In the bleak midwinter, 1.6 million people have died across the world, and counting.
In the bleak midwinter, more than 297,000 people have died from coronavirus in the U.S., and counting.
On December 9, 2020, more people died in a single day in the U.S. due to coronavirus than the number of deaths on 9/11.
If ever there was a bleak midwinter, this is it.
I hope you and your families are safe, although I know as I write this that I have many friends who have been sick, who have long-term illness, and who have lost loved ones. I thought of you and your families as I made this arrangement of this song.
Please wear your masks and get the vaccine as soon as you can. I want to give you hugs, and I am getting bored of conducting a choir of Liz x 6. I’m aching to sing with other people.
But mostly, I want you all to be alive when we come out of this!
Please, do what you can so that you and I and our remaining loved ones make it out of this bleak midwinter, alive.
In the Bleak Midwinter Text by Christina Rossetti Arrangement by me, based on the Holst melody
Liz Rognes is a singer/songwriter, composer and writer who teaches writing and literature at Eastern Washington University. She grew up in Iowa and now lives in Spokane with her children. Her music was recently featured on KSPS PBS; you can watch it here: https://www.pbs.org/video/liz-rognes-d6rybl/.
I’ve taken upwards of one hundred pictures of my cat.
I’ve finished two tubes of Chapstick. It turns out they’re a lot harder to lose when you never leave your apartment.
I’ve still not managed to read through my stack of The New Yorker.
Yoga studios closed and I tried to remember how I spent my time before I started teaching.
I’ve tried to stay off social media. I’ve failed at staying off social media.
I bought a set of shelves in July to display photos and trinkets which had been in my closet for far too long, but didn’t hang them until October.
I cancelled my cable. I’ve been reading more - Homegoing, The Cassandra,The Dutch House (an autographed copy found at Value Village), but I’ve also become great friends with Netflix and Hulu.
I’ve set up donations to Black Lives Matter, the NAACP, the ACLU Legal Defense Fund and two bail funds. I’ve voted. I’ve signed petitions, but it still feels like I’m sitting idly by, cat firmly planted on my lap, while the world burns.
Yoga studios reopened. Limited class sizes, everyone six feet apart, masks worn at all times except while practicing. But still, yoga.
I thought I’d hate working from home because of the silence, but it's beautiful to hear every tick-tock tick-tock from the clock in my kitchen.
Speaking of work, if I had $1 for every time I wrote “coronavirus,” “pandemic,” “quarantine,” “COVID-19” or “cancelled” in an article, I wouldn’t be working anymore.
I’ve spent 35 hours on a train, in a roomette smaller than my bathroom, to see my grandparents in California. It took months to convince myself I could travel safely, and I’m glad I finally bought the ticket. Watching the West Coast go by -- Evergreen trees, mountains, field after field after field after field and, finally, the Pacific Ocean -- filled my soul more than I anticipated.
Somewhere in California photo by Azaria Podplesky
Somewhere in California photo by Azaria Podplesky
Somewhere in Oregon photo by Azaria Podplesky
Somewhere in Oregon photo by Azaria Podplesky
I’ve seen the lists of things to do during quarantine -- bake, learn a new language, write that novel you’ve been meaning to get to -- and tips for how to bake, learn a new language and finally write that novel, but I’ve not crossed a single suggestion off the list. And I’m OK with that.
I have, however, almost finished writing a play, which has been an incredibly fulfilling experience.
I’ve laughed.
I’ve cried.
I’ve been catcalled while wearing a mask.
I’ve complained about being tired and about being tired of being tired.
Yoga studios have closed again, and I still haven’t remembered how I used to spend my time.
All in all, I’m here. How are you?
Azaria Podplesky
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Azariai Podplesky
Azaria Podplesky is the entertainment writer for the Spokesman-Review. She also teaches yoga in her spare time. She really has taken more than one hundred pictures of her cat during quarantine, and she isn't ashamed to admit it. To read Azaria's work for the Spokesman-Review, visit https://www.spokesman.com/staff/azaria-podplesky/
The world breathed it in and stopped turning. Those left to live, dirty. Those left for death, free. We sat for tea poured in fragile cups painted shades of soil and sky. A place for the stuffed butterfly.
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Mandy Chapman Orozco
Mandy is passionate about the power of spoken and written word. She works full-time at The Bail Project, writing to combat racial and economic disparities in the bail system. Mandy also serves in her local community of Spokane by consulting and writing for smaller nonprofits that are fighting big inequities. Mandy holds an undergraduate degree from University of California, Los Angeles and an MBA from Whitworth University. When she’s not speaking and writing for change professionally, she’s having interesting conversations with her philosopher husband and their children, going for a run, drinking good coffee, and creative writing (she just verbed that).
Wendell Berry, from his book A Small Porch; Kim Addonizio from her book Tell Me; Polly Buckingham from The River People; Adrienne Rich from The Dream of a Common Language; Marge Piercy from The Moon is Always Female; James D'Agostino from Slur Oeuvre
You've reached Pandemic Meditations, a weekly series in which creative people share responses to life in the pandemic. This week, I'm pleased to welcome director and actor Dahveed Bullis to the series, and to share the first film meditation. Please watch, enjoy, and share his short film Remnants with your friends, neighbors, and family. Preceding the film, Dahveed provides notes about its making. (~20 minutes long).
Thanks, Dahveed, and all of those involved in the making of Remnants. Your energy, focus, ingenuity, and effort is such a gift, and I appreciate it so much. As I know our readers do too. .
~ E.P.
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On the Making of Remnants, a Short Film
by Dahveed Bullis
The only word I have been able to find for the Pandemic before us has been "tragic." Whether in regards to how sections of leadership has handled it, or how divisive and separate things have become, I have seen tragedy all around me since March.
I am tired.
Through this Pandemic though, I have witnessed beauty. I have seen artists persevere as they have continued to create regardless of what the world experiences around them--somehow feeling compelled to continue to speak on the climate of their culture, just like the long history of artists before them.
I have found myself becoming a filmmaker. A wild transition from theatre artist. After being an adjunct at Spokane Falls Community College, which had me directing a freshly adapted play into a film through Zoom, I found myself clawing to learn more about this newfound craft.
As a lover of tragedy, I could not help but be inspired to tell a bit of tragedy when asked for my Pandemic Meditation.
In chapter 6 of Aristotle's Poetics he states:
"So tragedy is an imitation not of people, but of action, life, and happiness or unhappiness, while happiness and unhappiness have their being in activity, and come to completion not in a quality but in some sort of action …Therefore it is deeds and the story that are the end at which tragedy aims, and in all things the end is what matters most …So the source that governs tragedy in the way that the soul governs life is the story."
Remnants was born on the heels of these contemplations.
I invite you into Holden's world.
This film encompassed collaboration from so many incredible artists, and we worked for months to put this together. I am forever grateful for the chance to create and a platform to do so with. I hope you enjoy the piece, as it is my first independent film.
Ask yourself, after months of isolation, how do you manage to meet outside expectations if your inner life is turmoil?
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And now, for this week's featured presentation, Remnants, directed and acted by Dahveed Bullis:
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Dahveed Bullis
Dahveed Bullis lives and works in Spokane as an actor, director, instructor, and musician. He graduated from EWU, and helped found Spokane Theatre Arts Council. He recently joined the Company Ballet School to direct their Theatre Arts Program. And, pre-pandemic, you could find him acting alongside Marjorie Powell in the improv duo The Seagull Sloths. He's father to a son made of the moon and stars.
