Tuesday, April 07, 2020

Silver on the Palm Leaves

Its the 7th of April 2020 and Im writing from a beautiful Island named Sri Lanka inside a curfew, which is different from lockdown in that people actually get arrested if they are caught walking about, in theory. However, in a strange way, rules only seem to apply to people who fear the rules. Anxiety is for those who accept reality in its macabre extremes, and within each of us there is the capacity for suffering or for calm entirely based on the reality we see. Even now there are people on Facebook who order 5 kilos of pork and lots of cooking oil and seem to be well-stocked for a party at home. In my house, we are barely eating. We have enough food to last us about ten days and I find that it helps not to think beyond that. I believe the Buddha said that seven days well applied is enough for a human to attain arahathood and then nothing would matter. So finally now is my chance- and I would have three days to spare. I find myself incredibly mindful of things now. Mindful of the last bit of pepper, since the Government will not be importing any more and is turning Chinese ships away. Their plan has been to make us self sufficient in agriculture or something like that, something I've always supported. I hope I live to see this. I don't know if I will live beyond the stocks of Insulin I have since I'm a diabetic and even the food we have managed to stock up such as rice, pasta and potatoes is absolutely what diabetics should not be eating. This morning I woke up terrified that I would become blind. 
I cannot justify why I imagined that because I am certainly more careful about managing my diabetes now than I was a month ago! 
TO be honest, I have not hated this condition because it made me appreciate the food that I am allowed to eat, like veggies and greens and red rice, and it kept me away from the kind of junk food that Donald Trumps seems to like eating, which many people cannot seem to stay away from.
Back to having Diabetes in the middle of the Pandemic, well I don't know where I will get my next bit of Metformin so it should be interesting.
these are interesting times and if I stop writing a number of things could have happened - who knows maybe my keyboard needs repairs. There sure as hell is no place available for so much as replacing a mouse these days. One has to be mindful of everything one does, even if it is typing too fast.


Here is a photo from a hotel in Tangalle where my husband and I had a lovely escape a few years ago. Its not very posh, but then neither are we. At least we can marvel at the beauty of the sea. It was a happy interlude. It would have been happier if we could have shared the expenses but since he was unemployed for the last 15 years it was me who paid for most of it. I have written a book about him which you can read one day. 

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