Today I felt the first pangs of loneliness, which caught me off guard. “I got this!” I had said just recently, citing my meditation practice, work as a writer, and inherent introversion. I did not seem to be mourning the loss of social life on any level. Then my apparently invisible internal struggles reared their ugly head(s).
I wasn’t exactly expecting that.
The situation is larger than me. Our lost lives are irreplaceable. And still I float with the memory of it, the memory of a feeling, a flavor, a touch. Something that might be far away right now, across an ocean, inaccessible.
I take a walk around myself. It is a humbling adventure. They say we have months of this to come. Long enough to lose it, whatever we had. The President said we were not made to be shut down, but we are closing anyway.
The blazing apricot color of the sun setting against the buildings provides a strange contrast to the abandoned asphalt streets. The grass in the park feels like my new best friend, a carpet of comfort, and the sun is my god once again. I spend three days making a consommé, but time doesn’t breed perfection, and it remains annoyingly cloudy. You know you have cabin fever when you spend three days making an imperfect consommé.
In and amidst these imperfect times a funny thing happened, listening to my father speak, as excited about his ideas as a teenager. That part of me that always wanted him to listen to me, started listening to him. Full and undivided attention. Then suddenly I felt heard, without having to say a thing.
As Robert Frank once said, One is embarrassed to want so much of oneself.
…
For the most part people actually seem nicer in this time. Perhaps it is because we are all more vulnerable. Even when someone is aggressive, we know it is because of fear, and most people try to empathize.
I bike across the city in the sun, see parents with their children, solitary people walking, couples running. Very few people are wearing masks. It feels like I am taking the temperature of the city, and for the most part, we appear to be holding off the fever. In fact, it seems like the people who don’t succumb to the virus will in the end be healthier.
The skatepark that was packed a week ago with children out of school is now officially closed off, and despite the cold sun shining, the mood is mostly somber. It feels very nearly like going back in time, everything slower, fewer people. Perhaps an era when people were less intimate anyway, keeping their distance out of habit, posture.
I come across town for the primary reason of seeing cherry blossoms. There is one avenue, far from where I live, that is lined with cherry trees, and every year around this time they explode in colorful pleasure. If anyone asks, I suppose I will say I am going for medicine.
A honey bee lands on my jeans, appears to be resting. I have seen quite a few the last weeks; I am sure they are enjoying the clearing atmosphere.
…
There is a headwind nearly the whole ride across town and when I get there the cherry trees are full of tight unopened buds. Will be at least a week or so until they open. There are still many people out; perhaps each one believes themselves to be the exception.
I myself am one of them, and as I retreat inside with a slight sunny chill, I am left with the impression that this won’t all be over as quickly as we may want it to be. It makes sense to stay at home, and for a moment, I feel foolish for disobeying.
(Now it is time to go to your room, and think about what you’ve done)
People begin to move in slow motion, through the streets, in the park avenues. Everything functioning on half speed, even frozen, a gesture, a laugh. The ants crawling around the grass are languid. Even the birds sing slower in this time.
It seems to be uncharted territory for everybody, having nowhere to go. What’s the rush, really? That seems to be the question on a physical, as well as metaphysical, level.
All the same, certain people seem distinctly fearful, keep their distance. Others appear starved for human contact. At the take-away deli one woman can’t stop talking, all the time smiling, but in a way that feels about to break.
There is a man selling beer on the street corner, but you can only pay by ordering through their website. People seem to be making the best of it, while fearing for the worst. I walk slowly home, at the pace of an elderly woman, even slower, a walking meditation through a nearly abandoned urban wasteland.
In the revolution there will be cookies, and in the background, someone playing a saxophone.