Day 16 is Sasha's birthday. Luke is home - no school until an undetermined date, he is a senior in high school. James who is the Captain of the Prairie Island Tribal Police force is moving into a crisis planning mode, Myah is home from Spain and will start her on-line classes of her coursework from the Univerisad of Granada on March 23rd, and Sasha has now been furloughed from work for two weeks, she is a pediatric nurse working at the University of Minnesota Hospital. Because Myah is home from Spain, Sasha cannot return to the hospital until the quarantine period is over.
I am in Gilbert, and Cindy and I are finding our rhythms and enjoying our time together. The Phoenix area is behind the curve, but a major metropolitan area, so we will be feeling more of the realities of this epidemic very very soon.
This morning I woke up a little before 6 a.m. and was quite disappointed when I went to my phone to find the post from Heather Cox Richardson. At first I worried that something was not ok, then I thought that maybe she took a break yesterday because it was Sunday. I then decided to just try to go back to sleep. I woke back up at 8 a.m. And when I went online there was the Sunday letter, with a note - I forgot to push the post button!
I read the email and felt once again the gratitude for these daily posts. I was moved by hearing her story today of how she started the letters six months ago. After the ups and downs of Myah's trip, my emotions running every which way, and anxiety being much more than usual, I found myself particularly grateful for the words that Heather Cox Richardson puts down each day.
I spontaneously decided to send her an email "letter" and I found myself just pouring out my emotional response to her commitment to these letters. I decided I would post my love letter to Heather for all of us to read:
To: Heather Cox Richardson
From: MaryAlice Mowry
I know you must get many many emails, but I could not help myself I just had to write and let you know how much your letters mean to me. I don’t remember the specific date when in my FB feel your letters started showing up. I do know that from the very first letter read I was so very grateful. You have filled a void not only in my life but in many others. Your perspective, honesty, tenacity, expertise, knowledge, intellect and love for our country is balm to our battered and weary souls. There are days that it is line that you wrote about hope, that gives me an extra boost to not fall into despair. I am 69 years old, I retired in 2017 and moved full time to Maine from Minneapolis, MN, I live in the Katahdin Region - at this moment I am in Arizona staying with friends and doing what we can to take seriously the “flattening of the curve”. I am a lesbian, I worked in the early days of the AIDS epidemic, my first “government” job was working for the WI Department of Public Instruction on the team that wrote the curriculum for the implementation of Title IX, I have worked in the non profit or public sector my entire career. I know what happens in epidemics and who is most affected. None of us have lived through what is happening now and I so appreciate your being able to articulate how our history can shine a light on how we can go forward in this time, here and now. In high school I had a history teacher Ms. Gibbs, she showed us how history was a web, she engaged us, made us thirst to understand to see the links and details.
You help me today to make connections, to sort out where to pay attention, and to understand that we are having a shared experience of the chaos, lies, greed, and incompetence. In my career I helped to bring forth programs and policies that were agreed upon in organizations and state and federal legislatures. I have experienced the strength of bipartisan deliberation. I do believe that we continue to move forward in to form a more perfect union. I used to bring the policy staff copies of the constitution when they joined our team. I posted the mission of our agency in a visible place in my office. So of course, you give me hope. I was so relieved when you hit the “send” button this Monday morning on your letter from Sunday, I was a little unsettled when it was not there. I do know that these letters will come to a natural end one day just as you said today. For today I want to say thank you. I am glad that spontaneously started to write us all a letter. Letter writing holds such a special historical place. I write letters, actual letters to people on a piece of paper, with envelope and stamp. They are important. You are important. Thank you for corresponding. Thank you for your work.
Stay safe. Yes and may be all follow your sage advice. Be kind. Be well.
Of course with many letters we write, we are writing them simultaneously to the person and to ourself, when I pushed the send button today I knew that I wrote that letter to myself as much as I wrote my letter to Ms. Richardson.
It was a good day. I am more at ease with the day. I practiced my QiGong. Had a lovely lunch. Took a long nap. Have had good talks with friends. Cindy and I took a long walk. Planning soon to start on our supper for tonight. Another day of Social Distancing living with Covid 19.
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