Today's writing

Outside lurks the enemy, too microscopic for most to target. Ten months since we last sat in a café, a restaurant. Nearly a year since we reliably sent our kid to school. Everywhere you look: death and neurosis. Don’t stand so close to me, will you? All of a sudden we are all Sting.

 

The spiral happened quickly. We were hearing about some crazy Chinese shit and then all of a sudden the governor was like, no big gatherings. Then no medium-sized gatherings. Then finally it was stay home, stay safe, stay solo. We laughed nervously and updated our Facebook statuses. We bemoaned the fact that our children were going to be home from school for a projected three weeks. The only way I figured I could handle that was because Danny was working from home. But I would handle it. It would pass.

 

Sure it would. Absolutely.

 

Life now: a series of emptyings and fillings, of planning dinner at breakfast, then, fatigued by doing so little and yet so much, contemplating take-out by the time the sun sets. Target and Trader Joe’s our escapes when we can no longer pretend to appreciate nature during our walks. Sex a refuge when we’re not so blasted from a full day of being a family unit, the togetherness a viper around all our necks.

 

Tell me this a year ago and watch me laugh. Derision, cynicism, ignorance. Not like the bottom wasn’t falling out – politically, professionally, personally. Not like we went from riding in the glass-bottomed boat to being trapped under it in one motion, the triumphant swish of that tail when predator devours prey.