Notes On An Epidemic

 Optimism and hope are necessary states of mind for a well-balanced psyche. But it's increasingly worrisome news we hear, more liable to make people feel glum and powerless than to look to the future with confidence. Public health authorities and government figures at the executive level keep emphasizing that there is just so much that they can do for society; society too must make an effort to ensure that we all come through this dreadful pandemic as well as might be expected if everyone recognized the vital importance of tuning in to messages of quiet instruction.

Among us there are too many skeptics, those who appear to believe in conspiracy theories, that the COVID-19 epidemic that is making people ill, sending many to hospitals, where some will not survive is nothing but an attempt by government to take greater power over people's lives. That physical distancing alienates people, mask-wearing is a needless exercise in frustration and the manner in which ordinary, normal life has been altered in an effort to restrain the virus's contagion is all for nothing.

Cranks and outliers see nothing amiss in behaving as though these temporary restrictions in lifestyle and the social distancing mandated in an effort to control a deadly virus that preys on the elderly and the health-impaired are unneeded. That they will comport themselves as they wish. While mocking those who slavishly adhere to authority. In the process of eschewing masks to control the level of contagion, and mingling in close interior quarters with others of like mind, they believe themselves to be superior to the quaking fear-mongers.

They become disease carriers and since they're mostly fairly young, most sail through the period of infection, but those whom they have themselves infected may not be young and represent the vulnerable in society. Even so, they are responsible for widening the pool of SARS-CoV-2 virus sufferers, ensuring that the disease acquires a firmer grip on society as a whole. A process that leads inevitably to an unsustainable burden for the medical community, with hospitals stretched beyond their capacity to function, equipment and protective devices coming into short supply, and cases continuing to multiply, along with community death rates.

 We have all of this in the back of our minds, as we go about daily life trying to do our best to shelter ourselves from infection and bearing in mind that in so doing we're also helping to keep the infection rate down. It's a question of whether the majority of the population who do as we do will in the end have the greater, positive effect on the situation, or whether the situation will continue to spiral out of control as a reflection of a minority within the population who have little concept of personal responsibility.

To soothe our overworked concern quotient, we're able to enter an environment that salves the wearied mind with its calm natural landscape. So we are among the most fortunate of the fortunate, making our daily venture out into a natural setting accessed by us with little effort, taking along our two little dogs both as irresistibly accented company and for the good of their own health. 

As we did today. As we did yesterday. As we do every day of the week, the month, the year and the year before this one. It's fall, and fittingly, cool, windy and rainy. But eventually the rain does stop, and the sun emerges, highlighting the change in the season moving steadily from early to late fall and eventually winter. Each season with its own charm and challenges.

When we descended into the ravine early this afternoon, we did so on increasingly leaf-and-needle-padded forest trails. Where freshly fallen leaves lie like colourful confetti and as we progress, our eyes are drawn to individual leaves, different from the congregate they lie among; carmine, splotched, striped, gold, as distinct and individual as are those who make up a population of people, some stand out and some melt into the crowd.

Night rain had swollen the creek again, and it was muddy close to the bridge we were about to cross, just as the floorboards of the bridge had muddy imprints of dog prints as testament to the love of many dogs to plunge into the creek, likely for them the most attractive element of their ramble through the woods as companions to the humans in whose homes they live.

Since the pandemic, the woodland trails that once were the precinct of community members who love the natural trails through the extensive forest and ravine, suddenly became a popular destination for many others out on bicycles, runners, family groups, dog walkers, and though things have quieted down substantially from earlier months as area parks have re-opened along with other venues popular with people, it is only Saturdays now that we see occasional trail walkers among the regulars. 

Half of the time we were out, we were hard put to dodge groups of other people making their way along the trail system, but the other half of our circuit was relatively free of such impediments to quiet peace and balm to a disquieted mind. Most people are courteous, and those that are not are simply a temporary part of the landscape. Is that a metaphor?