It is Time to Heal

Over the past week, rather than emerge from our self-imposed 14-day quarantine, we've seen fellow Americans join us in "social distancing." However, it's gone much farther than I could ever have envisioned, with restaurants and bars being closed to in-house dining and imbibing, retail stores closing to casual browsers, recreational areas closing or cutting back staff, and schools extending their closures and moving to online lessons.  The message has been clear: stay home.

Collectively, we fear losing our jobs, depleting our savings, caring well for our most vulnerable populations, supporting medical personnel on the frontlines, and apparently, procuring toilet paper. There are numerous stories of deep tragedy and excruciating grief.  There is absolute and justified frustration with how our federal government has failed its people, and the costs will be exorbitant.  Both in lives lost and dollars spent.

But there is also light.

Social media has helped positive stories go viral.  The residents of an Italian village joined together from their balconies to sing the national anthem, residents of Wuhan have banded together to care for each other, and dolphins and swans have returned to Venetian canals to play. Even Congress has put aside bitter divisiveness and worked on bi-partisan legislation to assist those in desperate need.  And today, I found toilet paper stocked at my nearest grocery store.

While it's the first time in my 50 years that I have faced rationing (the store is only allowing customers to purchase one pack of TP at a time), and shelves still lack bare essentials (beautiful, fresh produce abounds, though), it seems we are adapting. No doubt there's the routine jerk who makes life difficult for workers busting their hineys to restock shelves, but I get the sense that the majority of the population understands that patience and adaptation must dominate this chapter of our collective lives.

Dino track

Adhering to our "vast places, few faces" mantra, Chris and I broke away from home with a couple of friends, Jo and Sarah, earlier this week to travel to Utah (see accompanying pictures).  This region of the world has a tremendous way of putting life in perspective. We walked along fins, through canyons, and around arches that have been shaped by water and wind over millions of years.  We traced the steps of dinosaurs, realizing that we have only been here for six million years while they walked the Earth for 165 million years.  In the grand scheme of Earth's history, the current disruption to our lives doesn't even register as a blip.

Not dismissing the pain and agony many throughout our world are experiencing from COVID-19, I do think that this period may help many of us reset our priorities and expectations. Maybe it will help us remember our humanity.

On this vernal equinox of 2020, I leave you with this passage from Pam Houston, from her essay, Breaking the Ice, written on the vernal equinox in 1998: "It's as though the snowmelt and the lengthening days have simply taken hold of us. As though we have tacitly agreed to accept the silence the mountains demand in this silent season. Summer is the time for talking, the mountains say, when the birds are singing, and the creek is gurgling and there are leaves on the trees that will rustle in the wind. Now is the time to sit silently together, to feel the ice break around you, to wait for the first bluebirds to return to the feeder; now is the time to heal."