Of The Day Gone By

My past was flashing before my very eyes.

No. I was not having a near death experience. What started as a pleasant dream stayed with me as I started to wake up. It is still in my head as I write to you. It helps that I’m listening to a Spotify playlist that I called “My Summer Rewind.”

Dreams. There are many theories concerning their meaning. I like one of Jung’s theories. Dreams are the answer to questions that you haven’t yet formulated. I suppose that I’m not looking for answers. I’m looking for questions.

Questions, for me, come in the form of looking for and finding a photograph.

Which brings me to this picture. I finally got outside away from home. I made a bunch of pictures. Bunch is a technical term like boatload. I saw this flower which is in the same family of the purple flowers that I’ve been posting. From the second that I saw it I knew what I wanted to do.

I want to to do this. The image that you are looking at.

I saw the flower in its purest form.

I had some clarity restored to me. It’s been missing for a while. For as long as we’ve been in lockdown I couldn’t find it. We are now in semi-lockdown. I kept thinking that it wasn’t affecting me. Little did I know that it was. The invisible cage that I put around myself really did it’s job. It left me feeling trapped. Caged. Limited.

You know that my work requires being out on the scene. I suppose that I could have made pictures of life at home. But, I’ve done that a couple of times. It seemed boring to me this time.

All of this brings me to something I read. While you are keeping your distance, wearing masks and really just practicing situational awareness, keep watch on yourself and your loved ones.

There’s a pretty good chance that a kind of PTSD can overcome even the best of us. If you are related to, or know, any front line responders take good care of them, even if that means letting them have their space. Their work is almost like being on a battlefield. They’ve seen and done things that no one should see or do.

As I’ve said repeatedly, this isn’t going away anytime soon. For the short term we must learn how to live with it and manage it. It may never entirely go away. The Spanish Flu which killed so many people, eventually morphed into the seasonal flu we call H1N1. I read a piece by a longtime coroner who basically said live your life and don’t listen to anybody. He still likens CoVid 19 to flu, which it isn’t. A lot of my friends were agreeing with him. What a load of BS.

Sure. Live your life. Just take the recommended precautions. We’ve made every military person a hero. Follow what they do. The ones on the battlefield wear protective gear, they carry long weapons and handguns. They live with heat, humidity, cold, rain and sometimes getting shot at. In combat zones they are never without a weapon.

Our leaders are just asking of us is to wear a mask and keep our distance. Our weapons are pretty simple, don’tcha think. Nike once used as a tagline, “Just Do It.”

It’s a slight inconvenience. It isn’t battle gear. It doesn’t weight 50 pounds. It weighs a few ounces. At least you won’t get shot at. Oh, wait. I live in New Orleans. We could get shot. Maybe I should pick a better city.

One more thing. Don’t let your guard down. That’s when you get sloppy. When you get sloppy bad things happen.

Stay safe. Enjoy every sandwich.