Yet

Blogpost from Coronavirus Isolation

I have been noticing birdsong. And anticipating the blooming of roses and peonies.

Yet, people are sick.

I’ve walked more. Long, long walks, talking with my husband, noticing the sweet, clean breeze, the warm spring sun, and the impossible blue of the sky.

Yet, people are dying.

My husband is reading books and we’re discussing them. He has gone through my library like a wildfire. Before, I never knew him to read anything longer than a magazine article in my life.

Yet every night on TV we see people suffering, losing loved ones, not even able to say good-bye.

I cleaned out a closet and found my mother’s old diaries. And letters my dad wrote to his mother from his submarine during the war. I spent days poring over them, feeling the precious presence of my parents and the sweet innocence of their newfound love.

Yet if my mother were still alive in her nursing home I would be mad with worry, unable to visit her.

I’ve pulled out old novels that I wrote, read through them, dusted them off and thought…maybe?

Yet people have lost their jobs, their incomes. Our economy is on the verge of collapse.

My husband and I talk to each other more about things we’ve never discussed in our past busy life. Our hopes for the future. The future of our children. For other loved ones. For humanity. There is an intimacy and tenderness in our constant togetherness that we had never known was possible.

Yet.