I don't know how to explain ... so I'll tell you a story

Samara (from "The Cave of the Yellow Dog")

Once upon a time, we lived in a kitchen trying to figure out how to re-make a life from scratch. One of the things that helped tether us between the trial and errors was movies. One of them was "The Cave of the Yellow Dog." I have written about that movie before revisiting its ongoing affect on us. We watched "The Cave of the Yellow Dog" once again, just the other night.

It may be the nomadic life depicted. It may be the fact we don't speak the language heard. It may be the day-to-day life of the family matches parts of our life, and we are comforted. It may be scenes like those in the video that lifts our spirits. A story instead of an explanation.

Today, Pete and I are quietly being in self-isolation. Our bellies have been fed, doses of People's Medicine calm a fever, and encourage our immune systems. The lights are turned off, the soft whirl of the air filter comforts me as it cleans the air of pollen, while the grounds keeper insists it's time to ride the lawn mower. Soon I'll need to crawl under the covers and rest, but in the meantime I sit to pull together a story worth telling: something to hold us together for awhile. Pete is in one corner of the wagon, natural light giving him access to the pages of one of his all-time favorite books Symbiotic Planet written by Lynn Margulis. Margulis published Symbiotic Planet in 1998. Pete read me these sentences and I wonder how the words or thoughts might pin themselves into something of value?

"Viruses are sources of evolutionary variation. Populations of virus-infected organisms are honed by natural selection. Viruses ... produce problems when they over-grow their habitats. Over-growth of resources, viral or other, tend to be due to weakening and disruption of the ecosystem. We can no more be cured of our viruses than we can be relieved of our frontal lobes: we are our viruses..." (page 63-64)

Out in the whole of the world, I stopped to read a story, and a comment (from an online friend I've known for many years).  Elsa ended the story with this line:

"Faith is good too. Neptune is in Pisces. Something good will come out of this, eventually. It is amazing how this happens." 

The comment left by my friend, one of the long-time readers, described her life, in a small town, where The Virus has shown up. She works in a supermarket, -- "essential services"-- where she has committed to keep showing up for work everyday. Somebody's got to do it and she said, "It might as well be me." With no dependents to count on her, she's ready (to die) if that's her fate. She's choosing to help as many people as you can while living. And knowing her over time, I believe her. I was touched! I am touched! Something changed in me.

If it's true, what Margulis wrote "We are our viruses," there is an attitude and a choice in living (since we all die) that makes for a story worthy of safety pins.

"Make up a story.

Show us belief's wide skirt and the stitch that unravels fear's caul."

- Toni Morrison (Nobel Prize acceptance speech, 1993)

Sometimes, life in the civilized world creates symptoms and situations that demand crossing borders for remedy and solutions. A massage helps, a prescription might do, but, often it's STORY these symptoms crave. For me, life with chronic illness has made that demand: Cross borders for remedy. 

 Go here and open up a pouch filled with made up stories written once upon a time.

Take care of each other! And thank you Tango and all the other everyday heroines and heroes making a difference and showing up.

Are there stories you've heard that changed your story? Let us know in the comments.