Waiting on the Moon

June 6,  2020

Day 77

 

Sun.

Rain.

Sleep.

Love.

Zero New cases. Zero recovered cases. The ratio of the movement of the second hand to the hour hand of a watch is 720:1. With unequivocal certainty I can tell you that since the onset of the Covid-19 contagion, the speed of time has remained constant, and that the last person who has the disease has been sick for an awfully long time. I wish they’d hurry up and get well.

 

 

It turns out that garden snails are not really that slow, so perhaps I should apologise to the fellow above. In one hour they can travel 150 feet, which may not seem that fast, but in the time it takes for the moon to go through all four phases, your average snail can cover twenty miles. Cut that in half to allow for time spent sleeping and eating and it’s still a healthy ten miles. Not bad for a creature with only one foot.

 

 

The rain of the past two weeks has hidden the moon from view as it changed from new to full, which it is right this second as I type. One of the reasons this entry is so short is that I’ve been going outside every few minutes stare up past the scudding clouds to check the moon’s progress. Last month I took its picture as it set and I hope to do the same in a few hours.

I’ve been around for 804 full moons in my life. I can remember quite a few of them, but still hope to see another 400. Majestic, mysterious and utterly captivating. There’s a reason why the three toed tree toad sings his sweet ode to the moon…

 

 

Miracles happen.

 

Go outside and see.

 

Waiting on the moon.

Strange, Strange, Strange

May 22,  2020

Day 62

To the extent that it is possible within the limits of their resources, every country in the world has tried to find a way to deal with all of the effects of the Covid-19 pandemic. Some have decided to say that it does not exist, some have decided to let it run its course and others have attempted, with varying degrees of success, to stem, if only for a little while, the wave of contagion. We are in the midst of the first months of what may prove to be a years long battle to defeat a thing that is not even technically alive, but which is multiplying in its billions of trillions and spreading slowly, inexorably to every living human in the world.

I fear that the end result of all our tilting at this implacable windmill of Mother Nature will be the sad fact that we are powerless in the face of its relentless march and that one will either catch it and live, or catch it and die. Those that live will either have no long term problems or they will struggle with the effects of the virus for the rest of their lives. But they will be alive. They will reproduce and those most resistant to the virus will pass on this resistance to their children. Time and tide will relegate the Covid-19 bug to the history books and the world will wait nervously or obliviously for whatever’s coming down the pike next from the wet markets of China. The virus is going to run its course and humans are banging their heads as it does.

We see this happening now as governments try to protect citizens who don’t want to be protected. We see it in the attempts by some nations to pay lip service to their stated goal of protecting the older members of society while devoting equal, if not more attention to protecting their economies. Fear and apathy are revealed in the morbid nickname of Boomer Remover coined by some who cannot begin to imagine that they might one day be the same age as those they are so dismissive of now. The disease is driving a worldwide wedge into the fault lines of party politics and the result is that those in power will begin to sacrifice the vulnerable in order to protect themselves. Billionaires build bunkers equipped with swimming pools, stock them with the best viands money can buy. They staff them with masseuses, cooks, nurses and personal assistants for every need, then hunker down to ride out the storm, aloof in isolated luxury. Celebrities utterly convinced of their importance fill their Instagram feeds with inane yammering about lockdown being like prison or how we’re all in this together. They describe the hardships they’re enduring and post pictures of their activities as if anyone cared and they pat each other on the back and dream of the day they can hobnob on the walkways again and be famous once more. We see it as governments realise they cannot remain shut down forever. With covidiots partnered with those who simply need to go back to work. With protesters marching on capitols carrying signs that say what amounts to, “If you don’t like my driving, stay off the sidewalk!”.

Through it all the virus continues to be spread by human activity, good or bad, well intentioned or clueless, like water finding its way into every space it can. It’s not overly virulent, as plagues go, and people are getting tired of it ruling their lives. So they carry it to their friends and neighbours and coworkers and fellow citizens and say, “Here, I’ve got it so you might as well have it too. Enjoy! You’re not too old are you? Diabetic? Overweight? Sorry about that, but you’ll be stronger for it.” In the end it will be like a good TV series that everyone eventually sees. Some watch it as it happens, week by week while others binge watch entire seasons a few years down the line. Sooner or later, though, everyone has seen it and then it’s gone, but not gone. It just blends with the scenery. A part of life in the bad old 2020’s. We’re in for a long, strange haul.

And that’s why I’m glad I live in New Zealand. It’s one of the last sane places on the planet and is a country that, whether through geographical isolation or enlightened leadership or just plain dumb luck, has managed thus far to slam the door on the world and then take great strides toward eradicating Covid-19 within its borders. This miracle mixture of luck and applied discipline has bought me some time before its my turn to dance with the devil. Time for the vaccine makers to do their thing, or, failing that, for the drug makers to whistle up some expensive brew so that I can ride this planet a few more times around the sun. I could not be in a better place and from where I sit and write, the view alone is worth the trouble.

 

 

Here are the numbers for the island nation that is my home…

1 New case, 3 Recovered cases. Ratio of recovered cases to confirmed and probable cases is 96.7%. 2 Zeroes on the board. 28 active cases left.

 

 

 

 

Moonlight

May 9,  2020

Day 49

This day started as dawn bathed Totokoroa in gold and the full moon set behind the trees on the west ridge line.

 

 

We each struggle with our various maladies. Valerie cannot stomach anything but soup and I’ve got some of the side effects of prednisone. The day rolled on and we were abed for much of it until we decided to blaze down into town on an expedition to find hummus, pâté, salmon, soup, soup stock, milk and frozen pizzas. Sounds very much like essential travel to me.

We almost got taken out by a clueless yob on the dodgy road but I drive slowly and as such the guy was able to swerve back into his lane before we passed. There was no room for us to go anywhere so it was a good thing I am circumspect about what’s coming around the next bend. It was the second time in 49 days that Valerie has been on the road to town. The trees are turning colour lower along the river valley and she marvelled at the changes.

Whitianga was quiet and still save for the grocery stores. New World for soup and Countdown for birdseed. It seems the quail have decided to stay with us over the winter. We have created a monster and it rattles through budgie seed like there’s no tomorrow. Which is how it is for most creatures on this planet’s long now. Human’s could do well to learn this. They might see more.

Back up the hill, through the gates and home and we found these numbers…

2 New cases. 21 Recovered cases. Ratio of recovered cases to active cases is 91%. One Zero in the right place and overall momentum holding strong.

New Zealand is getting some grief from some in Sweden who seem to think that we are merely postponing our fate should we ‘temporarily’ eradicate Covid-19 within our borders.

https://www.nzherald.co.nz/world/news/article.cfm?c_id=2&objectid=12330725

As I said in my earlier post, it is early days yet. How one feels about each country’s plan to deal with the threat of the Covid-19 contagion will vary greatly depending on whether one is more – or less – susceptible to the virus.

History will have hindsight’s 20/20 vision to help bolster its judgement and none of that helps right now. People have to make decisions now and no matter what the call, the making of them is fraught with consequences and unknowns.

 

Trying to find a balance between…

and…

…is not cut and dried or foolproof. The coin is still flipping…

 

Meanwhile, as I type, the full moon is rising, just as it has always done and just as it always will, give or take a few billion years. It looks something like this…

 

 

May its light find you safe and fill your soul with peace.

Goodnight.

 

They Are All Miracles

May 4,  2020

Day 44

Zero New cases today! 10 Recovered cases. Ratio of recovered cases to active cases is still 85% (But climbing on the other side of the decimal point.) 211 people still have it.

As the numbers change and morph and fluctuate with time and varying conditions in the nation I see some items of interest (to me at least). I’m going to start watching the ratio of the number of probable cases to the number of confirmed and probable cases. It’s 23% now and we’re looking for this to drop to zero (along with all other possible categories) as we stack up more days on our journey toward a happier, safer now.

Speaking of a safer now…. There is one continent on the earth that is totally free of Covid-19. Never mind that it has no permanent residents and access is difficult to all but the rich or semi-brainy. There is lots of elbow room, free air conditioning in most places, long days for half the year and long nights during the other half. Most unique of all places on earth, there is one point, and only one, where the only direction you can walk is north…..

 

….which is also the place where the phrase ‘nowhere to go but up’ came from.

But that’s another story.

 

Stay safe.

Enjoy each day.

They are all miracles.

 

 

It will Fluctuate

April 26, 2020

Day 34

 

 

During the previous month members of our tight-knit community have taken it upon themselves to do the easement road maintenance while the workers normally contracted for this job are locked down. Grass is weed-whacked and gorse rooted out. Cracks in the road have been marked for future attention and safety barriers are in the process of being water blasted and re-painted. One project undertaken by the Mahakirau Forest Estate Society Incorporated (MFESI) is the construction of a research ‘hub’ near the picnic area that will serve to house visiting biologists and guest workers. This week individual volunteers, working from an online schedule so that only one person is on site at a time, began staking out and clearing the land for this facility. Life goes on and despite us all being constrained by the challenges of this contagion, our work continues.

Today I started dismantling an old, out of disused outhouse that was knocked over by a falling tree a few years back. I’m using the thin plywood from the walls to make small storage boxes that will sit on the new shelves in the workshop shipping container. Internal framing is coming from scrap wood, fasteners are being culled from a box of screws collected over time from various other building modifications. I throw very little away and am glad I have this habit because all of the hardware stores are closed. Like the whelk, I must live in my home while I build it. The storage boxes will replace the hodgepodge of cardboard ones that contain all of the things that won’t yet fit into our small (but growing) house. I will build one a week while working on other projects higher on the priority list, but eventually they’ll all be done and I can cross them off and move on down the line.

With one piece of outhouse wall to work with, I set up a temporary workbench on the deck of the forest porch and hummed Joni Mitchell’s Chelsea Morning as the sun poured in like butterscotch. The days are getting shorter and colder, but there are still a few warm and pleasant hours on either side of noon. The swallows are active in this interlude, their scratchy chirps filling the sky as they swoop and wheel around the clearing below the house. A few quail come to the steps and call and are fed by their humans. After their meal they sit in the warm sun in the grass at the edge of the grove and dream of summer. Chaffinches have returned from wherever it is they go during the summer and the moreporks are calling earlier in the afternoon. In this tail end of Indian Summer two of the rose bushes are putting out buds and the climbing rata are blooming in orange brush strokes all over the valley.

For a few minutes, Valerie walked in the garden, breathing in the outside air for the first time in three weeks. A smile wreathed her face as she contemplated what must be done to return the place to order. For now that is all she can do, but it is enough.

Other jobs done included two loads of laundry in the newly painted ‘laundry room’. I figured out how to clean the antique Chinese white ceramic lamp whose close spaced decorative lattices have been collecting dust for years. Counting the holes in four square inches and multiplying by the total surface area told me that there are over a thousand tiny, irregularly shaped triangles to clean. I put the lamp base in a bucket of soapy water collected from the outflow of the washing machine where I will let it soak for a few days. Should take about a week to finish that tedious task by doing a little bit here, a little there, in between other endeavours.

Fading light and lowering temperatures told me to stop and wrap up. Shut down, tools down…lockdown. I walked to the verandah and scanned the sky above the ridge to the northwest. It took me a while, but I found the thin sliver of the new moon hiding in plain sight, chasing the sun. So beautiful. So absolutely, amazingly beautiful. I linger there for a time and marvel, then go inside to check the numbers.

When asked by a brash young reporter what he thought the stock market would do that week, financier James Pierpont Morgan famously replied, “It will fluctuate”. I think that holds true for pandemics as well.

9 New cases, up from the day before. 24 Recovered cases. Ratio of recovered cases to active cases is 77%. Two Zeroes on the board today but again they are just place holders. 328 people are still infected.

Thus far I am not aware of anyone of note in New Zealand weighing in on the question of  whether previously infected people develop immunity or not. Can you catch Covid-19 again and again? Other questions are percolating to the surface as time goes on. Massive strokes are being reported in young patients currently hospitalised with active infections and a great deal of the at home deaths in New York City during the past month were from strokes. I will wait for further developments as April draws to a close and reflect on how fortunate I am to have been to be able to self-isolate in such a wonderful, peaceful spot.

 

 

 

Darkness Falls

Some of you may have seen that Mauna Kea is in the news lately because of an ongoing attempt by protesters to stop the construction of the Thirty-Meter-Telescope. The issues in question can be found by searching the web carefully, but be careful to research thoroughly as there are many conflicting viewpoints out there. As an employee of one of the existing observatories on the summit, I have been counseled by admin to keep an open mind and be professional in the expression of my opinions. And so I have. This weeks story for Friday Fictioneers is based on my own photo prompt and speaks my mind quite clearly.

It is longer than normal by 58 words and for these I make no apology. I have been spot on for months and will be absent from the mix for some time to come so I hope you will tolerate my overage. If you do not want to read more than 100 words, you’d better stop 68 words ago.

Thanks to all who read on. See you down the road a bit. Aloha, D.

 

(Copyright Douglas MacIlroy)

A mob is coming to destroy what might have been their salvation. They listen to reply, not to understand. They want to watch the world burn.

Mauna Kea is sacred. But not for the reasons they claim. The Universe unfolds, light dances eternally and the majesty of Nature gives not a tinker’s damn about man’s gods. The mountain was here long before they arrived, guided, ironically, by their elder’s knowledge of the stars. It will endure long after they are dust.

Mauna Kea is sacred. Unlike the mob, I have learned this through direct experience over five years of glorious sunsets, cold, clear nights and solitary dawns. Cloaked in false pride and righteousness, ignorance is on the march against the inexorable tide of knowledge.

I lock the doors and wait. Someplace has to be the backwater of science and education in the world. It might as well be Hawaii. This will be their legacy.

If you listen carefully you can hear the stars laughing.

 

 

Five after Whatever

100 words for Friday Fictioneers based on the photo prompt below.

(copyright Douglas MacIlroy)

 

I was building a cuboctahedron when a packet of hot peppers fell from an opening and onto the workbench. I peered inside and found myself seated in a restaurant opposite a beautiful woman with sparkling eyes and a sunny smile. Across the street sea met sky beyond a pristine white sand beach.

“I was strolling on the boardwalk when a craving for Calimari alla Griglia came over me.” she said.

“And I was….Oh, never mind.”

“This is going to be an unusual relationship, isn’t it?”

We meet at Scalini’s in St. Heliers every Thursday at five after.

Joint Venture

100 words for Friday Fictioneers, an organization of writers (Est. by Madison Woods in 2011) whose current CEO is Rochelle Wisoff-Fields. The mission statement of FF members is to write a flash fiction piece based on the photo prompt below, to be audited by their associates.

 

Copyright Adam Ickes

 

 

“Physical inventory?” I texted.

“Yes.” my partner replied.

I thought about the changes I’d demanded. He preferred vertical analysis of inflation rate and dividends in arrears with the ultimate goal of immediate liquidation. I wanted a horizontal analysis with emphasis on non-routine transactions, double entry bookkeeping and asset manipulation and had had enough of staring at last year’s invoices because he liked a specific installment method. The intent was a friendly merger, not a split offering.

At the storeroom door I query him.

“Couch?”

“Installed.”

“Ram?”

“Pawn shop.”

“Then let’s get to work.”

 

 

 

 

 

Just Another Night at the Office

My office is ten feet from the edge of a cinder ridge on the west side of the summit of Mauna Kea, 13,522 feet above sea level and forty miles from the nearest town. I can see that town, Kamuela, my home, from where I sit, for my office is outside, exposed to the elements. When there are no clouds blocking the view the orange lights of the main street are plainly visible. I can even make out the softer green lights of the observatory headquarters building where the astronomers I serve work.  My hours start when the sun goes down and end just before it rises again many hours later.

The only piece of furniture in my office is a sturdy reclining beach chair securely mounted to the top of a motorized revolving turntable. From this spot I have seen the canvas of the atmosphere painted by the master in sunlight and wind and cloud. I have watched Maui floating on a silver sea of cumulus that turns to red and fades in glory as the earth rotates eastward into darkness. One by one the stars appear as dusk gives way and the curtain rises on the night. The constellation’s brighter stars tell me time and date and allow me to place myself in the grand scheme of things. Full dark comes in an hour and the night is revealed to be not truly dark at all. The sky is alive with stars and their light fills the air with radiance.

My office.

Scorpius rises around an hour before midnight, its curved tail hoisting with it the thickest part of the Milky Way and the Galactic Center. During the next five hours it will climb to zenith, skim the top of the dome of Keck-1 and the Subaru telescope and then dive into the Pacific just before dawn. In the darkness before sunrise I will see satellites and shooting stars and watch the eastern sky begin to brighten as the terminator races west.

I wear a special suit of clothes to hold the cold at bay and sit holding a pair of 25×100 astronomical binoculars in my thick gloved hands. As the hours pass I imagine myself a Mayan priest or a Druid studying the skies for signs and portents, when in fact I am only there to watch for airplanes overflying the summit. If I see any my job is to press a button, shuttering our adaptive optics laser and then reset it after the plane is gone. In the long course of many nights I have slowly come to see the night sky as though there were no Earth rotating in space and me upon it. I am beginning to become conscious of our place in the Universe.

In the deepest night I talk to my father who is two years dead but by no means gone. I talk to his new companions, the ancients who have gone before and who still listen if you but speak. I talk to myself and imagine beauty and I think of Haiku. Life is grand and the view grander.

I am not bored. I am not cold.

I am grateful.

Just another night at the office.

Aloha,

Doug