March 16, 2020

So, upon return the magnolia and the nectarine and the peaches were blooming, and there were as many daffodils as I remembered planting. This is the first time in five years the magnolia blossoms were not blasted their first day by a freeze. The grape hyacinths have made a little island. Drove to Reems Creek and bought a pear tree to replace the one that failed, planted it in one of the places I never thought of planting it until I was home looking at the ground. Waiting for God to water the tree and the roses.

I understand the precautions every takes to prevent the spread of the virus, but I fear something. It is not the disease. . . rather something in the precautions themselves. What if we never pull back from “social distancing”? What if people who have always hated intimacy use this as a pattern for all times to come? This sudden unanimity– though it seems so salubrious– would make totalitarianism even easier than it has proven lately to be. Not that we should rebel. . . not that we should open the discos. . . perhaps just that we could be more publicly regretful of the lost quality of life. I take on faith that isolation is the way to fight this disease. I remind myself that I am in the group of those in special danger.