Once a week, I monitor a long stretch of undeveloped coastline for wildlife. I’ve been doing this for a dozen years. Lucky for me, even in non-COVID-19 times, I rarely run into anyone. Yesterday, under brightly sunny skies and cooling trade winds, I ran into a few creatures, and it was delightful. For a lovely couple hours, all was right in my world.
Turtles were hauled out to rest on a remote beach. A mother monk seal and her growing pup slept along the shoreline. Another one-year-old seal with a nasty cookie cutter shark wound above her left fore flipper illustrated the amazing healing power of these marine mammals. I witnessed a few Laysan albatross chicks take their first rickety steps on two legs. I spotted a couple red-tailed tropicbirds canoodling under some bushes. I saw a few wedge-tailed shearwater burrows with fresh scratching and evidence of guano, sure signs these migratory seabirds are back for their nesting season.
Life continues. We’ll continue. But how?
I’m reading about when this might end and how we’ll be changed. Many people are making, what would you call them, predictions? Educated guesses? Time will tell.
And hope, I’m hearing about hope from, of all people, Ron Wood, guitarist for the Rolling Stones. I guess if anyone knows about rough times and hope, it would be a survivor of the Rolling Stones.
Here’s some hope for you: Our neighbor’s lost dog was found after four days.
I hope we’re changed for the good. I hope we’re transformed for the very very good.
I now know people who have lost loved ones due to this virus, and I am so sorry. A virus weakened my mother’s heart in the winter of 2018. Technically, she didn’t die of the flu, I suppose, but it certainly severely weakened her heart, which led to other complications and her eventual death. I take this pandemic seriously. I hope you do, too.
Hawaii cases rose to 258, up 34, the largest 24-hour increase to date. Kauai remains at 12.
Be well.
kimsrogers.com 
I love you, Kim Steutermann Rogers! You and your writing, your heart. Thank you for Writing in the Time of COVID-19! Please keep them coming !!
And my condolences on your personal losses .
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Much love to you, dear Tina. And thank you. Be well!
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Yes, it’s important to keep the hope flowing. Thank you for your part in it. We went out this afternoon to find a couple of new geocaches, and at one site a red-tailed hawk was flying just overhead. We stood and watched for several minutes, feeling glad for the beauty and the reminder of continuity. And yet…
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And yet.
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Thank you I wish I had been on the walk with you I saw it all in my mind though. The first buds are showing on the grees, birds are building their nests, saw a redwinged blackbird. all is good here.
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Thank you I wish I had been on the walk with you I saw it all in my mind though. The first buds are showing on thettrrd., birds are building their nests, saw a redwinged blackbird. all is good he
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I had an incident with a red-winged blackbird in downtown Toronto once. I guess I walked too close to the nest!
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Thank you. I felt like I was walking that coastline with you! Mindy
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Hi Mindy, I treasure those weekly walks now more than ever!
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