What I endorse: the corona version

Post on 15 April, 2020 by Dallin Malmgren

Pho­to by Karen

This is my third “endorse” post—I used endorse­ments as a writ­ing exer­cise in my Cre­ative Writ­ing class­es. You just tell the world about things you like. My first one was about every­day things, like rasp­ber­ries and polar bears. My sec­ond post was the artis­tic ver­sion, fea­tur­ing artists like Tim Dun­can and Leonard Cohen. This one is what I like in the time of corona:

1) My fam­i­ly: The Texas Malm­grens have a Sat­ur­day Night Mar­gari­ta get-togeth­er every week on Zoom. We talk and talk; always fun. Bethany calls most every day when she is walk­ing Nes­sa. Zack and Kallie and the girls come over once or twice a week. Annal­isa and Karen text back and forth. And it goes beyond that—I have talked with my broth­er and four sis­ters more in the last month than in the pre­vi­ous year before that (not count­ing vis­its). Some­times I real­ize that we had for­got­ten how much we like each other.
2) Enter­tain­ment: Wher­ev­er you can find it—I no longer judge video games. I belief Tiger King got half of Amer­i­ca through the first week of the quar­an­tine. Karen and I have dis­cov­ered Schitt’s Creek as a mild­ly guilty plea­sure. I think of cross­words and board games and puz­zles as enter­tain­ment too.
3) The Bible: I think this is the most col­or­ful, enter­tain­ing, pro­found, con­fus­ing, mys­te­ri­ous, enchant­i­ng and inspir­ing book about the his­to­ry of God and man that ever was. I think it was giv­en to us by God through humans. I don’t under­stand why peo­ple try to read it as black and white.
4) Golf: Yeah, I just made some peo­ple cringe. Our course closed for a cou­ple weeks than re-opened. I know that it counts as a spoiled priv­i­lege, but it’s also a fair­ly safe social dis­tanc­ing form of exer­cise, espe­cial­ly for us old men. I haven’t played that often, but it’s one of the true plea­sures of a day.
5) Wak­ing up: I know this is anoth­er privilege—when I wake up, I usu­al­ly don’t have to get up. I can lay there awhile, or even go back to sleep. Of course, it wasn’t like this most of my life. What I try to do now is make the real­iza­tion that Jesus is right there with me at that moment. We plan my day…or I drift back to sleep.
6) Dr. Fau­ci: I just like the guy. I believe he is try­ing to save the coun­try while walk­ing a tightrope. The stress must be unbelievable.
7) My wife: She is the per­fect per­son for me to go through this with. Not that it is always easy, ha, iron sharp­ens iron. But we get through our bad moments fair­ly eas­i­ly now—we are fin­ish­ing this jour­ney togeth­er. It would be hard for me to go through this with­out her.
8) Social media: I try to ignore the dark side. I love how I am able to stay in con­tact with peo­ple from my past—I love observ­ing for­mer stu­dents turn into pro­duc­tive, social­ly aware people—I enjoy the brief con­tacts with past col­leagues, fel­low sojourn­ers, voic­es from the past. Whether because of old age or quar­an­tine, I find my thoughts drift­ing to the past. From where we were to where we are now—for most of us, the response is gratitude.
9) Church: In a way, I think this is good for our church. So much is rit­u­al in a church ser­vice. We are shak­ing up the way we wor­ship. My pas­tor called it the East­er of Emp­ty Church­es. The mes­sage is that the church isn’t emp­ty; the build­ing is emp­ty. The church is moving—I hope that is hap­pen­ing across the country.
10) The coro­na beard: Well, I don’t endorse it entire­ly. It has been nice to let it go (I’ve nev­er liked shav­ing), but I’m not sure I like hav­ing it on my face! It still itch­es too. It does sur­prise me how tol­er­ant Karen has become of the beard.
11) Qui­et time: My most essen­tial. Read­ing and pray­ing and believ­ing. Trust­ing in God in these per­ilous times. That is the foun­da­tion of our endurance.

This is what gets me through the time of coro­na. I would be pleased if you would share your endorse­ments with me.

Comments

  • Reply

    The gar­den, so much plea­sure. Weed­ing, orga­niz­ing, prun­ing and gaz­ing. Talk about life, it’s explo­sive and very reas­sur­ing. Vir­tu­al cock­tail par­ties, so much fun and with­out the cook­ing and clean­ing of real get togeth­ers. Shar­ing this expe­ri­ence as well as 48 years of oth­er ups and downs with my favorite squeeze, Ter. Paint­ing, no mat­ter what I paint it is a con­ver­sa­tion with the mys­te­ri­ous lan­guage of col­or, line, shape, sto­ry­telling And the slip slide of sen­su­ous oil paints. Although I love the draw­ing and focus and get­ting lost. You for­got to say writ­ing Dal. Your writ­ing con­nects you to peo­ple in a provoca­tive and engag­ing way.
    I also love the idea of the earth, sky, rivers and oceans get­ting a break from all the “mad­ness”
    Love to you and yours,
    Gretch

    Gretch16 April, 2020

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