Starting back at the end of March I was laid off from work and found myself under stay at home orders.
Just before this last weekend my job, which serves the construction industry came back when our Governor began the process of opening back up projects that were underway before the shutdown and deemed low risk.
Now I can go back to work, but getting there won’t be the same ( I take the train and ridership is down, service is reduced and they’ve added cars instead of hooking up less to accommodate social distancing) and what I’ll see when I get into Seattle will be different because the area of town I work in was turning into a ghost town and I’m assuming it’s even emptier now.
Business that were shut down have boarded up windows, which is something I didn’t see a lot of after the Nisqually Earthquake– in addition even after the earthquake some business were opened up within days of that event.
Even though I get to get ‘out’ of confinement to go to work, I don’t exactly feel like I did before March 27. That’s ok. At this point I’m gladly willing to take what I can get.
Jim Adam’s prompt this week touches on themes like isolation, confinement and restlessness and what better song to express those themes then a song that rages against the cruel side of Fate:
From Carmina Burana- O Fortuna
O Fortune,
like the moon
you are changeable,
ever waxing
ever waning;
hateful life
first oppresses
and then soothes
playing with mental clarity;
poverty
and power
it melts them like ice.
Fate – monstrous
and empty,
you whirling wheel,
you are malevolent,
well-being is vain
and always fades to nothing,
shadowed
and veiled
you plague me too;
now through the game
I bring my bare back
to your villainy.
Fate is against me
in health
and virtue,
driven on
and weighted down,
always enslaved.
So at this hour
without delay
pluck the vibrating strings;
since Fate
strikes down the strong,
everyone weep with me!
