Inoculated, but not against memories

A February-sized month — 28 days — has passed since I last wrote about covid-19 jabs (English), pokes (New York), and shots (most everywhere else, I suppose). Since the president’s inaugural pledge back in January, to fling wide Americans’ access to coronavirus vaccinations, the nation’s mood has changed from doubt or fear to trust and optimism.

People who usually shun needle-wielding nurses have been hurrying into pop-up clinics. Their hope? That nurse has a spare dose of Pfizer for them. People who brag their health is so robust they can disdain the annual flu’ vaccine have been having second thoughts about the virtues of vaccination. Nervous folks pepper friends and strangers alike with questions about Moderna’s reputed second-shot side-effects. People looking for a J&J location no longer bother asking the childish “did it hurt?” Well, yes: it’s a shot in the arm, it’s going to sting a little.

No matter what version of protection fills your needle, you’ll likely feel a tad under the weather for a day or two. But for heaven’s sake, consider the alternative.

Unhappily, the mood has not shifted everywhere. I hope those on the fence about safety or efficacy can hear the messages spoken by medical researchers and doctors. Those who feel fatalistic about health and disease in general might listen to their community leaders. Never mind pundits (although some are clever boosters of vaccination). And unless you know them to be trustworthy, I’d suggest you set aside politicians — and your personal politics, too. And please, please: ignore the rantings of some B-list celebrity on Facebook or in a chatroom. Even if they run a charter school.

You are more likely to roll up your sleeve, Gellin and other experts say, if you’ve talked to your neighbor, co-worker, cousin or golf buddy about having done so.

The Washington Post, 4/22/2021

The view from here

Maybe I thought my second Moderna jab would result in the slaughtering of a fatted calf… or at least some sushi. I had the latter, and some nice warm sake, and put myself to bed early. Alas, I awoke almost 12 hours to the minute after the jab with what Anne Lamott calls “an ice-pick headache.” More water, some ibuprofen, soft music. I eventually drifted back to sleep, only to toss and turn in vague dreams of missed trains and lost books.

For several days, I went to bed early. I didn’t feel up to fatted calf for two full turns of the sundial, and even then, it looked like chicken.

I so rarely take sick leave from my entertaining and educational job. It seemed like real luxury to spend the Friday after my Thursday jab just relaxing (even if I did feel less than festive). I carefully prepared ahead:

• Pot of tea, already milky, plus sturdy mug
• Pile of blankets on cosy sofa
• Cats to place on blankets
• Books to browse, in basket between cats and feet
• Phone in reach, in case anyone else recently vaccinated wanted to commiserate

Listening to time pass

The radio played softly in the background while I dozed and read amid pillows and cats. An hour of medieval troubadours returned me to college music courses and close readings of poems. (An experience underscored by recent reunions with people, now graying a bit, who sat in those courses with me.) My father’s favorite, Maurice Andre, materialized in a Telemann trumpet concerto just as I was paging through one of Dad’s favorite cookbooks. Andre was followed by Wynton Marsalis, a native of Tim’s old turf in New Orleans, performing a piece by Corelli.

Finally, as my eyes were closing and I felt I should move from couch to bed, an interlude of 20th-century choral works took me far away, into times long past. I went walking through the slightly scruffy woodlots of Usdan, preparing to sing Randall Thompson’s Frostiana. My very favorite movement, one I believe — no, now I know — I can sing in my sleep, was “Choose Something Like a Star.”

And so here it is, performed by the choir from the music conservatory at CSU Long Beach.

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Banner photo by Karolina Grabowska from Pexels. You’ll notice that a grain of rice will not fit through a needle used for vaccination.