Sunday, August 29, 2021

Coles County August 2020 and 2021

The natural world of Coles County, Illinois comes to a bright crescendo in August: everything is blooming, hopping, and buzzing. I wrote an optiminstic piano piece last August to celebrate the physical beauty of the place where I live. Writing it helped to offset the omnipresence of the pandemic. Oh those innocent days of the early virus!

Revisiting the piece in August of 2021, now that vaccines have FDA approval and are freely and readily available to everyone over the age of twelve, could have been rewarding and kind of triumphant.

But the virus is now much more infectious, and too many of the residents of Coles County choose to remain unvaccinated. Many of the adult residents of the county still will not wear masks in public indoor spaces. They still don't believe (for whatever reason) that Covid-19, particularly in its strengthened Delta state, is something to be concerned about.

But the flowers are blooming, and the trees are rich with bird life, bird songs, insect life, and insect songs.

My friend Marjorie takes beautiful photographs during her daily walks, and shares them with her friends. Yesterday I made a video using my "Coles County August" piece and photographs from some of Marjorie's August 2021 walks.



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