Sylvia's Journal

Today we did our Sunday Quaker Meeting for Worship using Zoom. I missed my bike ride to the school where we meet – especially on a beautiful spring day like today. Quaker life is about going inward, and we discovered one can still do that on Zoom. As going outward is becoming more and more constrained, the inward way may well be the way forward. I bought everyone in my family a year long subscription to Headspace – a wonderful meditation app that is helping me a great deal these day.

It was interesting to see my fellow Quakers in their home context, including one member of our community who had three kids jumping up and down on the bed in back of her, clear signs of being bored out of their minds and wanting mom’s attention. This is the age group for whom Sita has created her community learning project – to take kids of their parent(s)’ hands, at least for an hour each day.

I joined one of the learning community’s meetings on Friday. I discovered, or should I say re-discovered how much kids move, all the time, even when they sit still(ish)! Ben Roberts from Newtown (CT) explored the poetry, art, and music of The Lost Words: beautiful magic spells to conjure the natural world back into the imaginations of children.

I am on the program for Wednesday to show pictures about Mongolia. I did a talk about Mongolia some years ago for 5^th through 8^th graders and had included a quiz. The prizes for best teams were coins and bills from countries around the world – I had built up a large supply over the years. Some kids in the US have never seen any money other than dollar bills and cents. The winning team was ecstatic (they got the bills); the runner up got the coins.

While we still are allowed to go out and shop, we are doing so, albeit with a container of Purell and plastic gloves. I discovered one cannot use our cellphone shopping list with gloves on, so that part didn’t work. We were surprised to be the only ones with protection, and trying to keep out distance – most people didn’t. In California and Ohio and New York, I am told, people are told to move less – voluntary distancing seems to be spotty and the heavy hand of the state is stepping in. It’s hard. I met a friend in one store and we kept our distance, suppressing the urge to embrace.

Our very extroverted friends A+C, who were holed up in France have decided to come back. They go to France every year to enjoy the country side, the bistros and cafes where they meet people and make new friends. Being forced to stay in their AirBnB was not part of that plan. With some anxiety they have decided to cut their stay short and embark on what now seems a very daunting task – so taken for granted only a few short weeks ago.