A moment of bliss

First, thank you all for your wonderful sympathetic comments on yesterday's blip. Sue is feeling a bit better. Her doctor suspected pneumonia, but there still has not been communication between the lab and the doctor, and Sue has decided it's "only" asthma. May that be so. I quit wringing my hands and pacing around, left her to rest and recover, and did something else today.

There was a "Community Healing Event" sponsored by a new coalition of Black, Indigenous, and other women of color. It was not well attended, perhaps in part because it happened at the same time as the Blues Festival on the waterfront. The Blues Festival is expensive and was probably a Super-spreader, so I didn't even consider going.

I only met two people I know at the small event, and both were joyous meetings. A man I have known for some years, Bryant King, shouted my name across the square and came to me on crutches to show me proudly his new possession: keys to his own apartment. I asked why the crutches, and he said sleeping on the ground for years has ruined his back, but he is overjoyed to have his own place, with a door he can lock, his own toilet and running water, a solid roof, and--best of all--a real bed. We wept for joy together. That's him in the main. I knelt to get the photo because I wanted to show his strength and dignity, his perseverance despite terrible circumstances. 

Seeing Bryant was a joy, and the second-best thing that happened while I was there was a performance of healing bowls, percussion, and song/chant by Alberta Qamar (Extra). 

Qamar "identifies as Black, Indigenous/Seminole, Queer & Androgynous. She was originally raised in the midwest in a musical household rooted in Jazz and many African instruments. These experiences led her to maintain an ancestral relationship with sound and meditative healing." 

I am grateful for her skills, which I took into my bones and will endeavor to pass on to Sue; and grateful that Bryant is housed.