Grocery Store Virus

This painting by Van Gogh was not his last, but it was clearly a look at death. The philosopher Martin Heidegger loved the work of  Vincent Van Gogh because the artist so fully expressed being-in-the-world. The philosopher's example was VG's painting of shoes. It could just as well be the painting here of crows approaching over wheat fields. The painting is an existential expression of the approach of death as the artist experienced it in nature. 

The relationship between humans and nature has always been precarious. Today it is as fragile as ever. Our vast waste is destroying the most vulnerable and beautiful of species. I cannot help recalling Salvador Dali's burning giraffes. The best art is often prophesy. 

This cruel April, humans are being killed by one of nature's most damaging weapons, a virus. Only a rare few comprehend how this is just one instance of climate change and crisis. There may be other viruses already spreading. Over the past week I too was hit with a severe virus. I ran a fever for days. I suffered intense aches and pains. I lost all appetite and slept much of the time. awakening either drenched in sweat or shaking with chills and fever (the temperature of my room was always around 70). I lived on organic, unsweetened yogurt, for a few days, and the variety of healthy liquids or waters Darryl supplied. He went to the store and bought me a wealth of possible foods. But I never got pneumonia and Darryl's care brought me back to life in about 5 days (though I am not altogether recovered even now). Covid 19? Flu? Something old, something new? The only place I've been in the past month is the grocery store; so that's what I shall call it, the Grocery Store Virus, until I have an anti-body test.

The taste of mortality on the worst couple of days, and removal from Facebook and other social media , allowed me to see everything in another light. I found a series to watch, instead of the news, America Under Attack.  Read the review. It is based on the Roth novel and has gotten excellence reviews. It is so apropos. 

I'll spend the weeks ahead with virtual school until June and consider summer travel to Savannah and the Blue Ridge Mountains. There is much uncertainty ahead for  2020 and beyond. I shall take a break from Facebook and Instagram for a while, at least until there is something new in the news besides sunrise to midnight coverage of Covid-19. Spending time on FB seems to me mostly a sort of futility, looking at the same news I read through the shards of a shattered mirror. Posts are weighed by fear, not of the virus, not of climate crisis, not even of political corruption, but fear of and retreat from facing the truth about our immediate future. There is also the pretense of, the obsession with, happiness, as if nothing else matters. Facebook has never before appeared to me so completely lacking authenticity. Not every post, of course, and there are many legitimate essays I shall miss for a while.  

Jameson