March 31, 2020

Hello, Friends. 😃

Today was supposed to be the day that we’d be packing up the rest of our stuff, loading it all into Felix, our motorhome, and saying good-bye to our friends here in Bandera. We’ve been looking forward to heading to Kentucky to be with our daughter and grandkids, but that’s not going to happen for a while. Something unforeseen and deadly has thrown a virtual monkey wrench into world order, and the result is that “guidelines” have been put into place that will hopefully mitigate a virus that has already been responsible for more than 3,000 deaths in our country alone.

The latest guidelines call for all Americans to stay put wherever they are until April 30, so here we will stay. Most of our snowbird friends left a few weeks ago to head north and return home, for better or worse. Looking at websites that track the number of confirmed cases/deaths, it appears that some friends have jumped from the frying pan into the fire, but that was their choice.

The managers of the RV park we’re at are doing everything they can to protect us and keep us healthy. Not only were all social activities halted abruptly, but no new arrivals have been allowed in for more than two weeks. If people decide to leave, they’re informed that they cannot return. Bandera County is about as safe a place as any; there are zero cases of the Coronavirus here.

I’ve lost count of how long the guidelines have been in effect. All I know is that life has changed dramatically, but it’s important to realize that it’s not all tragic. With all the hype about the Coronavirus infiltrating our lives through the media 24/7, it takes determination and self-discipline to not be consumed by doom and gloom.

Those who know me might be surprised that I found myself slipping into a depression of sorts; whereas I once journaled daily, I completely stopped. And the fact that I’m blogging today is more a reflection of the calendar and that it’s the last day of the month. For years I’ve blogged at least once a month and oftentimes more…I’m OCD and knew I’d never forgive myself if I skipped this month’s entry.

Not that I didn’t try to write…I must’ve started this post at least half a dozen times, but deleted them all after the first paragraph or two. I didn’t really want to write about what was going on all around, but what else was there? An email that a friend sent me yesterday hit me like a slap upside the head, which was exactly what I needed. It contained a video that I’d seen years ago. Perhaps you will recall it, too.

The video was about a teacher who’d announced to her class that they were going to have a pop quiz. The students anxiously sat and waited while the teacher walked around the room and placed the test, face-down, on each one’s desk. When she had distributed everyone’s test, she told them to turn over the paper and write about what they saw. To everyone’s surprise and confusion, the paper contained a single black dot.

After a certain amount of time, the teacher collected all the essays and read each one aloud. Each of the students had written about the dot—its color, its size, its location. No one had written about all the white surrounding it.

The teacher professed that this is how it is in life…that so often all we focus on is what is going wrong in our lives. What we want but don’t have. What we have but don’t want. Problems in relationships. Aches and pains. Financial difficulties. And on and on.

We don’t pay attention to the “white,” on all the things we take for granted. The love of friends and family. The roof over our heads. Food we eat. Clothes we wear. The sun that warms us. Rain that’s necessary for crops and plants to grow. Kindness of strangers. Nature’s abundance. And on and on.

I’m so grateful for that email and for the friend who sent it. It instantly yanked me off the pity pot on which I’d been sitting way too long and opened my eyes to all the beauty surrounding me and the blessings I’ve been given. It reminded me to pay more attention to the “white” and not so much to the black dot.

It reminded me to be grateful for all the people who are out there working to keep things going in these unprecedented times, and especially health care workers who are on the front lines. It reminded me to pray hard and often for all our country’s leaders who are working tirelessly in a thankless job that doesn’t have an end date. It put a lot of things into perspective.

I think I’ll go outside now and enjoy the day. It sure is a beautiful one. until next time…