I had a gift this morning. Five minutes of perfect peace and tranquillity; a gentle early morning sun warmed the deck under my bare feet whilst a nightingale sang its sweet melody, the breeze rustled the pines, the water tumbled and splashed down the mountain. A full five minutes with owt but natural sounds before a car passed.
So it is not all bad this Pandemic. There are positives.
Here is a further example: the absence of dialogues like this.
“Have you seen my keys?”
From a distant room “What?”
“HAVE YOU SEEN MY KEYS!”
“No need to shout!”
“Can’t find my bloody keys again. I’m late.”
“Well you should put them back in the key box.”
“Can we have the lecture when I get back? They have disappeared”
“Be logical. Think back to what you were wearing…. “
Being married means a lifetime of shouting “What?” from other rooms, as they say.
But Key Stress is in abeyance. My keys are in the key tin where I put them four weeks ago. They will be there in ( _ ) weeks when I am finally released. You can fill the blank in because frankly your guess is as good as anybodys. I just hope I can remember what key fits what lock
That’s ironic isn’t it? The one thing you do not need in a lockdown is keys.
So in this Time of Pestilence it will help us stay positive if we try and recognise these little gifts and celebrate them: a quiet read at sundown with a little glass of something. Disinfectant maybe. That is a cheap shot, I know. Less than 50 kuruş actually and a kick like a mule.
Mind you, talking of gifts, here in Kalkan we are not so far from the remains of ancient Troy. The Trojans knew all about gifts. The citizens woke up to find their enemies, the Greeks, had departed after a nine year siege. On the beach they had left behind a monumental horse as a votive offering for a safe return to their homeland. The silly billies did not heed the warning of the Priest Laocoon, who counselled, in the words of Vergil “Danaos timeo, etiamque dona ferentes (I fear the Greeks even when bearing gifts)”.
Instead they towed it (and the warriors hidden within) inside the gates to celebrate their victory. The rest is history.
Sometimes it would seem you really should look a gift horse in the mouth.
In the hope that knowing your enemy can help you defeat it I have just finished Norman Cantor’s In the Wake of the Plague, a scholarly and readable history of pandemics but definitely not a coffee table book.
If your tastes runs to those I recommend
“The History of the Ashtray” A compendium of amusing anecdotes and little known trivia about this once ubiquitous but now fast disappearing household accessory. Discount price 1.99 from the dump bins of all major book stores.
Another good one is “The Art of Guacamole” great for dipping into.
Or “The Story of the Search Engine” useful browsing.
Shall I go on? Plenty more where they came from. Alright, no need to be rude.
Getting back to plagues, I had not realised, until I read Cantor, that the mighty Roman Empire was brought down not by its enemies within but by massive epidemics of Smallpox, Gonorrhea and Bubonic Plague. None of which it had a clue how to combat.
Indeed until the 20th Century your options to combat these Pandemics, which threatened the very continuance of the human race, were
- Pray very hard
- Run to the countryside
- Blame foreigners
All three of these responses, of course, are still invoked today. Indeed my friend Baz the Builder, in hope of redemption, has erected on his Gothic style ranch a shrine to St Keystone, the Arch Bishop and Patron Saint of Builders. Another friend of mine Arjan, and this is for real, had strong words with his mother because she assured him that Corona Virus cannot enter a mosque.
Be thankful we live in a scientific age and now have a fourth response, a biomedical one. Bring on that vaccine.
In the meantime keep fit, stay safe and find the joy in the moment.