The Original Messy March Celebration (I wasn’t even there!)

Messiest March Ever!

Those of you who follow this Blog know that every year we Celebrate MESSY MARCH!
It is a time of Creative Freedom!
It is a time when we Celebrate making mistakes,
because those who never make mistakes never make Anything!
It is a time to Celebrate doing things imperfectly and recognizing that as both Creative Beings and Human Beings, imperfect is Beautiful!

When I was a child learning how to draw, my Mother told me to draw a straight line.
I reached for a ruler.
“Don’t use the ruler,” she urged me gently. “Do it freehand.”
“Why?” I asked.
“Because it will look better,” she told me. Then in her reassuring, gentle, and Motherly way she nodded and added, “Try it!”
I did – and all I could see was that it was not perfectly straight.
“It’s better!” she reassured me, teaching me in that moment that Perfect is Not Better.
True is Better!
This is one of the precepts of MESSY MARCH!

Earlier this month, when the Full Moon, Friday the 13th, and the Ides of March all came together in the same week, so began the Messiest March Ever!
COVID-19, a novel Corona Virus had arrived, our lives came to be cancelled on a larger scale, and Social-Distancing became the order of the day.
Our World changed in a Moment!
What a Surprise!
What a Mess!
What a way for the Universe to reset itself!
What a Powerful Shift!

MESSY MARCH Celebrations, are usually MESSY and WONDERFUL!
This one may perhaps feel MESSY and SCARY, and with good reason —
but there are many Moments of WONDERFUL to be Found…
It is not so much that the shutdown has made a Mess of our Lives!
It is more that we had made a Mess of our Lives and the ShutDown was sent as a Gift to help us

A Post from the Internet

ReGroup…
Pause…
Reflect…

Our Federal Government is a ClusterFuck. The tRUMP Administration has Failed.
Do not Despair!
Just look at how others are stepping up:
New York’s Governor, ANDREW CUOMO has shown himself each day of this crisis to be a Powerful Leader!

GAVIN NEWSOM, Governor of California, and so many others have also risen to spearhead the fight.
The States!
The Cities!
And the Military…
Right at this moment, the Navy Ship, USNS COMFORT, is making its way to New York Harbor to offer itself as a Floating Hospital for those in New York City who will need a room for non-Corona-related hospitalizations.
Other branches of the Military are donating copious amounts of Masks and Hospital Supplies.
Even Television Shows about the medical field have donated their Hospital Equipment from sets and wardrobe to help in this Crisis.
The Theater Industry has risen to the occasion too, with the Broadway Relief Project
— Seamstresses, Actors, and those from all areas of the industry working together to make Ten Million surgical gowns!

If enough people Rise and Take Action, and Reach out to Do Everything they Possibly Can to Help (including if that means to simply Stay Home) – then we can see Beauty in the Mess!
And even though it’s Messy, together our actions may be enough to save countless Lives!
Messy is not without Accomplishment, Achievement, and Triumph!

Our Health Care has proven to be Of the People, By the People, For the People!

A Post from the Internet

WE THE PEOPLE!
WE THE PEOPLE!
WE THE PEOPLE!

Staying Home is Messy!
What are we supposed to do day after day – no trips to the gym, no dinners out, no theater or movie houses – eventually, we will need to
JUST BE STILL,
JUST BE
with our selves!
And we all know that can be MESSIEST of ALL!

If we are looking for ways to help, Staying Home can be confusing and may feel counterintuitive.
A Doctor interviewed on NPR this week as she and her staff are bracing for the onslaught of hospitalizations expected to occur in the next ten days, shared that she is a single Mother of two, doing her best to stay Healthy. She described seeing a crowd of people on the street last night talking and laughing and how angry it made her that some people still do not understand that being in groups and being out in public and risking further transmission of the virus will directly affect her and other Health Care Workers.
And of course, the more medical professionals that get the virus, working in the highest risk profession of all, the fewer there will be to take care of us.
I don’t have a lot of friends in the medical profession – and already at this point I know of a nurse who’s got it and a doctor who died from it — and it’s barely gotten started here in the States!
Even barely started, and even with very limited test kits available indicating that our reported numbers are only a small percentage of actual cases, the US now leads the world in the number of cases!
So, for Heaven’s Sake, be Compassionate! Stay Home!
#stayhome
#stayhome
#stayhome
If we all think of ourselves, not as potential victims, but as carriers – and according to the Medical Experts, there is likely No One in New York City who has not already come in contact with this virus – then our behavior will be appropriate to the situation.

Some Theater Geek Humor from the Internet

DR. JOHN CAMPBELL speaks clearly about the importance of this.
I have grown obsessed with this man!
A Compassionate and Intelligent Doctor, he has trained so many of Great Britain’s Health Professionals, and on his Youtube Channel he posts Daily Updates about this virus:
You may subscribe to his channel here: Dr. John Campbell

Here is yesterday’s video:

In which he talks yet again about the two specific actions we can take to reduce the threat of this virus: Testing and Keeping Six Feet Apart!
“Two Meters Distance determines our existence!”

Extensive testing is needed.
At the moment, although we now have test kits in New York, Hospitals are short of Personal Protective Equipment for personnel. Therefore we have no testing available outside of hospitals – as each test would require a single use mask, gloves and gown in order to be administered.
And due to the negligence of the tRUMP Administration, including his signing but not taking any action on the Defense Production Act, we do not have those supplies.
So our testing is inadequate at the moment and as DR. CAMPBELL puts it, we are thus fighting an enemy we cannot see.

On the upside, he spoke yesterday about a new way-less-expensive test kit that is being developed and that will have wider distribution!
So that is Very Good News, as the planet needs a Billion Test Kits!

The other action to end this epidemic is to stay home.

A Meme from the internet

As DR. CAMPBELL has pointed out, if we all could stay home for two weeks, the virus would be gone, as it cannot live longer than that, and the cases of those who have it would be apparent within the two weeks as symptoms emerged. Once identified, they could be treated and the Problem would be ended.
But in reality, allowing for essential workers who must be out and about every day, the very most we could hope to have stay home at once would be 75% of the population, and this would help tremendously – unfortunately, in most countries it has been closer to 25%, and that is simply not enough to stop the spread of Coronavirus!
Staying Home makes our Lives Messy!
We fall out of our routine.
We don’t go work and then we don’t make any money.
We don’t get to enjoy our regular social getting together with friends.
It’s Messy?
So, Be MESSY!
That’s OK, it’s MESSY MARCH!

Oh, and speaking of MESSY… Here is a simple video DR. CAMPBELL has on Handwashing:

I know. Have we not been inundated with this information for weeks now?
But, actually, there are things here I didn’t know in terms of specifically how to do this right!
I thought I did.
I have changed how I go about washing my hands since watching this.
MAMA has an expression in Italian which roughly translates as “The old lady was a hundred years old and she was still Learning!”
…Like learning the way DR. JOHN CAMPBELL showed us to wash our hands!
Or like the Very Fabulous CHARO does it:

Love the Chandelier!
Learning… Teaching… Those are some of the most Valuable Messy Experiences we can have!

Since we do not have a president at the moment who is capable of Leading our country, I refer you to the words of ANGELA MERKEL. They apply to our own country as well:

Happy Messy March!
Let us not be afraid to take the pieces of our Soul, our Heart, and our Mind and lay them all out; then look at them, hold them, feel them — and carefully choose which ones we want to put back and in what order…
And Don’t be afraid to fingerpaint!
It’s MESSY MARCH, After All!

My friend RICK and I celebrating MESSY MARCH in Union Square, four years and a Whole World ago

# # #