Someone did this. That’s the first thought, in the black dawn, after the drops of rain. All the countries are following the same pattern of shutdown. My dog is beside me, and all I can think about is how I am going to get him a giant bag of kibbles, and his cans, and where I am going to do that, today.
The thought occurs, they hoarded this too.
We are all in some kind of lost landscape now. It’s the same. It’s just after six, and I think of my grandmother saying, “It is always darkest before the dawn.” She’s right. The light will make it easier, writing makes it easier. I spent the morning looking at headlines. I could look at the maps. Looking at the maps only makes it worse. Why some places and not others?
I think about sewing a mask, maybe two or three. I’m not sure what to wear when I go out now. I have gloves from Thailand I was able to find. Latex gloves from an Import store, the one I found the toilet paper in. It is hard to adjust to being unfree, to having to wear certain things. At the market, people in the blue paper masks. I wonder where they got them.
To the south of me a city sprawls for miles.
To the north it is the same.
They have stripped the stores.
There are hundreds of videos on how to sew masks, from all over the world. In a box there is fabric, I could try. The last two times I went out I wore a muffler, that I could wrap around my face. I don’t understand the idea of all the people who order online. I like to go out and about, say hello to the people I know in places. It’s this terrible feeling of missing them, just people who own restaurants, people working. The stores are closed. There is the worry of how any of this will ever be able to come back after a few months. How things will look after that.
There are theories. https://www.vox.com/2020/3/4/21156607/how-did-the-coronavirus-get-started-china-wuhan-lab
There are a million questions. Someone knows the answer.
Dawn has broken over the city. I can still hear the owls and the birds. There is the matter of facing the day, facing the speeches, trying to eat. Trying to think of anything that can make this seem normal. At the store there were flowers. They were all on sale, and they are joy. The wildflowers are up. Maybe it is the smallest things, that can feed the soul in so much silence. The very smallest things.
I planted Sweet Peas.
I can work in the garden. I can try and breathe, through the fear. There are youtubes of others and how they are coping. I can make bread. For now I can make some bread.
I feel sad about Facebook, not being able to see my friends. I think right now I am socially isolating even from that, as there is not a way to speak about what we are all going through.
Adrienne Wilson 