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About The nugget. (Sisters, Or.) 1994-current | View Entire Issue (March 18, 2020)
4 Wednesday, March 18, 2020 The Nugget Newspaper, Sisters, Oregon In the PINES By T. Lee Brown Hurts like a banshee I9ve been wanting to write a column for weeks. Folks around town have asked about Part Two of my mus- ings on the book <In Defense of Elitism.= Well, some stuff came up. Health has a funny way of keenly focusing one9s priorities. Medical care and emotional well-being float to the top, right up there with family. Can9t drive, due to ver- tigo? Meetings and errands are limited. Can9t type, due to excruciating pain in the hand? Writing assignments lie fal- low. (The dictation software I9m reluctantly attempting to use just offered up, <Writing assignments life fellow.= Sounds like a new faculty position at Cambridge.) Ain9t got health, or, as my computer would have it, <Eight got health?= Ain9t got much. Many of us are think- ing about that these days. If we are not worried about the state of our own bodies, we are worried about spreading viruses to vulnerable people in our community. Today, as I write this, St. Charles has announced the first case of COVID-19 coro- navirus in Central Oregon. People are dying far away. Closer to home, events and gatherings are being canceled right and left (I use those par- ticular words with intention). It9s hard to focus on <elitism= with all this going on. The uncertainty is mad- dening. As of today, my son is still instructed to go to school, so it seems fairly likely that my family could get the virus. I like to think that our partic- ular health issues won9t put us at risk for being seriously damaged by this thing. Nagging at the back of my mind, though, is the knowl- edge that I could be wrong. We could pull him out of school, hole up out here in the woods, and disappear. It might be better for us. It might be better for our friends and compatriots, some of whom are older. If the virus grinds school and capitalism to a halt, my son and I could have fun. Health allowing, and assum- ing that the grownups didn9t have to work much, we could do real things. Bake muffins and build forts. Sing songs and read books. We could spend some time writing our play, <Butterbean! The Musical.=* Experiment with new uses for the pine needles we gotta rake up, or heck, just burn 8em as usual. On the other hand, we might drive each other nuts. When our family lived in a small travel trailer, on the road or in the woods, I sure had some omg-get-me-out- of-here moments. Though we were in motion, our tiny cir- cle of togetherness sometimes made me stir-crazy. Holing up might be over- reactive, self-indulgent para- noia. Might lead to a fear- based, isolated life where relationships beyond our immediate household are reduced solely to what tech- nology can deliver. We9ve seen how technol- ogy has affected our soci- ety, weaseling its way into our every interaction. It ain9t pretty. It9s splintered us. It9s set us up to be heavily, relent- lessly manipulated4for political gain and financial profit. P e o p l e 9s c o n v e r s a - tions used to be meaning- ful, private or small-group exchanges, punctuated here and there by the public talk of books, newspapers, and lectures. Now interpersonal conversation on all levels is extracted by Big Data corporations. Relationship is beautiful, natural, maybe even sacred. A true connection between real human beings emits a holy spark of wonder and joy. But now, relationships are fodder for mind control and advertising, thanks to our reliance on our ever-spying phones, apps, and devices. Read Jaron Lanier9s <Ten Arguments for Deleting Your Social Media Accounts Right Now= or Doug Rushkoff9s <Team Human= if you think I9m exaggerating. Or just cheat and check out their TED talks. If I hide out in my pines, conducting work, friendships, and community relationships via Internet4would that be a noble sacrifice for the bet- terment of humanity, slow- ing the spread of the virus? Or just another capitulation to media paranoia and social fragmentation? Or, as the computer prefers, <social fermentation=? Realizing that my alleged column is going nowhere, I indulge my habit of checking my email too often. A mes- sage arrives, a friend won- dering whether the spring equinox walk at Sisters Community Labyrinth on March 19 will be canceled. C9mon, I think. It9s usu- ally just a handful of people, not trapped in an airplane or a big city. We9ll be outside, where mountain air circu- lates. Won9t that be safe? It occurs to me that I won9t have to hole up completely in the weeks ahead. Maybe we can socialize outside, under the pines. That9s my favorite place anyway. We could even turn off our personal track- ing devices, errr, I mean, our phones. My word-count is way over and my hand hurts like heck. Knowing I overuse the word heck, I type <hurts like a 4= into the environmentally friendly Ecosia search engine. It pops up hurts like a mofo, a knife, a thorn, and a banshee. Hurts like a banshee? Is that really a thing? I prefer columns that are well-written, thought-provok- ing, nicely edited. I sure don9t have that in me this wild, confusing week. Maybe next week everything will settle down and I can get back to contemplating elitism and other abstract issues. For now? I9m right here, in my difficult but miraculous body, surrounded by trees that smell of sun-heated vanilla and birds that chirp and chat- ter4achingly aware that all this is a powerful gift, one that can be taken away at any moment. *If you happen to be a composer/arranger who wants to work for free on a mother-son musical about a fictitious small town in Oregon4by all means, get in touch! 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