Staying Home

Yesterday I felt a kind of dismay I hadn’t felt in a long time, something akin to grief, which in a certain light feels very much like fear, a heaviness, a great anticipatory sadness, a formless shadow darkening my path. I knew I had to snap out of it. We are not allowed to feel this way so soon; we have only just begun.

In fact, we have not even truly begun. My reading of credible science-based articles, conversations with friends in health care, and an ongoing text exchange with my cousin in Italy have confirmed this. It’s almost amusing to me that a few days ago I was still worried about disappointing people and being accused of over-reacting because I had chosen to cancel meetings and stay home. Now I can honestly say that if it turns out I am over-reacting, I will rejoice.

There are certainly worse fates than being self-exiled out here. I am retired, with a caring husband at my side, and we live in a beautiful place…inconvenient, high-maintenance, and rugged…but beautiful. I hurt for those with little kids suddenly out of school or with disabled dependents whose programs have abruptly shut down with no alternative care available, and those working unstoppable jobs, paycheck to paycheck. I know some of these people.

This morning, I watched the treetops sparkling and the steam of evaporating rain rising in little puffs from the deck, then decided to take advantage of the sunshine and go for a walk. On my way to the mailbox, I encountered the young woman who does errands for Nancy, my 94-year-old mother-in-law, driving up to the house. She had just been to the supermarket to fill Nancy’s modest grocery list, but most of the items were unavailable. Meanwhile, she said, a man was pushing a cart and sliding random canned goods into it indiscriminately, filling his cart with a giant pile of cans, leaving the shelf empty. Now that’s ugly. That’s selfish hoarding behavior, and it should be stigmatized. Remember shame? Remember civility? Remember thinking of others? If this emergency brings out only the worst in us, we will not survive.

But maybe, just maybe, we will become stronger and wiser and kinder and better. That could happen too. I see signs already of this possibility: invigorated and relevant conversation via internet, bartering goods or giving away that which we have in abundance, brainstorming ideas for community support, talk about books, baking of bread, a friend who sends out poems, a neighbor leaving fish…

I walked the canyon deep in thought, and I stopped to listen to the sound of the creek, and frogs, and rain dripping from trees. I felt better afterwards, and I thought about ways to be useful, and I remembered a beautiful dream I had, and I thought about the shimmers of dreams we each carry.

This is a call to what is best in us. Let us remember quiet truths we seem to have forgotten, and let us care about each other, more than ever, even while forced apart.