What's Next?

I really don't have a clue.  I expect to be travelling again next year, but I am still waiting for this pandemic to end and the international quarantines to lift.  That could take a while, perhaps longer than a year.  Or maybe sooner.  I just did a quick Google search, and it seems that things are already starting to gradually open up.  I expect that air travel is going to be even more onerous an experience from what it became post World Trade Centre bombing and the legendary grasping greed of the airlines to cram as many bodies into economy as possible.  I also think this is a good time to reexamine my motives and my direction with travel.

I have friends in Colombia, Christians, and supportive of my direction in life, and one of them I will likely be staying with in Medellín.   But I still have to ask this question:  What is the higher purpose?  Is there a higher purpose?  I would say that when I stayed with him in Colombia last February, there certainly was a higher purpose and God became very real to both of us.   I was also profoundly affected by the obscene social inequality in that country, with a desire to learn more about the people worst affected, and what part I could possibly play there, if only as one occupying the seat of the unlearned.   I am already beginning to research charitable and social activist groups and organizations in Medellín, and really, Gentle Reader, who only knows?

Right now, there is this business of getting through this damn pandemic.  We really don't know what lies ahead, but I am eternally optimistic, and I really do think that we are going to get through this faster, sooner and better than we are expecting.  And that also we are going to become better people through this ordeal we are sharing all over the world.   And some of us are going to feel pretty embarrassed about how we overreacted to this crisis.  I will share this email I just sent to some of my professional colleagues:

oh yes!  The covid folk dance!  Let me tell you the ways.  Outside is usually okay, since there is little danger of transmission outdoors, and I only wear a face covering (a bandana, it makes me look like a train robber!) if I'm on a crowded sidewalk, or in a store with too many people inside already.  And then there's the dance steps.  Those who safe distance a little bit.  Those that safe distance at all, and the ones who don't even seem to know that we are living in a pandemic.  I try to hold my breath when passing those blissful oblivious folks, (I don't want them to feel bad, you know) and often there are exchanges of humour and good will with others.  Otherwise, I prefer to go out bareface, and I refuse to get anxious or fearful about it.  Then there are the overachievers.  I think you know who I mean.  Solo occupants of cars who still wear masks while driving with the windows up!  Then there were the people in the local corner store today whom I had to remind to step back at least six feet.  They gave me maybe just a little more than one metre, so I smiled and said more please.  Pandemic, I quipped with a cheerful little smile, what pandemic?

Hope you're well through all this, Melissa, and all,  and keep your sense of humour and do not forget to laugh!