Survivable Losses--a collection of short stories

Check out this collection of short stories. You won't be disappointed. 

Survivable Losses  by Francesca Stokes 

Wise words

 

The second wave

The second wave of the virus is upon us, and the world around me officially feels surreal at this point. I have NO idea where the year went. Really. I know I worked, first at home from mid-March until the end of June when I had some vacation, and then I went back to work in early August. I've worked mostly at home but go into the office a couple of days a week. But now the second wave is upon us and we're being told to work from home, not to meet in groups of more than five people, and to wear masks in public. The health officials are very worried about the coming winter. Me, I try not to read the news about the pandemic. It only ends up scaring me. But I end up reading it anyway just to stay informed. But I don't dwell on it. 

Every now and then my thoughts become apocalyptic, as in, is this the beginning of some kind of end for mankind? All around us, businesses that we took for granted--restaurants, hotels, airlines, theaters, other venues--have altered their way of doing things or have closed, and thus altered our way of living. It scares me to think that many of them may not survive. I wish I was a multi-millionaire so that I could support them all. I feel so sorry for so many people who are out of work, who don't know what to do next. It's not like they can snap their fingers and get a new job, pronto. Life never works like that. 

I told my husband the other day that I'm glad I've learned how to preserve seeds. I have seeds saved for next year's plantings--pumpkin, butternut squash, zucchini--and I have seed potatoes that will be ready for planting come next March. We also have different berry bushes in the garden. If worse came to worse, we could live on potatoes, pumpkin, squash, and berries. It's possible to pickle pumpkin and squash, and make jams, jellies and juice from the different berries. As long as there's flour, we can make bread. We wouldn't starve, but our diets would be much different than they are now--mostly meat-based. 

In the midst of all this surrealness, there is a surreal presidential election going on in my home country. It is an election that has divided people into two camps--those who will vote for the preservation of decency and ethics in America, and those who will vote for boorishness and an utter disregard for ethical behavior. So strange that it has come down to that. Those in the latter camp will say that they don't want a typical politician, so they're voting for Trump. I remind them that what you see is what you will get. He cares for no one but himself. All others are expendable. 

Where is God, people ask? Wrong question. The question is more, why did people turn away from God? Why have we? It's not about going to church or following the rules of Catholicism or any other religion slavishly. It's about 'actions speak louder than words'. It's about loving our neighbors as ourselves, about caring about what happens to others. It's about good behavior, about not being a boor or a brute, about not being careless or irresponsible or unkind. It's about being Christian toward others. Yes, charity begins at home, so we need to get our homes in order first, but that does not preclude our being nice to others, showing empathy, loving others in a charitable way, ridding our hearts of anger and discord. When we turn away from trying to behave better, we turn away from God. And we can only blame ourselves when the proverbial s**t hits the fan, as it always does. We have no idea how many people will die in this second wave. For all those who poopoo the pandemic, who think it is a hoax to prevent Trump from being re-elected, who think that liberals are on a crusade to destroy America, I say, wake up before it is too late. Just wake up. You are living with blinders on. Even Pope Francis, for whom I have great respect, has said that people who behave like Trump are not Christian. He said, and I quote 

"A person who thinks only about building walls, wherever they may be, and not of building bridges, is not Christian." 

Trump's response was "If and when the Vatican is attacked by ISIS, which as everyone knows is ISIS’s ultimate trophy, I can promise you that the Pope would have only wished and prayed that Donald Trump would have been President because this would not have happened. ISIS would have been eradicated unlike what is happening now with our all talk, no action politicians"..........

Kudos to Pope Francis for taking on 45 and the GOP. I admire him for taking a stand, for having an opinion. You can agree or not, but no one will ever convince me that the behavior I've seen in 45 and the GOP is Christian behavior. You can talk until you are blue in the face. You will never convince me. 

Support the Tarrytown Music Hall

I've written about the Tarrytown Music Hall in earlier posts. I have fond memories of going to many a movie there when I was a teenager in Tarrytown. Now the Music Hall hosts live events--concerts, shows and the like. They've had to cancel their bookings in 2020 due to the Covid-19 pandemic and have been closed for seven months. Here's a good way to support them during this tough time. I donated and hope you will too. 

https://tarrytownmusichall.org/save-our-stage/?fbclid=IwAR0QDa7aiPrSYIRXvTBl5wvfuHQcPT2qGN8Dm_js4B8pi4c9e7j6qwQiOvc

Quotes about survival

Survival can be summed up in three words - never give up. That's the heart of it really. Just keep trying.  ― Bear Grylls

No one can tell what goes on in between the person you were and the person you become. No one can chart that blue and lonely section of hell. There are no maps of the change. You just come out the other side. Or you don't.  ― Stephen King

To survive it is often necessary to fight and to fight you have to dirty yourself.   ― George Orwell

What does not kill us makes us stronger.    ― Friedrich Nietzsche

There is a land of the living and a land of the dead and the bridge is love, the only survival, the only meaning.  ― Thornton Wilder

Survival was my only hope, success my only revenge.  ― Patricia Cornwell

Keeping an active mind has been vital to my survival, as has been maintaining a sense of humor.  ― Stephen Hawking

The ultimate value of life depends upon awareness and the power of contemplation rather than upon mere survival.  ― Aristotle

Fear is always there; it's a survival instinct. You just need to know how to manage it.  ― Jimmy Chin

Humor can be one of our best survival tools.  ― Allen Klein

Nations, like stars, are entitled to eclipse. All is well, provided the light returns and the eclipse does not become endless night. Dawn and resurrection are synonymous. The reappearance of the light is the same as the survival of the soul.  ― Victor Hugo

Sustainability is the key to our survival on this planet and will also determine success on all levels.  ― Shari Arison

To a certain degree, I think both self-narrativizing and selective memory are essential survival skills.  ― Laura van den Berg

My artwork website on Fine Art America

I just thought I'd share my artwork website with you, courtesy of Fine Art America. I've uploaded flower and nature photos that can be used to make different products such as canvas prints, framed prints, posters, coffee cups, and more. You can check out the website to see the possibilities. 

This is the link to my 'store' on Fine Art America: https://paulamary-deangelis.pixels.com/   Thank you for checking it out!

Acting like an adult

I've watched the two presidential debates and the vice-presidential debate. The first presidential debate was cringeworthy; I was embarrassed to be an American with a president who behaved the way 45 behaved. He was rude, crude, arrogant--interrupting Biden at every turn and trying hard to get him to stumble over his words. He behaved like a spoiled child, and in my day, when we were growing up, we would have been spanked for behaving that way. The vice-presidential debate was at least a debate between two adults (Mike Pence and Kamala Harris) who knew how to behave themselves. They differed on most things, but they kept the entire debate on a civil footing. The second presidential debate was quite a departure from the first one; 45's advisers must have gotten to him and made him realize that it was important that he behave like an adult at this one. He managed to do so for the most part, so that the American people finally got a real debate about the issues, which they deserve. 

It struck me while I was watching yesterday's debate how many years Trump has wasted being a spoiled child when he could have behaved like an adult. How much more effective he could have been as president if he had only behaved like an adult all these years. He could have accomplished so much and garnered so much more support, instead of inspiring contempt and hatred. My mother used to say that 'you can catch more flies with honey than with vinegar'. Trump may say he doesn't care that people like him, but that's all he talks about when he gets the chance. So he is totally preoccupied with being liked. Too bad he didn't use a bit more honey to get more people on his side. He does have his supporters, but it's not always clear what kind of demographic statistics describe them. 

It occurred to me after the last debate that he has wasted a huge and golden opportunity as president. He could have been a decent human being for the past several years. He might even have been a good president if he had approached the job professionally, if he been more humble and less arrogant, more willing to learn rather than acting like an irritating know-it-all and a buffoon. He is an envious man, that's clear. He envies Obama because Obama is a civilized man and a motivating speaker and writer, a man whose empathy comes across in his talks to the American public. Trump just comes across as a fool, spouting conspiracy theories, hate rhetoric, and hyperboles (he is the best ever at everything). He makes fun of science, scientists, scientific data, statistics. He defines everything that he doesn't understand or doesn't want to understand as 'fake news' or a 'hoax'. I've known people like him through the years who have asked me about what I do as a scientist; in several cases, I began to explain my job and my research projects and was told that my job sounds 'boring', and in another case, the person I was talking to began a rant about how the HIV virus was a plot by the American government to kill its own people. We hadn't been talking about HIV, we had been talking about DNA in general. A lot of people don't even know what DNA and RNA are. Very few people are at all curious about my job, what it is scientists do, how immensely interesting it is, how relevant it is for future cancer treatments and policies. These are Trump types, who make fun of anything they don't understand or dismiss it as irrelevant or boring because they don't understand it. They don't want to understand it. That is their problem, but when policy (or lack of one) for an entire nation is determined by such a person, then that nation has a huge problem, as the USA has now. In 2020, anti-science is NOT the way to go. Not at all. 

Being an adult means being willing and able to admit your mistakes. We've all made mistakes. During the debate, Biden could admit his mistakes, Trump could not. People will tolerate mistakes if you own up to them. Trump has a long way to go before he reaches adulthood. Sad to say, but it's the truth. You simply cannot take people like him seriously when he rants and raves and spouts nonsense. What a waste, really. It's nothing to be proud of.