Quarantined, Day 9

Not a lot to report today, Gentle Reader.  Fortunately, I have rather a rich inner life, so this time of solitude, rest and quiet, rather than leaving me bored, is enhancing and helping me marshal my creative and spiritual forces.  I have enlisted a friend, who is particularly isolated right now, into collaborating with my art.  I ask him for ideas about colour, subject matter, etcetera, then I go with his ideas.  It seems to be working.  Here are two species of hummingbirds in my most recent drawings.

Royal Sunangel   



and a Sparkling Violetear 

here are excerpts from correspondence this morning with the guest host on a popular radio program:

My friends in Colombia are under a particularly strict and brutal lockdown and quarantine, so I am trying to give them support by going on Skype with them every day.  I am also on regular Skype with a friend I stayed with in Costa Rica, as well as two of my English-speaking friends here in Vancouver.  This is particularly an important time for us to hang together and be there for one another.

You know, while I was in Costa Rica and Colombia I really noticed how much people in those countries are present to each other, very unlike so many Canadians, and it seems to be taking this pandemic, and the necessary nuisance of physical distancing to remind us of how much we really need one another.

I am actually enjoying this quiet time, and I'm doing a lot of art these days

Yes, we will get through this.  i have actually been through worse.   I was at or near ground zero during the AIDS pandemic in the eighties and nineties, in Christian ministry, and palliative care.  The mortality was 100 percent.  I lost many dear friends during that time, so i suppose I'm a bit hardened, or toughened.  Even though my age places me in the risk category (I'm 64), I am not worried, afraid or even remotely nervous.  Certainly taking care to not be a risk to others.  I think that by taking care of each other, we will get through this the better and faster.  Love is the gift that grows the more we give it away.  I experienced that when I was staying with Alonso, my friend in Colombia, who for three weeks showed me unconditional love, and this I think is what helped tear my heart open towards others, in Colombia, then in Costa Rica, and now here at home.

All for now, Gentle Reader.