March 20, 2020

A week ago at dawn I was in Dublin.

Delta canceled my flight to Charlottesville because of weather, and keep reminding me of my rescheduled flight, which I guess was yesterday. Tried to cancel the whole thing, but Expedia didn’t, and doesn’t, respond even to the most heartfelt plea. Times of crisis let you know whom to trust and whom not.

The first day of spring was a calm glory. My yard is pink and gold. I shopped at two nurseries and planted, planted, though I doubled down on old space and have not yet dug the new gardens I have planned. Both nurseries received huge delivery trucks as I stood, so they are planning for a season. Bought lunch at the Wayside, took it to eat in the park beside the French Broad, where there was plenty of space between the picnickers. They didn’t give me a fork for my macaroni salad, so I had to squeeze the plastic container and render it into a scoop to get the food into my mouth. Kept thinking how odd it was that there were no squirrels or scavenging birds to throw scraps to in the little park.

You pick up habits in a time of plague. The shower I took yesterday afternoon was the first in a week, the first since the day before I left Ireland. Stephen had warmed the water up for me on that last morning, but I wasn’t in the mood.  I checked every day, and I don’t think I stank. Maybe somebody will tell me different.

Am sitting now in the study, so there will be no excuse not to start the day with writing.

Reading the New Yorkers that came while I was away. All the reports on theater and concerts! Those pages must be blank this time. What on earth will they report about?

Theaters will have to reestablish themselves. Can they? Will they? Will the old ones die of their wounds and new ones rise in their place? Will everyone be doing Greater Tuna and Annie forever to get their money back? Should I start now to organize a gala that will be the Phoenix Rising on the last day of the Plague?

Discovered that there is no record in my passport of my ever having been in Israel. How did that happen?