CONTENTS 5/1/2020
Increased Covid Spread In Whatcom County
Covid-19 Causes Sudden Strokes In Young Adults, Doctors Say
Update On Masks At Goods
Mask Tree
Garbage & Recycling In The Time Of Covid
Columbia Neighborhood
Rabbit Fields Farm In Columbia
Fl!p’s Pix
Unemployment Info For Artists
Cascadia International Women’s Film Festival
Rental Wanted
How To Request A Post
Crowd-Sourced Poem
If The Trees Can Keep Dancing, So Can I
INCREASED COVID SPREAD IN WHATCOM COUNTY
From the Bellingham Herald:
With 18 new cases in the past three days, Whatcom County has now reported 27 new positive tests in the six days since Sunday, April 26. In the full week prior (April 19-25) the county only saw eight new cases. On Thursday, the Lummi Public Health Department announced that it has seen 11 new cases in two days and that all 11 were people under the age of 40. The release said that showed community members were not following Lummi Nation’s Shelter in Place order issued March 22. “It is apparent that families and their children are not following the ‘Shelter in Place’ order and not practicing social distancing,” the Lummi health department statement said. “Part of this new cluster involves families visiting other households.”
https://www.bellinghamherald.com/news/coronavirus/article242438696.html
COVID-19 CAUSES SUDDEN STROKES IN YOUNG ADULTS, DOCTORS SAY
There is so much still to learn! Blood clots seem to be one effect.
https://www.cnn.com/2020/04/22/health/strokes-coronavirus-young-adults/index.html
UPDATE ON MASKS AT GOODS
I plan to drop another 30 off tomorrow by 9am. Information on sizing: There is a little kids size and sm/med/lg. Note Me, my 10 year old and my 49 year old partner all prefer wearing a size small. All of these sizes can do the trick as long as you size the elastic appropriately. Most people seem to prefer medium so I will be supplying a lot of that size.
Please hand wash or machine wash your mask before you wear it! Doing a simple hand wash and hang dry before you adjust the size, will work. I leave the knots relatively loose so they can be retied. If you have questions, please feel free to email me! Take care and thank you for your support and for caring for yourselves! lil.bird.salon@gmail.com
GARBAGE & RECYCLING IN THE TIME OF COVID
I asked neighbor & recycling maven Rod Pemble if he had advice for us. He responded, “With changing information, it’s best to refer your readers to our website home page for links to updates.”
http://www.ssc-inc.com/index.php
http://www.ssc-inc.com/faqs.php#169
COLUMBIA NEIGHBORHOOD
RABBIT FIELDS FARM IN COLUMBIA
Saturdays 9-1 at 2526 Kulshan street. Skagit Valley organic produce, already bagged. Prices range from $5.00-30.00 Or pre-order online:
MASK TREE
If you’d like to know the location of the Mask Tree, email me – flip@columbianeighborhood.org. I assume you could add masks as well as adopt them.
FL!P’S PIX
UNEMPLOYMENT INFO FOR ARTISTS
Artist Trust has been around a long time. I worked with them briefly in the 1980s I think.
https://artisttrust.org/resources/unemployment-for-artists-and-creatives-during-covid-19-webinar/
CASCADIA INTERNATIONAL WOMEN’S FILM FESTIVAL
will present its 2020 Festival online this year from May 14 through 17. Features, short films, animated films, documentaries and narrative films. Films by students, emerging directors and Indigenous women are also in the mix. Students with a university email address may receive a discounted pass price of $4.95. Purchasers of passes will receive an email with a link and password that will provide access to the festival. This will allow pass purchasers the ability to access all of the festival films, recorded discussions, panel interviews and live Q&A’s during the four day festival period anytime from anywhere. www.cascadiafilmfest.org
RENTAL WANTED
Single-mama-by-choice and the most wonderful 12-month-old are looking for a space of their own — ideally in community. I’m dreaming of something like a 750-square-foot backyard cottage with lots of light, or maybe a sweet little one-bedroom apartment in a house with another family. I’ve got multiple friends in town who live in these sorts of situations and pay $750, so I know they’re out there… [This is for a friend of mine, so contact me, Fl!p, and I’ll pass it on.] flip@Columbianeighborhood.org
HOW TO REQUEST A POST
Email flip@Columbianeighborhood.org with the headline for the post as the subject so I can find it more easily, later. Please just send text. I cannot get information out of attachments. Other than that, I will try to take information almost any way people manage to get it to me, but this would be easiest for me.
Be aware that I’m having time-lag problems at the moment. It can take several days between when I post, and when subscribers actually receive the email notification.
CROWD-SOURCED POEM
NPR’s poet-in-residence Kwame Alexander pointed to Nancy Cross Dunham’s poem, “What I’m Learning About Grief,” and asked that submissions begin with those same words. The responses were deeply emotional and vividly captured some of the ways you are coping with uncertainty and crisis. Alexander compiled lines from some of the submissions and created a community poem. Contributors are credited in the link at the bottom.
If The Trees Can Keep Dancing, So Can I
What I’m learning about grief
is that it sits in the space between laughs
comes in the dark steals the warmth from the bed covers threads sleep with thin tendrils
is a hauntingly familiar song,
yet I can’t remember the words…
What I’m learning about grief
is that it rolls like a heavy mist settles into the crevices lingers on the skin.
Visits, then visits again
Lurking under my chair.
And, when I’m not watching
Reaches out her tiny claws
And bats my ankles —
Grief sneaks up on you.
You find yourself on your couch with a well of rage living in the pit of your stomach and nowhere for it to go.
And, It chokes you.
What I’m learning about grief,
is that it can come like a whisper or storm through loud as thunder
it leaves a hollow, to be filled with a new planting.
And, when you wake for another day that feels oddly the same as the last, It crawls right back into your lap.
an ocean of tears So, you vary the crawl with the butterfly, the backstroke with breaststroke. At some point, drowning is no longer an option.
What I’m learning about grief
Is that it is a language.
Suffering is its own speech
it will not go away just because you won’t look it in the eye
He rides shotgun when you go by old familiar places
Eventually, you will get closer and he will say
“See, it’s not so bad. I got your back.”
This pandemic, this tragedy, this fulcrum of life is a shovel unearthing secrets we wish would stay buried I learn that I am ashamed I love solitude.
Hard times call for soft people. There is softness in stillness, in staying home, in distractions deleted, in a togetherness that stretches great distances.
What I’m learning about grief
is not found in mint leaves, floating in a glass of tears boiled thrice over.
It is an acquired taste which we never crave
It likes nachos
Staying up late
Watching Scandinavian murder shows
Sleeping in
And eating cake for breakfast.
it drips, like water, It gets in everywhere
through the small unseen fissures in the ceiling. You can ignore it like dust.
Just keep yourself too busy with laundry and living.
Grief shows up unannounced
Like when your husband tells you last October
That he’s never loved you
And wants permission to leave
So you burrow the ache into carefully guarded well
And wonder if that means the memories have to go there too
What I’m learning about grief
is that it can turn you into someone you don’t want to be, can help you become someone you never thought you could be
is that it transcends color, race, Religion, gender.
is that it’s an old lover that won’t leave. trying to hold your hand again –
that it aches in the arches of feet
that its mother is loss, its father, change
Make room for it.
Is that tiny losses add up
The missed first party my son was to attend
The school days he yearns for with his friends I tell him it will be over soon
What I’m learning about grief
I learned a long time ago.
Knead grief, as you would bread.
Weave grief, as you would thread.
there is no vaccine against it — we can’t develop antibodies against it, it is something I have and something you have — but in these times it is something we have
It is anger and denial
It is chaotic laughter from splintered memories
It is jagged cries and single tears
It is numb and indifferent
It is the pinprick of light, promising
A slow semblance of normality returned
What I’m learning about grief
Is to acknowledge its presence
Its many forms and guises
Then, to use it, while reaching out
Connected To everyone who is braving this same storm
What I’m learning about grief is that it is still learning about me
Learning that I am strong and resilient
If the trees can keep dancing,
So can I.
Love/Fl!p