camp where I will be at a women's retreat this week-end.  Plus it's supposed to be raining, but so far, it's not.

It's a long trip here for such a short retreat.  But I wanted to make the effort.  It's likely to be one of the last times I have a chance to go on retreat with church friends from South Florida.  And the whole reason I'm here is because one of those friends invited me specifically.

We rode up in an old minivan, which I find a comfortable way to travel.  But more importantly, it has enough space for my friends to transport all their instruments.  They are the music for the retreat, and I am the roadie.  Happily, the acoustics in the new chapel are so good that we didn't need to unpack the amps and heavier equipment.

During the ride up, my friends practiced the music that they will lead for the week-end, and I practiced scrolling lyrics with the iPad.  Later in the evening, I was able to help by taking care of the projection to a large screen so that people could sing along.

And they did sing along.  The acoustics in the new chapel are marvelous for large groups singing, less perfect for individual singers and conversation.

We sang in the car too.  There was a moment when I thought about how much I loved being in a car, driving up I 95, singing "Amazing Grace" and "There Is a Balm in Gilead" with friends who won't critique my singing.  I do think that I sing better with good voices around me, but maybe it's just that I can't hear myself.

In terms of the purpose for the retreat, I think that I will like the quilt retreat and Create in Me retreat better.  It's strange to be at a women's retreat in a time where I'm underemployed and all of my family members are in good health and fairly self-sufficient.  In short, I'm not the frazzled, time-starved mess that many women's retreats assume that we all are.  I'm interested to see how this plays out.

We've had one group session which had small groups where I asked, "But what if God isn't the GPS system? What if God is the friend in the car, going with us to the unexpected places, saying 'OK, if you want to head to the Mississippi River, we'll go there together. Let's explore what that would look like.'"  For more on that, see this blog post on my theology blog.

Even if the dominant theology at this retreat doesn't always mesh with mine, I'm glad to be here.  And let's be honest, much of my professional life going forward will involve engaging differences in theology.

I'm glad to be here, practicing to sing a new song.

A Week of Vaccinations--No Fooling!

It is the end of a week of vaccines.  If we could travel back in time, 2018 Kristin would be baffled--she never got flu shots, and while she had vague plans to get the Shingles vaccine, she didn't see the rush.  If we could travel back in time, I hope we would tell 2018 Kristin to buy stock in Pfizer.

We got our Shingles vaccine Tuesday night--it stung, and my arm felt bruised, but I was otherwise O.K.  I had a low energy morning Tuesday morning, but was that because of the vaccine?  Maybe.

Since 2018, I know more people who have had Shingles.  In 2018, I don't think I knew any, except maybe my mom.  Every single person who has had Shingles has a different kind of story to tell, but they all convince me I don't want this disease.  So it's good to get the vaccination process underway.  We'll get our second shot at the end of May.

At some point on Tuesday night or Wednesday morning, the CDC changed its guidance and said that people over 50 could get a 2nd COVID booster shot.  I had been wishing I could get one because I'm traveling a lot during April, so we decided that we would go back to Publix, our local grocery store with a pharmacy and see if we could get a booster.

Would there be lines?  Would we need an appointment?  The website wasn't updated to reflect the changes, so I couldn't make an appointment.

There was a small line, but it moved quickly.  I thought we might be turned away because we had gotten a Shingles vaccine, but happily, we were not.  I knew that there was a risk that we might experience some side effects, but the benefits seemed to outweigh those considerations.  

The shot itself didn't hurt at all, but by late afternoon, I was feeling some effects, particularly chills and a VERY sore arm.  I also had a headache.  I persevered, but the moment that my evening seminary class was over, I went right to bed where I shivered my way to sleep.

I feel better this morning, but not back to normal.  My arm is still sore, and I still have a headache, and some lingering chills.  Happily, this morning, I don't need to be energetic.  I'll join my friends from church to go to a women's retreat at Luther Springs (for more on my April month of retreats, see this blog post on my theology blog).  I'm not driving, so that's good.  By the time we get to camp, I should be closer to my regular self.

By now, I've had 4 COVID shots.  I had the first vaccine shot in March of 2021, and I felt no effects, except for relief and joy.  In April, I had a bit of a headache after vaccine shot #2.  In November, I had my first booster in the evening, and I felt tired the next day with a headache, the kind of exhaustion and headache that felt different enough to make me think it was a reaction to the shot.

Even if I knew that each booster shot would bring me increasingly tough side effects, I would still get them.  We've had over 6 million people die of this disease in the past 2 years, and I continue to hope to avoid it.  And my goal in South Florida has always been to avoid hospitals.

I wish that more people felt that way.  The pharmacist told us that they'd been getting lots of inquiries about boosters, and that's great.  But my little corner of Florida is different from the rest of the state--and much of the U.S.  Hopefully the booster shots will help keep us safe, help keep disease tamped down.

Moonwalking

I have been feeling in a bit of a melancholy mood--I've spent too much time on clunky websites trying to get my unemployment benefits, and I've been feeling sad that this beautiful weather will soon shift to summer heat.  I've been feeling bad about losing my job, even though it wasn't my fault.  And I'm sure I have some stress as seminary classes start to zoom towards the end, which contributes to my melancholy.

Tuesday morning, the moon startled me on my morning walk.  It was just before dawn, and the moon as it was rising looked huge in the very dark sky.  It's at the end of a waning phase, so it looked hollowed out.  As I walked, I came up with some lines for a poem, and I repeated them throughout my walk, so that I could remember.

Wednesday morning, I wanted to see if I could see the moon again, but because it's a day later, moonrise was later, 6:28 a.m.  So I headed to South Lake, where I thought I would have a better view of the moon as it rose.  South Lake looks out towards the part of the beach with fewer highrises.

I got there at 6:34, which I thought gave me a good chance of seeing it, but at first I didn't see anything.  I walked slowly around the lake, and just when I was about to give up, I saw it, a narrow sliver of a moon in a red-orange sky, just before sunrise.  It looked much more apocalyptic than it did when it was in a darker sky.  

I stood and stared for a moment.  If I hadn't been paying attention, I likely wouldn't have noticed the moon--it was just too close to sunrise and too cloudy.  I walked to North Lake where I could still see the moon, but it was barely visible as the sky had gotten much lighter.

I have all but ceased sending out poems just now, so let me post the poem that I wrote after my moonwalk mornings.  Is it done?  My younger poet self would have put in a lot of references to social justice issues.  My younger poet self would have made every connection glaringly obvious.

I may go back and tinker, but I am aware that poems about the moon risk all sorts of sins--the moon is such a symbol of so many things. Today it is enough to post the poem here:

The moon hangs low before dawn,

discarded bauble, hollowed out gourd

of its former glory,

holding the outline of what is to come.

Palm branches rustle,

a distant cough,

dim visions.

Vaccines and Boosters and Other Vaccines and Death Rates

Last night, my spouse and I walked to Publix, our local grocery store with a pharmacy where my spouse needed to pick up a prescription.  We'd been meaning to get the Shingles vaccine for months if not years now, and we decided to do it last night, if the lines weren't too long.

There were no lines at all, and the pharmacy did have the Shingles vaccine, so we got our first shots.  So far, I have a sore arm, but not many other symptoms.  Is my tiredness this morning a symptom?  If so, of the vaccine or of not getting enough sleep?

We asked about getting a second booster, and the pharmacist told us she'd been getting lots of inquiries, but they hadn't gotten official guidance yet.  Now there's guidance that says we can get one, so I'll try to get that in before too much longer.  I've got a lot of traveling, which means it's harder to schedule a shot.  But I'll be seeing more people than normal, which may mean I need a booster more now than I will in May.

Many people are acting as if the disease has been vanquished.  It has not.  I am expecting some surges between now and the end of the year.  

I found this Twitter thread to be illustrative.  I haven't verified the numbers, but they sound plausible.

From Dr. Dan Goyal's March 28, 2022 Twitter thread:

The daily number of Covid deaths reported to the WHO has fallen. From 50K deaths a few weeks ago to 32K this week. For context, this is more than die each day of breast, bowel and prostate cancer COMBINED; higher than any other...

...infectious disease on the planet, and keeps Covid as one of the world’s top five killers. Indeed, Globally, Covid is currently killing more than the combined total of TB, HIV, Malaria, Flu and all the diseases listed as High Consequence Infectious Diseases!

More on High Consequence Infectious Diseases here.

Registrations of All Sorts

Yesterday was one of those days when technology worked, but also when it didn't.  I got registered for Fall 2022 classes for seminary.  It was rather unremarkable, in some ways.  Back in grad school in the 1990's, when I first started, we first had online registration during my last year of classes, and I set my alarm so that I could be ready to register just after midnight when registration opened to everyone.  I wanted to be sure I got a seat.

Yesterday, I registered in a calmer way, at 8:30, and for all but 1 class, I was the first one to claim a seat.  I will take the first part of Church History, Pastoral Care and Counseling in Contexts, and Foundations of Preaching. I will also take Creative Process as Spiritual Practice (yes, that's my heart you hear singing) and Leading Innovation in the Church. There are so many good classes that it's hard to choose--what a delightful problem!

I will take 2 of my classes virtually, by way of Zoom session, Monday night and Tuesday afternoon.  I will have a Tuesday night class, a Thursday afternoon class, and a Thursday night class, which will be face to face.  I do wonder if I should take one more class, but I don't want to be so overworked that I can't enjoy them or enjoy D.C.  So I will probably stick with those classes.

I got registered and did some grading for the online classes that I'm teaching; I'm underemployed, but not unemployed.  Again, technology worked as it should.  I realized that I hadn't heard about my unemployment benefits, even though I applied over a month ago, so I logged on to see what was going on.

My case is listed as pending, which it has been since I filed.  I looked around the site, and as in the past, I found no information.  I decided to call.  And thus, technology failed me.  I was bounced from recorded voice to recorded voice, before being disconnected.  The instructional videos showed me views of screens and dashboards that I could never find.  I was told that my account had been disabled because I tried to log on too many times, but it let me log on again from a new screen.

Finally, I gave up, which is what the state of Florida hopes I will do.  I will keep trying.  I am lucky--I have resources of all sorts.  What would happen if I didn't?

I know what would happen.  I have heard the horrible stories.

This morning I realized that I had gotten so snarled up in the "re-employment assistance" hell that I didn't go to my lectio divina session.  My New Testament professor offered us extra credit for attending, and so I signed up.  In some ways, if I had to miss an appointment, at least it was that one, since it's a come as you can appointment.  I missed an earlier session of lectio a few weeks ago, so I've probably already forfeited the 2 points.  Still it irked me to be consumed with something so soul draining when I could have spent time with the lectio group.  Sigh.

My spouse came home from his on-campus requirement, and we looked online at some properties in South Carolina again.  We have a variety of possible approaches to investing the profits from our home sale, and buying a house within commuting distance of LTSS, the seminary in Columbia, where I am likely to have to do a Lutheran year when I'm done at Wesley.

And then we disconnected from technology altogether, joining good friends who once lived in the neighborhood, for wine and cheese.  It was one of the perfect outdoor nights that we so rarely get here, and we decided to enjoy time in their backyard, instead of going out.

Teacher Aura

Today as I took my morning walk, I got an interesting comment.  A couple sat on the bench overlooking the lake snuggled together to keep out the chill.  We nodded morning greetings as I walked by, and then when I walked back, one of them asked, "Are you a teacher?"

I stopped and said, "I teach English at Broward College.  And I've taught at a lot of other places."  One of them said, "We thought so.  You have that aura."

I said, "I'm going to take that as a good thing."  They nodded and said, "It is!"

That encounter cheered me, as I had been feeling like a limping, hunched over version of whatever I am or used to be.  I've had over a week of sore back and sore feet and sometimes sore knees and hips.  The one morning that I felt more pain free was the one where I only got 4 hours of sleep, so I was in bed less hours.  Sigh.

But the week hasn't been all grim news and pain.  I saw an ad for a teaching job that lasts just 6-7 weeks in the summer, either in Amherst, MA or Chicago.  It includes room and board and pays $15,000 which seems like a lot of money for part-time work.  It would be working with high school grads, improving their writing skills, before they went to college.  

I was about to keep scrolling, and then I thought, wait, I could do this.  I'm free--I don't have a full-time job, I'm not taking seminary classes, and my other adjunct work can be done from anywhere.  I plan to apply.

I like being in a part of my life where there might be multiple ways to keep my teacher aura burnished.

Beachside Foxes

Yesterday during my walk, I had several encounters with one of the neighborhood foxes.  As I write that sentence, I wonder if people still use the term "fox" to mean an attractive female.

I saw the fox from a distance of a block, as we both walked east.  As always, I wondered if I was seeing a fox, a coyote, or a dog.  But the head made me think I wasn't seeing a dog.  And it was a slender creature, which made me think it was either a baby coyote or a fox.  Plus, I've seen a fox in the neighborhood before, but never a coyote.

I continued east to the Intracoastal and then around by the marina, heading up to the route around North Lake.  A few blocks away from the path around the top of the lake, I saw the fox again.  This time, the fox crossed the street, stopped under a tree, and stared at me.

I stared back.  I didn't want to make the fox feel threatened.  Plus, I wanted a good look.  My spouse and I have a long running disagreement.  He often thinks he's seen a coyote, and I think he's probably seeing the neighborhood foxes.

Eventually, I kept walking, and the fox trotted off into a back yard.  I walked home, thinking of all the forest creatures that are here, in a beachside town full of concrete and high towers, very far away from any forest.  If I wrote children's books, I'd write about foxes and raccoons who live in the abandoned houses and go to the beach after everyone goes home.

At home, I looked at various pictures to be sure I was seeing a fox instead of a coyote, and I'm pretty sure it was a fox.  It would have been small for a coyote, but more than that, its face was more like a fox than a coyote.  And back to that slang--how did that become a term for a beautiful woman?  Foxes are cute enough, but other animals are much more beautiful.

I spent the rest of the day working on writing for seminary classes and meeting former colleague friends for lunch at a Mexican restaurant.  In later years, when I look back and wonder why I wasn't writing during this time when I was underemployed and a part-time student, let me remember that I'm writing thousands of words a week.  For my New Testament class, each weekly assignment clocks in at over 1,000 words, and that's just one class.  I'm writing a similar amount for Hebrew Bible and I'm writing 300-500 words each week for my Religion and the Arts class.  And some of it might be useful in other contexts--but the larger importance is that it keeps my writing muscles in use.

It's the kind of delightful life that I have to keep fighting back this fear that I might be punished later.  But what kind of punishment do I fear? Will I regret this time of not optimizing my earning potential?  I doubt it.

Let me remember the many delights of this time.