I know that the day has only begun, But the clouds that have gathered, spitting rain, Indicates that what we’ve planned is now done. The puddles that have collected will stain The drowned pavement with life’s expectations And we will have to huddle within doors, Complaining about these tribulations. But do not think of this change as a chore; Instead, look to what it has to offer. The day’s deeds can wait for another time. Go and open the neglected coffer, And remember what you once found sublime. It impairs your ability to play, But don’t let the weather ruin your day.
We can’t avoid the arriving decline As we become another great in time. We thought our history would be divine, And we would always be within our prime, But life only provides a certain height From which our ambition will deliver. From that summit we face our greatest plight, Knowing from that point we’re left to quiver. For our prowess, we can never maintain, And the only direction is back down. We will look back at our spot with much pain, Knowing that this is the end of our renown. It is time to turn away from this fight, Leaving Nero to smolder at his sight.
As the rains continue to keep pouring, We cannot help, but watch the river rise. The clouds do not wish to go exploring As it settles, covering up the skies. The edges of puddles kiss each other, Showing us that they have collective might. They eventually merge with their brother As they climb the hill to a greater height. The birds find their roost on the top branches, Avoiding the gurgling rush below; They do not care how the trickle drenches The hungry storm’s ever increasing flow. The time given to us is running short, And from this land, we will have to abort.
Mary never married; she’s and old maid, Wasting her life creating a career. She did not require a man to get paid, And was in charge of where her life would steer. No woman has ever lived a worse fate Than one who did not raise a family. This living will never go out of date Than a husband to supply the money While she stays at home to tidy up the place. She will never know the joy of children Because she decided on the rat race, Instead of the role of common women. Please make sure to shed a tear for Mary Tolling life away in a library.
Start the year under the cover of snow, Giving us the pretense of innocence. We really have no place we need to go, So let the storm outside rage more intense. From the safety of my frosted window I’ll watch the growing accumulation. It is my favorite afternoon show, Better than the lies on television. I love to listen to the cold wind blow As I take another sip of coffee. Winter has yet become my greatest foe, But wait until April, and we will see. I believe I have given my reason Of why I enjoy this change of season.
You have walked into the land of the fey, And now you are subjected to their laws. All the creatures look like they want to play, Petting you gently with their enormous paws, But beware of their secret intentions. You are another beast among the trees Who responds well to gratification, And soon you will do things for them just to please. The forest needs a human touch to thrive, And those foolish enough to cross that breech Will forfeit what’s left of their simple lives To suggestive whispers of fey speech. You are not the greatest of creatures And only valued for pretty features.
Things are starting to slow down again, and we are starting to pack up the decorations and waving goodbye to loved ones as they make their way back to their homes. The holidays are over, and it is time to find ourselves in that slower groove that comes with our regular routine. And though the bills coming in might depress us a bit, I think it is important to look back at the holidays, and remember why we put ourselves through it every year.
It is a time of the year where the little things that we do not always get to notice become more obvious. The decorations that people put together can be subtle, but they can make us laugh and put us in a better mood just by having seen them. It is also nice knowing that the little details that we put together for someone else has been appreciated as well. We might forget these things as we move on with our busy lives, but these are the things we should remember when the weight of responsibility starts to get us down.
It is also a time when the inclement weather does not get us down as much. A snowstorm in December is a different event than the ones that bear down on us in March or April. The blanket that it produces is just an extra touch that adds more to the moment because we do not have those places we need to get to, and it forces us to slow down a bit and enjoy the moment. I know that it can become a chore later on as we have to pull out the shovel again to make sure we can get our car out of the garage, but we should really enjoy on those days where we are not forced to address this concern with the cold snow.
And for ourselves, we get to find those small moments we can slow down and recharge our batteries. Life can be busy and hectic, and sometimes we can forget to take care of ourselves. But when we are shut indoors with a heavy snow coming down, there is no excuse but to let things go and just enjoy the afternoon with a little nap.
But I think the thing that I enjoy the most when I get to go home for the holidays is seeing all of my family again. All of the other stuff is nothing more than fluff. The time at home should be about home. It should be about getting together with those that you love, so you can share in laughter and good conversation. Yes, it is centered around tradition, and sometimes we forget about the most important thing because we put too much weight on those things that we believe need to be done. But in reality, life will be fine if you did not find the time to bake those cookies, or you were unable to find that perfect picture for the Christmas card. It all gets forgotten the moment that you lose yourself in your family, and that is the most important thing to take from this time of the year. I know we will all soon forget what this time of the year brought. Some of us have already done so. I also know that it will be easy to lose yourself to school or work as you push your way through the colder months. We will have to endure a couple of Hallmark holidays, and soon the lazy dog days of summer will occupy our minds more than the cold comfort of the end of the year. But when things start to get you down during those times of the year, think back to this time and how you felt. It may be the greatest gift you can take with you throughout the whole year.
Thank you for those memories for everybody I got to spend time with over the last couple of weeks. It has been wonderful to be back in the United States for the holidays, and I treasure those moments I got to spend with you. It may be awhile before I get to see you again, but I will take those memories with me as I hope you do as well.
I just sat down to write this blog post about getting ready to travel back to Jordan and having to get my PCR test done before I made it on to the flight when from upstairs at the house I am staying at, I heard the words I wanted to hear, “You’re negative!” It is a relief to know that I will not have to worry about that aspect of my travels right now. There are many other things I will have to think about as I try to make a couple of connections, and hope that all of the flights continue on the way that they are supposed to, but for right now the first hurdle has been cleared.
Flying across the world has always been a stressful experience because there are so many little factors and if one of them falls apart along the way, it will mess everything up in ways that could make the events a disaster. But now with Covid-19, there have been a few more wrinkles that have been thrown into the plans that add a few more factors that could make things fall apart happen more. Some countries are asking for a negative PCR test 72 hours before boarding a flight, and the United States has upped that by making the PCR test within the last 24 hours. It just means that any trip that I take internationally, I get to take a trip to a PCR testing site to get my test taken to make sure I can return back to the country where I live. I completely understand the reason why, but that does not mean that I will always enjoy the experience.
I had to actually go out twice to make sure that I had gotten my results in time. The new omicron variant complicated things as well. Because of the rise of Covid-19 right now, there are many people that are going out to get their tests done. This has created long lines not only at the testing sites, but also adding backing up the places where they processed the tests to get the results back to the people who took the test in the first place. I could also not just show up at a place to get a test done. I had to schedule an appointment and still sit in long lines before I was able to get a swab stuck up my nose. Luckily, my wife scheduled two appointments, one at a place that would get the results back in 72 hours, and rapid results place. Both of them were difficult to schedule, and we were lucky to have them.
I did go out on a rainy day two days ago to get my first test done. We were able to sit in our car as we waited to get to the place where we would get our test. This was nice because it was a rainy Oregon day, and I don’t know what that would have been like if I had to sit outside while waiting to get tested. I sat in the line for a couple of hours, and eventually got tested. As of right now, I still have not gotten the results back yet, and the lady that administered the test told us that getting the results back in 72 hours might not happen because of the amount of tests that they had been given recently.
I took my second test a couple of hours ago, and this was a completely different experience. I had to drive to downtown Portland, park the car, and stand outside to wait for my turn to get the test. Luckily, the rain had stopped while we were waiting. I could not imagine someone who was sick right now, standing in that line in order to get tested if it had been raining outside. That could not have been good for them, so I wonder what they do when that happens. This line only took about 45 minutes to get through, but you could only join it if you had an appointment. The lab where they were doing the results was at the site, and they were able to process it quickly. In fact, on the ride home, my wife was given her results. I had to wait a little longer, but it was within a couple of hours of having taken the test.
It was a little bit of an inconvenience to have to do this, but that is the kind of world we live in right now. It is nice to know that I am safe enough to fly and that the people I will be sharing the flight with will also have the same negative results. I also know that it should not be forever, and there will be a day when we can go back to taking a flight the way we always used to without having these extra hoops to jump through. I am glad I made it through that first hoop, and I know I have a few more to get through, but in the end, I should find myself back in the safety of my home with the memory of spending the holidays with family and friends to hold on to.
It is a rare thing when Colorado gets to be in the national spotlight, or even talked about at a level internationally. Usually, when it happens, it is due to some extreme story that does not make this part of the United States look great. There have been many tragic shootings, and fires that have devastated much of the forests in the mountains. But the fire that took place recently outside of Boulder, Colorado might be one of the most tragic that Colorado has encountered. Though only a couple people have ended up missing, over a thousand home burned down, and has changed the lives of all those people who have been displaced.
At the time of this writing, it is still has not been determined how the fire in the middle of a residential area got started. The initial thought that high, strong winds knocked down some power lines has been ruled out, but one thing is sure that if it was an act of nature, an accident, or something more malicious, there is one factor that cannot be denied about why it was so destructive, the dry conditions that Colorado has been experiencing this winter. After talking with people there, I was told about how little moisture they had been getting. There was a heavy rain back in the end of July, and they had a snow that collected an inch during the early days of autumn, but besides that there has been nothing. Colorado is already a desolate looking place during the autumn months, but extend that into winter, and it is only a matter of time that a fire will get started and we will witness the destruction like we last week.
On the flip side of that coin is too much rain. I have also been lucky to have spent some time in Oregon during this break as well, and if the main color in Colorado in December was brown, the main color in Oregon has been a bright green. This is not true for the whole state, but I have only been able to see what life is like in Portland, and it has rained most of the time that I have gotten off of the plane until now. It hasn’t been the typical mist in the air kind of rain that Portland usually experiences during the holidays either. There have been significant downpours, and if you travel further west into the higher elevations, this rain has turned into snow. And they are getting a lot of snow too. I-84 and a lot of the mountain passes have been closed due to too much snow falling in a short period of time, and it does not look like it will be stopping anytime soon. In fact, in certain parts of Portland, there have been Flood Watches and Advisories issued through Friday afternoon.
It all comes down to a statement that a lot of people have been saying to others lately, “Odd weather we’ve been having lately.” These statements are not just uttered in Colorado or Oregon either. There have been December tornadoes in Kentucky, severe drought conditions in Jordan, cyclone warnings in Australia, and sunny days in Antartica. Weather is out of balance, and we sit around and comment about how that is odd. There is a simple explanation for this odd behavior, but seem to want to be too polite to actually say it out loud in the random chance that we might offend someone. But these occurrences are going to get stranger, and more frequent unless we acknowledge that there is a problem, and start to do something to correct this problem. We have to admit that climate change is happening, and we not only need to change our habits to try to correct it, but we need to make sure that our laws and economic future also reflect these changes in our behavior. But it all starts by admitting that it is out there. So the next time you talk about the tragedy of nature, or the odd weather that we are experience, let the person know who you are talking to that it is a matter of climate change. They need to hear it, and the only way we will change our ways if we quit being polite about it.
For a world traveler, there are many obstacles that a person can face, losing their passport, language barriers, and cultural misunderstandings, but the one that every traveler will experience and hate to fight through is the dreaded jet lag. Those days of wandering around like a zombie as you try to catch up to the time zone that you find yourself in are the worst. You will find yourself sleeping in the middle of the day, and missing out on the experiences you could be having just because you can’t get your head straight.
Many people have come up with various ways to minimize the impact that jet lag will have on you, such as staying awake the whole way there wile avoiding an stimulants, to having various catnaps to on the trip to try to make the adjustment. You can try taking melatonin right before getting on the plane and crash for the whole flight to feel refreshed, or when you arrive, you could keep yourself busy to trick your mind into thinking that it has been there for its whole life, and quickly fall into that time zones groove. These have varying degrees of success that are different for every person who attempts each strategy. I even find that what worked for me once does not work at all the next time I attempt it. But thanks to Covid, I have come up with a new way to get over jet lag that has actually been very effective every time I have used it as a method, work.
I know, you are calling me crazy. You go traveling to get away from work, and why would you want to bring this with you when you go and see what the world has to offer. But if given this rare chance to battle jet lag in this way, you should try it because it really works.
At the end of last school year, my school was on-line due to the pandemic, and the school announced that it would end the year that way. This gave me the opportunity to leave the country early, and do my work from anywhere in the world where I wanted. I just needed to make sure that I was doing my work in the same time zone that my work was in. Over the weekend, I flew to America, and during the night I spent my time finishing up the school year. I was staying with my in-laws so I had to adjust my clock a bit to finish the day with school instead of starting with it. When the week was over, making the next slip in time was no struggle at all, and it took only a minor adjustment to get over jet lag.
Because of the omicron variant, the school I am working at right now is starting the second semester on-line. It is only a two week adjustment, but it allowed me to extend my stay in the United States. I still have to work this week, and it will take place in the middle of the night, but I am in the process of the same adjustment with time. I worked late last night and slept away most of the morning. Over the weekend, I will make the jump over to Jordan, and when I get there, I will have to hop into that time fame and work right away. I won’t have time to think about jet lag, and I will already have made half of the adjustment this week. I believe that I will be able to get into the groove rather quickly.
It might sound silly, but it is a great way to get over this greatest of inconveniences for any traveler. Of course, this is not something that will be made available at all time because most people are not allowed to continue doing their job from anywhere in the world. But this is one of the small advantages of the Covid pandemic that we are given that chance from time to time. It still involves making some adjustments, but they are smaller and I find that they are easier to get over. I am in the first part of the process right now, and will continue the next step in the following week, but I am expecting the minimal effect from this long travel around the world this time around.
John Collings 