Mind wanderings
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It’s that time of year: Music and Memory
It’s mid-August, almost two months after the summer solstice. The days are getting shorter, and the mornings have a distinct hint of nippiness in them. Not enough to actually warrant wearing more clothing, especially when the Spanish sun rises and the days heat up to nearly 100 degrees. But the early mornings, right before the sunrise, do have a freshness about them that I haven’t felt since April. I have mixed feelings about the changing seasons. Change has always been hard for me. I’m a Taurus. I like things fixed, and solid, and dependable. But I also move around a lot, having lived in 3 countries and 4 states in…
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Mid July Check In
Well, Dead Reader, after a small lull in which normal life seemed tantalizingly close, I am back to checking the worldometers numbers each day for Spain. Fortunately for us right now here in Andalucia, most of the cases in Spain are up north, and we are relatively unscathed. But who knows how long that will last? It feels so similar to the feeling I had towards the end of February, watching what was going on in Italy, and wondering if and when it would hit Spain. Of course, now we have masks, and gloves, and everywhere we go there are buckets of hand sanitizers, so hopefully it won’t catch us…
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Adaptable Humans
One thing I am amazed about with this state of lockdown is just how quickly it’s all felt normal. Scientists say that humans might be the most adaptable species on earth, and I’m seeing that play out in real time through this pandemic. “Our brains are essentially social brains,” he added. “We share information, we create and pass on knowledge. That’s the means by which humans are able to adjust to new situations, and it’s what differentiates humans from our earlier ancestors, and our earlier ancestors from primates.” – Rick Potts, director of the Human Origins Program at the Smithsonian Institution National Museum of Natural History The first three weeks…
