Coronavirus Stories

          I have been moved to tears by the ways people are helping each other during these difficult days. Players in the Rotterdam Philharmonic, for instance, put a video on youtube (google it) of each of them, unable to leave the house, playing with earphones so that they were all playing together. Of all wonderful selections, they played Beethoven's "Ode to Joy."

          Our joy will not be forgotten.

          In cities all over Europe people have come out on balconies and opened windows at 8:00 in the evening to applaud and appreciate their medical workers. Seeing this phenomenon online, hearing the tumult of applause, will bring tears to your eyes, too.

          Our gratitude will not be forgotten, either.

          The NPR program 1A closes each segment with a call from someone around the country with an uplifting story. A few days ago it was about a postman in a small town who gave $1200 to each employee of a beloved local restaurant. Many of my friends who don't normally use take-out are using it now just to keep their favorite restaurants in business.

          Our generosity will pull us through.

      I am donating back to the Metropolitan Opera and the New York Philharmonic the cost of my now useless tickets, since I won't be going to New York next month, after all, and the performances have been canceled, anyway. Same with my tickets to plays at the Oregon Shakespeare Festival that have had to be canceled. My priority is that our cultural institutions, large and small, like our restaurants and coffee shops, will still be here when we emerge from our houses.

          The most important thing I can do is to stay home, so I do, as much as possible. My husband's medical condition requires frequent trips to the hospital, but I stay in the car and knit while I wait for him.

          Trailkeepers of Oregon has asked that we not go on hikes, not because we can't keep social distance on a trail (though on steep mountain trails, that, too, becomes problematic) but so we don't take risks of twisting an ankle or getting lost or anything else that might use medical resources.

          So even though there's fresh snow in the mountains, I won't be cross-country skiing this weekend. The risk is too great. I'm not a flamboyant skier, but a friend's recent experience has made me think twice about my own behavior. A very good mountain biker and a normally cautious person, and super aware of not taking unnecessary chances during these times, he thought he could safely go for a short and careful ride, but when he got to the trailhead, he found the parking lot full. "People, this is not cool!" he thought, angrily. He decided to take a short, seldom used route before going home and was riding along, slow enough but emotionally distracted, when he crashed, tumbling down the mountain, his bicycle falling on top of him. Fortunately, he didn't have to call on medical facilities, but, see? We think we are safe; we undermine ourselves.

          I can see the distraction affecting me, too. For instance, my usual practice, when I'm ready to take a shower (I have an outdoor shower), is to hang my nightgown on the inside bathroom door and my towel on the door to the outside. After my shower this morning when I reached for my towel, I found that I had hung the nightgown where the towel should be and vice versa. Such unconscious action is a clue to distracted behavior.

          So I stay home, reading, writing, cooking, sewing, knitting, gardening, walking in my own hills. I've joined my yoga instructor's online class. And I stay buoyed by words of friends and family and by the examples that come through the internet of ways people are facing this crisis. Here is one such example, a poem by Donna Ashworth. May it give you the wings of hope we all need these days.

History Will Remember

History will remember when the world stopped

And flights stayed on the ground

And the cars parked in the street

And the trains didn't run.

History will remember when the schools closed

And the children stayed indoors

And the medical staff walked towards the fire

And they didn't run.

History will remember when when the people sang

On their balconies, in isolation

But so very much together

In courage and song.

History will remember when the people fought

For their old and their weak

Protected the vulnerable

By doing nothing at all.

History will remember when the virus left

And the houses opened

And the people came out

And hugged and kissed

And started again

Kinder then before.