As One Picked to Die



As one picked to die in this pandemic I want my house and all its contents burned to the ground with me in it. I want the land to go back to as it was before the 1861 homestead act.

Let this stand as my last will and testament.

Jacqui Binford-Bell

My study of plagues and pandemics in the earth's history this sounds best. I have never wanted to live forever. In point of fact I have lived longer than I expected. I have planned to take no extraordinary measures to protect my life beyond my 75th birthday which is still over a year off. I faced my death Christmas Even 2001. I saw myself in the light as I observed my body on the snow below me. I did not fight to return. I was pushed. I thought as I fell from the light, "This is going to hurt." And it did. Still do not know why I had to come back. Surely it was not just to be able to paint and photograph the beauty around me.

That said I still feel I have much to offer to the world I live in. I know things which cannot be reduced to a black and white space on the ethernet or a journal.  When I began the dark times journal I felt it was important to record my journey to the end of the United States. Maybe nobody will ever read it. But it is there in the ether for someone to read.

It is clear to me at this moment in self-isolation in the midst of a hugely mismanaged pandemic that so very much has gone wrong in our nation. We desperately need a reset and perhaps the masses of dead will provide some among us to address all that is wrong with our republic. But the really big thing is we lost contact with life be it human or animal or micro-organisms in the soil. We have placed the importance of all living things beneath the worship of the all mighty dollar in the hands of 1%. Most of them are old white men over the age of 70 so the virus will get you.

I would like to live long enough to contribute to the remake of the world but if not I am sure I will see it from some place beyond here.

March 27, 2020

Comments

  1. Ien in the KootenaysMarch 27, 2020 at 7:23 AM

    Wise words. I share your feelings, though I am not sure about letting ‘my’ land revert to forest. I never knew you had an NDE. I had been sort of hoping for one during any of the three surgeries in as many weeks in 2012, but no such luck. Meanwhile I appreciate your presence here even as we get ready to perhaps let go. Your ability to capture and share beauty, your mountain woman moxie and passion for justice would be missed. One more summer. Then we will see. Best to you, Thicke, the orchids and Spock.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. JBinford-BellMarch 27, 2020 at 8:02 AM

      Not sure the mortgage company would even allow my plans. But it was inspired by the 1665 London plague were those who had the Bubonic plague were locked in their houses with their family even if they were not sick. After not responding to knocks on the door the locks were removed and their possessions picked through after the bodies tossed out on the curb.

      I too would like at least the summer but I watched my father on a ventilator for 7 weeks and I won't go there.

      Delete

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