WHAT TO DO?

As the birds called out--the dove with "Who are you? Who are you?" the borrowed song of the mockingbird, and the raucous cawing of the crows,it occurred to me that we had been here before, needing patience beyond that which we could even imagine. Circumstances were different, but the idea that life is what happens when you are making other plans calls out the same.

Our calendars have more things crossed out than written. Birthday and graduation celebrations have been postponed or re-imagined. Weddings ditto. Funerals (and way too many of them for sure) put off, leaving folks with their grief process skewed. Even journal pages seem foreshortened due to the sameness of so many days. What will we find there when looking back over the years

Journal pages: Friend Catharine is writing a memoir and so is revisiting her journal for many of the thoughts she may have had "when." As we spoke of 2001 something called out for a revisiting of my own journal from that time. There are the "Where were you when they first stepped on the moon?", "Do you remember what you were doing when you heard John F. Kennedy was assassinated?", and from that year the simple mention of 9/11 brings back hard memories.

But each of those reminds me of human resilience. The desperation felt at the changes wrought does not last. We keep on.

In the early morning hours of 9/11/2001 the journal pages include a list of goals to accomplish in the coming week. Then, "the dust continues to drift over New York City, casting a pall over everything, even hearts and minds...and we all mill around, reaching out, touching, needing to be close, and isolating ourselves at the same time, wanting and not wanting at once...."

Today, five months into this pandemic of 2020, many of the same feelings are stirred up. In the days and months following that day in 2001 Americans came together in ways that were beyond heartwarming. Can we do that now? Is this Covid-19 so very different really that we cannot reach out to each other even from the very isolation that is imposed?

I don't have the answers, only the questions. Maybe that dove is only asking, "What to do? What to do?"  Can we be patient? Can we calmly accept?