Month: October 2020

Seeing The Harsh Reality of COVID While On Travel…

I felt it best to end my Austin, Texas getaway recap with an entry that dealt with something that became all the more real while on travel, that being the ongoing ramifications of a world that’s plagued by a pandemic.

Let me start with the first part of the trip, the flying. I really used to love flying. The whole experience of driving to the airport, to checking in, to going through security, to finding a tasty bite and a drink to consume while waiting at the gate, to the takeoff, to the flight itself, then the landing, and ultimately waiting for my bags to come down that huge chute into the terminal, it was always the most incredible experience for me as a kid and continued well into my adulthood. When 9/11 came, that began to change. Heightened security measures added complexities and often annoyances that weren’t present before thus taking away some of the fun. Then my difficult health issues came in my early 40’s, making it even more difficult to enjoy the experience. With COVID present now, it honestly felt like a chore to travel. For as much as I know how important it is to wear masks, it became a burden. Airline agents couldn’t quite understand me at the gate. The constant pulling down and putting back up when eating and drinking led to my mask smelling like the food I ate and the coffee I drank. I also used to see a lot of happy expressions and laughter at the airport, but I honestly didn’t see any on this trip and I did look for it. Most airport shops were closed. And yes, even my favorite, Starbucks, was closed in almost every location I walked to. And thank goodness I have good credit and a credit card because no one seems to be accepting cash where I did purchase anything!

As for my actual time at my destination, when out and about, it was evident how hard COVID has rocked our nation, as I’m sure the world. So many businesses have closed with signs on their doors and windows saying that this pandemic has forced them to close for good. I noticed this a lot in a number of my previous more local trips in the past month as well. Businesses that have operated for decades just couldn’t keep up with the social distancing rules that halved their profits or more. I honestly can’t even fathom what my life would have been like during this pandemic if I still was operating the bed and breakfast I once owned in Chincoteague, Virginia. That truly is one thing I’m grateful for that is out of my life during these crazy times! Phew!

Another thing I noticed during this trip was the serious lack of physical closeness due to COVID. I’m a huge hugger and handshaker. I like touch in empathetic ways to show I care. And I tend to notice others like me when I’m out and about doing the same as well. That is something that seems to just not be present right now, not even when meeting new people. There were plenty of times where I met others on this trip where our gazes met, where our arms or bodies twitched from that impulse to do what we normally would do in a pandemic-free world, but most of the time we just stood there, frozen in place, greeting awkwardly from a distance with masks on, unable to see any type of warmth emanating through facial expressions. The impersonal feeling in this world nowadays is extremely difficult for extroverts like me.

Lastly, the one thing that stood out the most to me was all the homelessness in Austin. Tent after tent after tent lining street after street after street there. Whether that was going on prior to COVID or not I don’t know, but I can’t imagine what it would be like to be having to live on the streets in a tent during a pandemic. Seeing so many homeless people made me very grateful though for the small humble home I knew I had waiting for me back in Toledo with my partner Chris.

In the end, for as much as I truly treasured my time with my friend Karen and her family, dealing with this mask-based, socially-distanced world, where touch and love and closeness wasn’t really present much, and where you never quite knew what’s going to be open from what you looked up on Google to go entertain yourself, made for a truly frustrating experience while on travel, and made even worse when combining that with all my health issues. In light of seeing the harsh reality of COVID while on travel, I’d say it’s a safe bet that I’ll be staying far closer to home until some sense of COVID-free normalcy returns…

Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson

Question For The Day

Today’s question is…

The thing I feel I’m most gifted in doing in life is…(fill in the blank and keep it clean please.)

Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson

The Twelfth Step The Twelfth Step The Twelfth Step The Twelfth Step The Twelfth Step The Twelfth Step The Twelfth Step The Twelfth Step The Twelfth Step The Twelfth Step The Twelfth Step The Twelfth Step The Twelfth Step The Twelfth Step The Twelfth Step The Twelfth Step The Twelfth Step The Twelfth Step The Twelfth Step The Twelfth Step

Grateful Heart Monday

Thank you for following along on another Grateful Heart Monday, where gratitude always begins my week in writing. Today I’d like to express my gratitude for being a guest in the home of a dear friend from Austin, Texas for five days, where I saw something demonstrated quite beautifully that I never really saw within my own family growing up, that being unconditional love.

If you’ve followed along in my writing for my blog throughout any of the past seven years, then you already have probably read at some point how growing up in the alcoholic and emotionally imbalanced home that I did that there wasn’t much in the way of unconditional love ever being shown. Rather, it was quite the opposite with conditional love offered only when big leaps and hurdles were achieved to appease my parents, especially my mother. That’s why it was such a welcomed gift to be a guest in the home of my dear friend Karen Werner Cudzilo, along with her husband Marty and her two children, David and Sarah. There, I witnessed for the entire time I was there some family dynamics that were what I had always hoped to have as a kid but never got.

A great example of this that comes to mind right off the bat during this trip took place one morning as I sat on the backyard patio eating some oatmeal. Marty was putting this peanut-butter-looking paste on various trees in the backyard for the birds in such a strange pattern that didn’t make any sense until he finished, because when he did, it was him actually professing his deep love for his wife using their initials and some symbols. And they’ve been together for almost 30 years! This wasn’t an isolated incident of an act of unconditional love either.

I regularly witnessed them praise their kids, even for the simplest of achievements made. I saw hugs and tokens of affection offered repeatedly. There were daily phone calls and texts just saying hi to each other and sharing bits of their days with each other. All of which was so different from my upbringing where I rarely got my parents attention to just listen to me because they were either fighting, not talking to each other, or focused on their drinking and watching tv.

Karen’s family’s natural language felt so foreign to me, but so familiar to them, and yet it was incredibly refreshing to experience. As we played the cornhole beanbag game multiple times in their backyard for example, while I watched friendly competition amongst them, I also witnessed them all cheer each other on and congratulate each other for when good achievements were made in the game, like when David scored four beanbags in a row in the hole to win a game. That was such the opposite to gaming in my family where everything was so rigidly competitive, as when losses occurred it was normal to see things like playing cards being thrown across the room or ripped up, or board games getting toppled over.

The fact is I never once felt uncomfortable in the midst of Karen’s family. They all paid attention to me when I spoke. They didn’t spend their meals engrossed on their phones and weren’t disinterested in topics of conversation I brought up. They made it a point to make me feel truly welcomed, which really felt genuine, as I haven’t been embraced that well by any family in a very, long time, if ever. I almost wished I could have bottled it all up, all that unconditional love energy, as it alone helped me to feel better with the daily bouts of physical pain I still felt during my trip there.

I know some people might think that it could have all been for show just because I was there, but trust me when I say that I’m exceptionally good at picking up when people are faking it and Karen’s family was most definitely not.

While some may think that the biggest gratitude I would have had during my trip to Austin would have been the unique sightseeing I did in the area, it really was far more about spending time with a family where the true love of Christ was demonstrated repeatedly and without effort. That alone was the best gift I could have received on this trip, as it showed me what a family home looks like when unconditional love is at its core.

So, thank you Karen, Marty, David, and Sarah, for welcoming me into your home for a few days, as the love I experienced from each of you truly made for the most amazing blessing, which is why today’s Grateful Heart Monday is dedicated to all of you.

Peace, love, light, and joy,
Andrew Arthur Dawson