Shelter in Place, San Francisco, April 7, 2022
By next week our Cecil Brunner rose bush will be awash in flowers, judging by the number of buds weighing every branch. But this pair is among the first to emerge and they seem a little bit alone in the early morning light.
Exactly one year ago, I wrote this:
“I woke up this morning realizing that even with all the charts and graphs, I don't actually know what the path out of this mess is going to look like, and what will greet us at the other end. Will somebody suddenly declare victory and release us all? What even warrants an all-clear? Will we see kissing in the street like after WWII? Will there be a Corona Parade (San Francisco loves parades) with everybody marching very close together? Fireworks? I saw a picture yesterday of the huge crowds that are pouring into the national parks of China right now, today, as we speak. Is that what we, too, will do? I imagine so, when somebody we trust tells us it's OK. And after that, will we all immediately book airline tickets to hug the ones we love and miss? Will music happen in a room - everyone together? Will the economy come roaring back and restaurants immediately open and make us glad we waited? Or will we tiptoe cautiously back into the world, wondering if we'll ever be safe again? These are questions that have been teasing me in the early hours of today.”
Little did I think that it would be a year plus change before I lived the questions I had posed, and little did I know how hard it would be to settle on an answer. The “tiptoeing” scenario, so far, comes closer to my reaction to my own vaccination and that - as of yesterday - of all my grown children. I am NOT running into the street. Nor am I jumping onto an airplane as compelling as that sounds. And yesterday when someone leaned over for a hug, I flinched - not visibly, I hope, but still…
While I am restless and ready to retake the reins of my own life, there is something, still, that holds me back, and it’s not only uncertainty of what is permissible and prudent and the fear that this disease has not quite finished with us yet. Perhaps there are things that I will miss from this year empty of decisions bigger than a grocery list; perhaps I’m afraid I will lose the precious intimacy of being confined and relatively entertained with someone I trust - us against invisible odds and enemies - and I’ll forget the surprise and power of friendships deepened on the screen as we each get busy and back into our lives; perhaps I fear that I have changed (or haven't), and that beyond our small green sanctuary and prison I will find outside a world into which I no longer can or want to fit. Am I afraid things will be different or more afraid they’ll be pretty much the same?