Five Years Ago Today

Struggling green, March 2020

Five years ago this week, when a handful of cases of a new virus was making the news, my husband insisted that I pack up what I needed and take the dogs out to our farm in Central Massachusetts for an indefinite stay. I had to head out there from Boston anyway for a meeting, but I had fully intended to return home after one overnight. 

That was the start of lockdown for Covid-19. 

My husband - a physician - spent much of 2020 and beyond as part of a specialized team putting central lines in ICU patients hospitalized with covid. He was adamant that I not come home. 

Remember, this was long before we knew that PPE would be effective in limiting transmission of Covid. Long before we understood that Covid was airborne. Certainly long before any vaccine or any kind of treatment. We lived apart for the longest stretch of time since we had been married in 1988 because he did not want to risk me being exposed to the virus. 

I spent many weeks in this liminal space where the days were all the same, worried about my husband. Worried about my adult children and extended family. Isolated. 

In some very profound ways that I am still not able to fully articulate, I am not the same person I was five years plus 1 day ago. 

My sense of how fragile life is has sharpened. Perhaps I worry more, but I also revel in the small marvels of my world: A green shoot pushing through thawing ground, the cacophony of birds clustering at the feeders, the full moon shining through the cupola in our house, the peepers chorus in the woods, even a surprise spring snowfall. 

I take more time, both for myself and others. Ironic, as I know I have fewer years left in my life than I have already lived, but not feeling pressured by ambition suddenly stretches out the minutes and the hours. 

I am more patient that I once was. Is that a natural consequence of aging? I am now 61, not 'old' (whatever that means), though certainly not young. And contrary to popular wisdom, I have gotten more liberal as I've aged. More certain than ever that what will make society thrive is ensuring everyone has the basics as a matter of course: housing, medical care, education, healthy food, clean water, leisure time. 

In my naivete, I had believed that the world's brush with Covid would force us to see that we survive together or not at all. That my neighbor's health and well-being directly effect mine. That hoarding - wealth, knowledge, power - makes us less secure, less well-off. That we would learn to both offer and accept help with grace. 

The world we inhabit five years on is not that world. 

It would be natural, easy even, to despair.

But there is no future in despair and I am at my core, too stubborn to give into it. This quote, by a Jewish sage (Rabbi Tarfon) has always been a source of hope and comfort. I've even used it as one of two epigraphs in my latest novel. 

"Do not be daunted by the enormity of the world's grief. Do justly, now. Love mercy, now. Walk humbly, now. You are not obligated to complete the work, but neither are you free to abandon it"

("Pirkei Avot" 2:16).

 

I will hold onto what living through 2020 taught me. I can't heal the world's grief, but I can continue to walk this path with gratitude, with compassion, with hope. 

I will continue to write my strange, earnest novels, believing that the right readers will find them.

I will continue to make knitted and crocheted things for my loved ones, imbuing every garment with caring and love.

I will continue to make pottery and find joy in playing with clay.

I will continue to tend our fruit trees and plant for next autumn's harvest, sharing the bounty with our community. 

None of these acts will change the world, but they will nourish and enrich me and those around me.  

And if you are reading these words, I wish for you to find what strengthens and feeds you for the work to come. 

---

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In a Liminal Space

"Terminal One" by Smaku is licensed under CC BY-NC-ND 2.0

In 2008, my son's favorite movie was The Terminal, starring Tom Hanks. It's an odd movie for a then-12 year old to love, but that was the year he got stuck alone overnight in Denver coming home from visiting his best friend in Oregon.

We have been stuck in all sorts of places (sometime our entire family together, sometimes just one of us) waiting on transportation - bus stations, train stations, airport terminals, subway cars, an elevator, and even a ski lift once. For a stretch of time, it seemed that every journey we took had an unexpected delay. What we discovered was a kind of routine for waiting.

It starts with anxiety. What's happening? Am I safe?

The fear gives way to annoyance. I have a connection to make! Or an appointment! Or a meeting! This is so irritating!

If the waiting continues, especially if there's no way to know when it will end, it shifts to frustration and anger. Maybe you pace. Or curse at the never ending phone queue with its relentlessly cheerful hold music interrupted by a disembodied voice assuring you that your call is important. But you know it isn't. Not to them.

As the minutes turn into hours and nothing happens (other flights board and leave, buses pull out to other destinations, the voice at the other end of the emergency phone just repeats the technician is on the way), there's a curious acceptance. You have always been in this elevator, stopped between floors. There is no day or night in the waiting room: the lighting never changes, the televisions flicker in an endless line down the corridor. Thankfully, the sound is off.

This is where you are now.

You have little control over anything outside of the room with the hard plastic chairs and the half-empty snack machine.

You dig through your carry bag and find a blank envelope and the stub of a pencil. You open it up at the seams, carefully, so you have more usable surface and you begin to write. Or sketch. Or create little origami animals. Or play tic-tac-toe with yourself as a crafty opponent.

The occasional announcements on the loudspeaker are unintelligible and at some point, you tune them out. Instead, you start to hum, and then sing. You realize that you remember a ton of show tunes and start to belt them out. You don't even like show tunes, but the acoustics in this elevator are perfect - like in the shower.

Eventually, your breath becomes deep and wide. The quiet is no longer something to dread. You're not even sure what you're waiting for. The graffiti on the wall behind you resolves into messages from your past and future selves.  They make sense in the way dreams do.

You know things will change, just not how.

And for now, that's enough.

---

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Seven weeks: A status report

Seven weeks.
I've been at StarField Farm in essential isolation for seven weeks now.

Someone yesterday called me and asked me how I was doing. It was hard to answer that question. I told my friend *what* I was doing and that's a window into the how.

For the past week or so, I've found a rhythm to my days centered around discrete tasks. On the nice days, I walk the dogs in the woods and clean up in the garden. Our fruit trees have never looked so well pruned.

I spend a lot of time working with sourdough starter and baking different kinds of breads. Because it still gets cold at night, I regularly need to replenish wood, which means getting on the tractor, loading a bucket, and ferrying wood into the kitchen.

I'm not doing well at keeping to a normal sleep cycle, staying up too late and waking up late. Nor am I keeping to normal meal times. Despite baking, I'm not hungry most of the time. My friends and neighbors have been the lucky recipients of my sourdough obsession.

So, how am I?

I feel myself slowing down, letting the time stretch out without trying to exert much control over it. Do I feel depressed? Not really. I'm far too familiar with anxiety and depression and this just feels like I'm in a powered-down state. Like the sleep/energy saver setting on the computer.

Leaving the house to go to the post office (we don't get delivery at the house) or my occasional replenishment trips to the market no longer feel frightening. I have a routine with my masks, hand sanitizer, and clorox wipes. This is just what needs to be done.

I've moved from panic to caution in my day to day life. The extreme fatigue that flattened me for several weeks has eased. There seems to be a limit to how long a body can function in a heightened alarm state. I do realize that whatever balance I've found is likely tenuous at best.

My husband is still in the thick of treating covid-19 patients. When we spoke last night, he told me he felt sad. I think he, too, is shifting from the initial emergency response to a more reflective one. In a lot of ways, it's simpler to be in emergency-mode. All the painful emotions are put on hold and there's an outlet for adrenaline and fear. Afterwards, there comes a reckoning. And I worry for my husband, his colleagues, and my friends who are first responders. The risk to their mental health is likely higher now than the risk to their physical health.

Hearing the news of the NY ER physician who died from suicide this week felt like a personal blow.

How am I?

Physically? Safe. Emotionally? Weary. Overall? Heartsick for all who are suffering and will continue to suffer. Powerless in the face of knowing that what comes next (and I believe there will be a next) will not be easy.

But today is sunny, warm, and dry. My dogs will revel in the smells of the rich earth as they snuffle in the underbrush. The kitchen will be filled with the scent of baking bread. For today, that will be enough. 

---

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A Month Without Hugging

"Covid Cancel" button

A month ago, I needed to be in central Massachusetts for the first board meeting of an organization I belong to here, in the community where we built StarField Farm. My spouse told me to pack assuming I was going to stay here indefinitely.

I tried to argue, wanting to be there with him to support him, but we both knew the safest place for me was at the farm, where I could limit who I was in contact with. It would also limit my exposure to whatever virus might hitchhike home from the hospital on his clothing or person.

It would be a week. Maybe two. At least that's what I told myself, even as I knew better. This is the start of my second month here. As covid-19 cancels our regular lives and plans and hopes and dreams, as people I know have lost loved ones, I struggle to find a new kind of normal.

I won't lie. It's been extremely hard for me to keep to a daily schedule. My sleep/wake cycle has been upended. I'm not eating regular meals. Some meals I forget to eat alltogether. I'm spending far too much time scrolling social media, especially Twitter to find covid-19 and political updates. I turn on NPR. I turn it off. Dozens of times a day.

The only writing I've done is this blog. I had been fighting to write fiction for most of the past year, and just as I was getting back to the novel in progress, this happened.

I hate how whiny I sound.

My own life has not much been changed. Many of the things I miss are things that are luxuries - being able to be at the ceramics studio with my fellow potters, meeting with a writer friend at a local coffee shop, running to the market for fresh food for that night's dinner.

So many people have lost so much.

What is hardest is not being able to comfort my friends, my family, my community. Like all of us, I have experienced tragedy and trauma in my life, but at all those moments, I was literally embraced by those around me. We were able to come together, physically, to mourn, to process, and to heal.

As an introvert, I am comfortable with silence and solitude. But this past month has shown me how much I need physical contact. People who know me know that I am a hugger. Non-sexual platonic touch is as necessary as breathing for me. I hug when I'm happy, I hug when I'm sad, I hug to comfort others. (Within appropriate boundaries - I promise.)

My greatest personal wish right now is to live in a world where we no longer need to be wary of physical closeness, where we can greet dear friends with welcome hugs.

Until that day comes, know that you are in my thoughts and I offer you these words of kindness to wrap around you in place of my arms.

May you and your loved ones be safe and be well. 

---

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We are all in this apart

some of last year's peach harvest

Yesterday it was finally dry and warm enough to prune the fruit trees. It's important not to prune just before rain, as the newly cut branch ends are susceptible to mold and rot and disease. And fruit trees need to be pruned in order to yield a harvest. (This is not a metaphor.)

So I spent a good chunk of yesterday afternoon with my pruning sheers and my loppers working on 3 peach and 2 plum trees. I left my phone inside and for those precious hours, my world was clipping all the upright suckers, branches that crossed other branches, and anything that either grew into the center of the trees or would block sun coming into the canopy.

It was calming and soothing to do this work and the fatigue I felt afterward was a normal tired, not the emotional exhaustion of watching the covid-19 projections or hearing the news about new hot spots and deaths.

I have at least a half dozen friends who personally know people who have died from covid-19. I know it is only a matter of time until I do. 

*

I spoke (by telephone) a few weeks ago with the gentleman who heads our small community's emergency response team. He talked about the painful irony in that all of their emergency/contingency planning assumed we'd be using community buildings as shelters and that we would be gathering together. 

Now we are isolated, apart. 

*

This is a fragmented reality. We are forced apart from the communities that help give structure to our lives - schools, houses of worship, jobs, entertainment. And while we are all experiencing some kind of shared trauma, we are also experiencing completely different, individual traumas. 

This virus will take a toll on all of us, but its effects are not distributed equally. I don't know what to do with that understanding, but I think it's important to acknowledge. 

My children are grown and living on their own, so I don't need to face the pressures of managing young people's fears and the stress of being responsible for their learning. 

I am physically well, so I can complete my activities of daily living without assistance. 

I am coping emotionally as well as can be expected and have access to mental health supports.

I am living in a house on a small farmstead, so it's easy to practice physical distancing as well as have access to being physically active outdoors, weather permitting. I'm also in an area with a ton of farms that are either delivering food, or have it available for contactless pick up, so I'm well fed. 

My relationships are sound and healthy, so I don't feel unsafe.

My spouse is still employed, so I don't have to panic about paying a rent or mortgage, or having health insurance. 

I have friends, family, and acquaintances for whom some or all of these (and more) stresses come into play and so added to the shared trauma, their individual traumas make everything that much harder. 

*

Never in my experience have I understood more clearly the need to protect the public good and to ensure that those who are vulnerable are safe. 

*

 

Never in my experience have I been as dismayed by our leadership's utter failure to respond to the urgent needs of all its citizens. 

*

We are all in this together. We are all in this apart. Both of these are true. 

*

I still have 3 young pear trees to prune. They are probably still not mature enough to bear fruit this year, but with time and care, they will. This is both my task for today and a metaphor.

Be well. Be safe.

---

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Day 19: The soul cries out

And the soul cries out

I am used to being alone. Solitude is my typical work companion, so I wasn't overly worried about spending time on my own at our farm, practicing physical distance as my spouse works at his hospital.

After all, I had the dogs with me. I had a manuscript to work on and a planned writing retreat that moved virtually instead of physically. I also had more yarn that I could find projects for and 50 pounds of clay to work on my ceramics from home. Not to mention a half dozen fruit trees to prune and the daily work of keeping the woodstove burning.

While I knew that the covid-19 virus was dangerous and would sweep through the country, there was not much I could do against its enormity beyond practicing good viral hygene and staying in isolation. I had thought I would be able to keep some emotional distance from my distress by pretending my time at the farm was simply a personal retreat. I have come here before on my own, for a week or so at a time for the silence and the stillness.

And for most of a week or so, I was able to hold back the sadness, even as I allowed myself to follow the news and social media. Even as I heard daily from my spouse about what his hospital was preparing for and then seeing. Even as people were sickening and dying. Even as place after place shut down and people retreated into isolation.

Last night, it hit me. Hard.

This morning, I awoke with a profound sadness like a lump in my throat and a weight on my heart.

My manuscript sits, unlooked at. The yarn is set aside in a cardboard box. The clay is in a sealed plastic bag and all my tools scattered on the worktable.

*

A friend called me a few hours ago. She recounted a conversation she'd had with her sister, who said "I finally get it" in relation to the virus and its seriousness. She finally got it because a friend of hers had fallen ill. 

And rather than feel any sort of vindication over this, it made me angry. A sort of exhausted fury that just made me want to weep in frustration.

I didn't hear someone who was enlightened. I heard someone with a profound and dangerous lack of empathy who couldn't acknowledge suffering unless it happened to someone in her small circle. 

*

I have always described myself as a relentless optimist. Today, I am weary. My soul cries out. And yet I want to feel more, not less. 

I will let myself be sad and tired and angry. No good comes from shutting down feelings. Not for me and not for those around me. 

Day 19. And my soul cries out. 

Let yours cry out with me. 

 

---

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Guest Post: One Percent is Not a Solution

My friend Sheila emailed this to me, asking if I would put it on my blog. Please share it. 

One Percent is Not a Solution

Sheila Kelly

I checked the current population of the US this morning, which the internet says is 327,700,000. Three percent (the mostly frequently touted mortality rate of Covid-19) of that is 9,831,000, but it's possible that it's as low as 1%, which would be 3,277,000. I think it's safe to say that if this highly infectious virus spreads unchecked, somewhere between three and ten million people in this country will die.

About three million people die every year in the US anyway, so the best-case scenario is that we'll double the average annual death rate -- if nothing else factors in. If the virus doesn't mutate. If our healthcare system is not overwhelmed by the number of cases and more people die because they couldn't get care. If the people who initially survive the virus don't relapse or experience complications that shorten their lives. In other words, if we're very, very insanely lucky, only three million will die.

Who are these three million? Some of your elected officials will have you believe they're the elderly, as we're the most vulnerable. I suppose we've had a chance to live longer than most, so it seems justifiable that we can be sacrificed. But then, we'll also be murdering people with pre-existing conditions or suppressed immune systems (and, I assure you, not all of them are old people.) A good portion of the dead will be neither old nor vulnerable; that's just the way this plague works. So, let's say three million random people can die for the greater good.

If someone rounded up three million citizens in this country and executed them, we would call it a holocaust. Even if they were old, or not as healthy as others. I can think of no cause that would make our government do that.

Or I didn't, until I woke up this morning.

Here's an alternative plan: let's just kill everyone who is infected right now. At this point that would cost only, what, a hundred thousand lives? Peanuts compared to three million, really. We don't really need that senator, or those congressmen, or those celebrities who are infected, right? By summer the US would be virus-free, and the economy back on track. It's just as heartless, yes, but the numbers are better. And that seems to be the only thing that matters to the government right now. The numbers.

Just one problem with both plans: We are not numbers. We are human beings. We are all important.

"Whoever destroys a soul, it is considered as if he destroyed an entire world. And whoever saves a life, it is considered as if he saved an entire world." -- Jerusalem Talmud, Sanhedrin 4:1 (22a)

My wish today is that we don't kill anyone on purpose. That we put the value of all lives above the numbers. That we do what we must to save as many as we can. That is the only decent solution.

Staying grounded

Planting a promise

This weekend, my husband joined me at StarField Farm for a desperately needed respite. He has been working non-stop for the past 3 weeks, both tending to patient needs at the hospital and readying his department to respond to the covid-19 pandemic.

The information coming at all of us is overwhelming, changing moment by moment, requiring us to adapt even as we are reeling from what we already have learned.

It has been even more so for the medical staff, who are literally on the front lines of an invisible war.

When he arrived Friday night, his face was haggard and pale. His eyes were dull. I have never seen him so exhausted. When we hugged, I could feel him clinging to me and we spent a long several moments just feeling our hearts synchronize. It was all I could do not to cry. 

For the past two days, we have kept the news off, choosing to listen to music instead of NPR. While neither of us could entirely keep away from social media or our phones, we tried to do what we always do at the farm: measure time by the ticking of the wood stove and the passage of the sun across the sky.

Today, we cleared one of the garden beds from the remains of last year's vegetables and covered the soil with a dark weed block material. The idea is to heat the earth and keep the weeds from sprouting before we've had the chance to plant the garden.

After that, Neil planted some flowers near the house.

It was a beautiful day - cold, but clear and bright. The work was simple and physically engaging. For the most part, we were side by side, but silent. Content. Comfortable.

After dinner, he packed his bag and drove back to Boston. Back to the responsibilities of a physician and department chair. Back to the concerns of life and health and worrying if his staff has sufficient protective gear to do their work as safely as possible.

I will remain in isolation at the farm.

There is more than enough work for me here preparing for the growing season ahead. It is a distraction, but more than that, it is an act of faith.

---

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Dangerous calculation

One year ago

I have been essentially in isolation for 10 days, not because I have any symptoms, but because my physician husband realized he would be much more likely to be exposed to covid-19 than the average person. And he didn't want to worry about me.

We are fortunate to have a second home in a rural community in central Massachusetts. StarField Farm is the place we plan to retire in a few years. For now, it is a weekend escape, a place we occassionaly rent out for writing retreats among my creative community. 

Now it is my home. A place to limit my exposure to the world and make sure I don't inadvertently carry the virus to anyone else. Given that even under normal circumstances, I live a fairly solitary life and that I haven't been in close contact with anyone but my own dogs for nearly 2 weeks, it is highly unlikely I have been exposed, much less infected.

My husband, on the other hand, has been working 14+ hour days during these last several weeks trying to get his department ready for what will be a terrible onslaught of the sick and the dying.

We have been in close contact by phone, text, and videochat. Day by day, I have seen him age, have watched the responsibility stoop his shoulders and dull the shine in his eyes.

This is the first weekend he's been off call since we made the decision to send me to the farm.

Last night, he arrived here for the weekend.

It was a choice we made, fully understanding the probabilities. It is possible that he has been exposed and will expose me. I accept that risk, knowing that while it exists, it is smaller than the risk to him not to have this brief respite. And given what we know and fear is coming, it may be the last time we take this risk.

He is fighting a war against an invisible enemy. Tomorrow, I will send him back to the front lines. Today, I will do what I can to put the joy back in his eyes and erase the lines from his face.

And then I will start the count again, keeping in isolation and doing what I can to stay healthy.

---

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An ordinary crisis

Dustin. Dog hardware, cat software

This is day 6 of living in isolation for me. Last Wednesday, my husband and I agreed it was better for me to relocate to our farm in Central Massachusetts while he stayed home and continued to work at his hospital.

So I'm here with the dogs, my computer, access to the internet, my writing, copious amounts of yarn, a bunch of clay, and a pile of books.

We pretty much always have a prepper's stock of food because 1 - I like to preserve food when it's in season, and 2 - I hate to go grocery shopping.

If there is an ideal set up for sheltering in place, StarField Farm pretty much is it, but for the forced separation from my partner-in-crime.

I just got back from a walk in the woods with the dogs. Dustin is one of those male dogs who marks everything, peeing a thousand times on even the shortest of walks. I noticed that he peed on some dried leaves and there was blood in his urine.

He's a spry little thing and I haven't seen any signs of distress in him, other than noticing he's been pestering me for food all the time.

It could be symptomatic of diabetes.

I am not proud that my first thought was "Fuck, this can't be happening now." All of my coping is already being used up managing my worry over my husband, my eldest son who is not feeling well and is living in another city, and the rest of the world as the crisis builds and builds.

But then I realized that this was something I could actually deal with in very concrete terms.

I called my home vet. They directed me to an animal hospital 15 minutes away in the same network and coordinated getting records sent. The local vet was able to give us an 8 am appt tomorrow morning.

Dealing with a sick pet? I know how to do this.

Never did I ever think I'd actually be grateful for an ordinary crisis.

---

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The terrible waiting

"Figure on the beach" by Oliver Dixon is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

My amazing and utterly competent husband is many things - a physician, race car driver, musician, skilled chef, amateur radio operator, among others - but one thing he is not is a poet. The heightened language, the metaphors, the alliteration, these he leaves for me.

Yesterday, he said that he feels as if he's on the beach in the moment before the tsunami wave roars in to scour the sand. The water is gathering in the far distance. He can almost see it. He knows it's coming. There is no way to run far enough or fast enough to outpace its power.

He's a doctor at a Boston teaching hospital. For two weeks, they have been sounding the alarm and doing their best to prepare. He and his colleagues are on the front line of a war that far too many of us still refuse to believe is already here.

Some are literally frolicking on the beach, pretending that by acting normally, life will be normal. Or somehow convinced they are protected by virtue of their magical thinking.

*

When I was in college, I studied how epidemics and pandemics changed society. Plague, typhus, cholera, influenza, polio - these kinds of diseases have always been with us. Epidemiologists and public health folks have known for decades and decades that it was only a matter of time before another pandemic would sweep across the globe. It's why public health is concerned with clean air and water, in vaccines, and in ameliorating poverty. All things that we seem to have decided are less important that accumulating wealth and resources and concentrating them in as few hands as possible.

We have been so dangerously complacent. Even now, there are those who can't believe they will be affected. Who believe that their wealth or privilege or technology will save them. 

And even if it somehow saves them from contracting Covid-19, it will not save them from the aftermath.  

*

After this wave recedes, it will leave behind a landscape we won't recognize. I wonder if we have the empathy and the wisdom and the humility to navigate it.

---

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The elasticity of time

"Dali" by ChaSanabria is licensed under CC BY-SA 2.0

I have been checking in by phone, email, and text with friends and family. I wrote this in an email this morning. (Was it just this morning? Not days and days ago?)

While events are moving past us at an unimaginable speed, our individual lives are slowing down dramatically. It's a strange juxtaposition. 

In between obsessive scrolling of Twitter and Facebook, where everything is pressured, there are quiet tasks like stacking wood, walking the dogs, and folding laundry. Those ordinary things have taken on a different weight and meaning now.

While I typically spend a lot of time alone as a writer who works from home, this is different. I have to still my impulse to run to the bakery or the grocery store as much for what I might buy there as to have a social interaction with someone. So I feel the intensity of my isolation differently than when it is created by choice.

It is only Sunday. I have to keep reminding myself of the day and date as a buffer against the sense of unreality and free-floating anxiety. It feels that life has always been this strange disconnect between the urgency of external threat and the slow boredom of internal time.

---

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How fragile we are

For all those born beneath an angry star

Lest we forget how fragile we are.

On and on the rain will fall
Like tears from a star like tears from a star
On and on the rain will say
How fragile we are how fragile we are
How fragile we are how fragile we are

Sting, Fragile

I am writing this well past 2 in the morning. I should be asleep, but after the anxiety and the fear and the dread of the past days, I have found a moment of clarity. 

We are so very fragile. The tiniest of things can undo us. 

There is a virus silently stalking the world. No one knows how many people it has already infected. No one knows how many of us will die. No one knows how to stop it. 

The whole world is in this same moment. Can you imagine? The entire world. 

And yet. . . and yet. . . 

Instead of finding empathy in our shared vulnerability, we see only shame. We think it is a weakness. And, in a sense it is. Vulnerability is power's kryptonite. Admitting we are vulnerable means we cannot cling to any imagined or constructed superiority. It means looking our systematic inequities in the eye and knowing they have no justification. They make no sense.

Because while wealth or privilege or position may make your quarantine more comfortable, may let you skip the line for tests or treatment, may let you hoard cleanser and food, none of it will take away our sheer, terrifying fragility against the unknown. 

So the only question that matters is what will you do with your fear?

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Blue Musings is a low volume e-newsletter containing notifications about book releases, sales, recommendations, and free original short fiction. Please click the box, then "subscribe" to allow us to send it to you via email.

"There are weeks where decades happen."

Spring flowers, reaching for the sun

I have been checking in with my family members, sometimes several times a day. We are all scattered and while I know having everyone here with me is neither practical nor even a good idea, I am seized by magical thinking: if my family were together, everything would be okay.

I told my eldest son that it felt like forever since Monday and he quoted this back to me:

“There are decades where nothing happens; and there are weeks where decades happen.”
― Vladimir Ilyich Lenin

Yes. Absolutely.

I have a public health background; my spouse is a physician at a Boston teaching hospital. We have been a week or so ahead of most of the general public in our degree of concern about COVID-19 and its looming impact.

On the one hand, it's nice not to feel like Cassandra anymore. On the other hand, my anxiety is now shared and amplified by everyone around me.

I had to remind myself that it was Saturday this morning. I have been at StarField Farm - our home in Central Massachusetts - since Thursday. My spouse is in Boston and spending nearly all his waking hours at his hospital, gearing up, preparing, waiting. It was a difficult choice, but he persuaded me to pack up the dogs and leave, knowing his chances of exposure to the virus is high.

We have weathered crises in the past including illness, injuries, deaths of loved ones, a terrible house fire, personal and family emergencies. In every case, we were able to be surrounded by and supported by a community.

Now that community is also alone and struggling with what the next day, week, month will bring.

We are all alone, together.

It has only been 2 full days since I came here to practice social distancing. What a terribly clinical phrase. Two days. I miss the feel of my spouse's arms around me. The warmth of him against my body when we sleep. The choreography of both of us cooking dinner together. Even the silence of the two of us reading in the living room. I am, by nature, an introvert and used to spending large amounts of time alone and this is difficult.

I had to make an activity list for myself today. In all-capital letters across the top, I wrote "SATURDAY". It included bringing up wood from the basement for the stove, doing some clay work, cooking soup, doing laundry, and writing.

While I write to do lists nearly every morning, this one felt different. It felt like a life line and a way to focus away from the endless churn of Twitter, FB, and the news.

I didn't get to everything on that list, but I did some handbuilding with clay, the laundry is in the drier, and the soup is simmering on the stove.

I have no special wisdom or insight to share about how to handle the uncertainty or keep one from being exposed to an invisible threat. I only know that my own coping strategy during stressful times is to write.  

My heart aches for all the medical people and first responders who are already exhausted from planning and preparing, for families with young children who will have to provide assurances and comfort in a chaotic time, for folks--far too many folks--who were already a paycheck away from crisis.

My dear ones, stay safe.

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Blue Musings is a low volume e-newsletter containing notifications about book releases, sales, recommendations, and free original short fiction. Please click the box, then "subscribe" to allow us to send it to you via email.