Sweden never locked down and not everyone is sure they were right. Trump is intent on removing any remaining doubt that Kim Jong-un is not the craziest head of state after all. Germany locked down, relaxed and is wavering. New Zealand played it tough and the signs are encouraging, France is looking promising enough ... Bill Taylor wonders whether we should be careful about what we are wishing for. See all the Salut! Covid-19 Diaries at this link
Trepidatious notes from the trenches:
It’s never been anything less than scary but now it’s getting really scary.
Because with our first baby steps towards a renaissance being laid out, even without a timeframe it’s only human nature to start letting ourselves wonder… could it be almost over?
Allowing that “almost” is a very elastic term.
This far in, it’s only natural to be looking for a way out.
I mean, the exit has to be here somewhere, doesn’t it?
Doesn’t it?
And the iron fist seems now to be starting to unclench.
Just. A. Little. Very slowly, one knuckle at a time.
Are we ready for an open hand? Do we believe in it?
Once bitten, twice shy.
Does being a pessimist really mean less disappointment than being an optimist?
I suspect that even if your glass is always half empty, there’s still a tiny part of you that’s kind of hoping for something better and keeps being knocked back.
If you’re someone who lives life on the sunny side, there must surely be a pesky shadow of reality that you’re constantly trying to smile out of existence.
Me? I try to stay somewhere in the middle. Abide by what my dad always told me – believe nothing that you hear and only half of what you see. And always bet your horses across the board, never just to win.
Wise man, my dad. His stakes were modest but he usually managed to take as much from the bookies as they took from him, and there’s not many could say that.
I’ve had faith so far in… I’m not sure what. Myself, I guess, though that’s a shaky rock upon which to build your church. But you do what you can with the materials at hand. Bricks without straw were always my stock-in-trade.
As push comes to shove, whether it be next week or next whenever, how far am I prepared to stretch that faith?
Will I be among the first or the last to step into what will still be a great unknown?
Drop the mask? Extend a hand?
Maybe the former. Maybe. Probably not the latter. That one will take a while.
I want to have my friends over for dinner. I want to go out and eat dinner in my friends’ restaurants. I trust my friends.
Do I?
That’s a nasty question to have to answer. But answer it we must.
I love you. But how comfortable am I having you up close, in my house, at my table? (Unspoken, unspeakable: In my face? At my throat?)
Herd immunity, so called, may turn out to be as big a lie as “the cheque is in the mail” – or, in this day and age, “the e-transfer is in the ether”. No point in waiting for that. And how would you recognise it, anyway?
So the flinch reflex is going to be with us for a long time. If we hope to live any semblance of our former lives, we’ll have to get used to gambling, spinning the wheel, throwing the dice, betting across the board.
Winners? Losers?
Like my dad and the horse racing that he called “cheap-enough entertainment”, we can only hope to break even.
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