Contact Samantha at her OSA virtual office:
Phone: 403-801-7254 or Email: info@oakridgeseniors.ca
FIRST 100 DAYS PROJECT
What have you learned in your first 100 days of self-isolation, quarantine or physical distancing?
Have you discovered new resources within yourself?
Have you reconnected with old friends or made new ones?
Have you found joy in old hobbies or strength in new pursuits?
Please share your thoughts, input, observations, suggestions to help one another go forward with joy and optimism in what is still an uncertain ‘new abnormal.’
Send your entries to EBlast editor Sheila Foster fosterst@shaw.ca and we’ll put them on the OSA website.
Here’s a wonderful first entry from our resident poet laureate Sue McLure. A COVID-19 SUNDAY Sue McLure A fresh fall of snow like a pristine drop cloth covered the earth, then stopped, making way for the rising sun to turn the white flakes into crystals. The glowing sun promised a day of beauty, a breath of spring in this western province known for late springs and early falls. Neighbours, isolated for days, shovel their walks and talk, a hockey stick apart, animated by actually seeing each other, not from a screen or a window. A stranger, walking his beagle, waves from the center of the road and stops to comment on the day. This sense of commonality – we’re all in this together—is widespread, worldwide, in fact, as the numbers spread across the globe broadcasting the virus that brings us to our knees. Our vulnerability, our human frailty give us all a shared kinship— citizens of the world who fear the very breath we breathe. We huddle indoors in a prison of our choice, alone or with cellmates avoiding other inmates who spring loose from their incarceration briefly, to buy food in limited amounts behind taped markers, smiling at others behind masks, a lost gesture of other times when shopping was a social thing. Some are shattered by this transformed life, never imagined. They may be frightened, lonely, faithless, without hope and purpose. Staying late in bed after watching an endless stream of movies which just remind us of how life used to be, unaware of possibilities that might be here. After four weeks of self-isolating, I find myself sleeping longer and waking rested – a new feeling. I eat more slowly, read more completely, and sometimes, I smile more often at my cell mate. I am adjusting to a slower, dare I say, more peaceful life. From my chair I see the first robin of the year and watch the squirrels chase each other around the trunk of a tree like children playing tag. I measure last night’s snowfall by the depth on the garden stones, and delight in the knitted coats dogs wear on their walks. I wave thankfully to my daughter who leaves me groceries on the step. I hope some of these changes stay after the world restores itself. I hope we remember how dear is human contact, how tenuous is our time on Earth, how fortunate we are to live in times when we can stay connected Our computer screens are links to friends, family, facts, music. Unlike the days of the Black Death and other plagues, we have a way of staying united while waiting for this frightening scourge to surrender to new treatments which will restore us to a life more precious than before.
The secret to living well (Tibetan Proverb) Eat half - walk twice - laugh triple - love without measure Sheila Foster, OSA Marketing & Communications
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