April 2020
Wishing and Hoping:
“She Sure Can Hold a Note”
During the latter part of last month, in the midst of the social distancing of Americans, I had a nightmare at about midnight. Of course, I was not very much aware of it. The somber task falls to Dear Husband to deal with the ever-active subconscious, conscious and whatever other part of Writer’s Brain is calling out in the night.
I usually find out about the theatrics the next morning. That morning, I was told that just after midnight, I called out from my sleeping state in a very long, somewhat high-pitched alarm.
She sure can hold a note, was the thought of Dear Husband.
I explained that I had felt someone sticking a needle in my bicep, and the length of the note of alarm was equivalent to the length of the needle. I must have been having a sympathetic vibration with someone undergoing a medical test, or else there is one heck of a voodoo doll of Debra, somewhere, giving pleasure to someone!
The social distancing of Americans, and of Californians, in particular, is working very well for me. The pressure to go-out-there and be amongst people is off — and I can allow my Inner Hermit to really thrive!
The translation of the chapters of THE DAWN into L’AUBE went into hyper-drive. I kept track of the politicized parrots publicly jabbering, while the enterprising eagles endeavoured to brave the front lines of the medical war against a flu imported from China.
Yes, sirree, there is a true need for all of that worthless newsprint from worthless newspapers that somehow still don’t kick the bucket. One thing became very clear to me early on in this attempt to calm waters that kept raging from fomented fears stoked almost entirely by the deranged devotees to delirium:
There will always be panic among people who refuse to understand reality. There will always be profits made from that panic, and there will always be phonies pretending to be what they are not and never will be.
And there will always be the heroes — the quiet, often silent players on a stage that is rarely in the spotlight. Those heroes are among us every day, and it is a moral imperative that they be rewarded, not monetarily or even with the glaring limelight that assures the egotism and narcissism of the coward. Those heroes must be rewarded with a prayer of thanks to them — and to the eternal God who is the ultimate determining factor of all fates.
One of the most joyous moments that I experienced last week occurred as I read that enough Wuhan flu survivors can now provide anti-bodies through their plasma to medical teams awaiting that hope. The window of contracting this disease opened to the window of truly fighting it. That hope is essential to any future hope, and hope is critical in the life of anyone, but especially in the life of a sick patient.
During my incredibly efficient translation of Chapter 56 of L’AUBE, I had to double-check and triple-check my usage of two verbs: (1) to wish; and (2) to hope. I did not want to confuse the two acts of the heart.
There was a lot more wishing going on between Artur and Camille than hoping in this chapter. I wondered why. I reasoned that they had little reason at this point in the novel to hope; wishing was the pre-dominant force of their will, combined and individually.
In America, we are wishing for more hope, and hoping for more wishes. Those days will arrive, God-willing, with the dawn of hope that springs eternal. That hope can make the difference between a nightmare and a daymare, between life and death.
