may you live in interesting times

How quickly the world can change in a week. Here we are, friends, in the midst of a global pandemic. Toilet paper has become our nouveau-currency. My back-up husbands Tom Hanks and Idris Elba have the virus. And dogs are rejoicing worldwide, as their humans inexplicably sequester themselves indoors and take them on extra long walks.

I heard anecdotally that dogs have a more loose conception of time than humans, so that when you leave them at home, they don't understand if you are leaving forever or for just fifteen minutes. Their pack mentality then tells them, sorry pal, your alpha is gone. Probably forever, buddy. Have fun figuring out where you food comes from now! I'm not sure if any of this is true.

Regardless, in this turbulent time, I'm grasping to any scrap of good news. Dogs! Are! Happy!

In a matter of days here in Chicago, the city that goes to work, the governor has banned gatherings of 1,000+ people, strongly discouraged 250+, and insisted upon staying home whenever possible. People panic-bought out the grocery stores and restaurants and bars shuttered overnight. Folks are losing their jobs left and right and the economy seems on its way to bottoming out. People are falling very, very ill, people are dying.

So what do we do when the world feels unmoored? FREAK! OUT!

I'm kidding. As to ideas on how to spend these interesting times, here's what I'm doing.

Wake up, make your bed. Put on the coffee, start the good music, a hot shower and a pause to breathe deep. Be patient and limit the times a day you check the news, if you can help it after what is necessary. 

Do work. Make lists of all the things to do. Do not be beholden to this list. Settle in for the long haul.

Be grateful that you and your partner have jobs and can work remote. Take for granted your daily moves. The walk to the train, the long commute reading or listening to podcasts, the greetings for your colleagues, the office cup of coffee and morning emails. Lunch breaks in the Art Institute gardens, a short walk to exchange library books, a long walk to Trader Joe's in the sunshine. 

Flip backward through the agenda, noting the normalcy of life just one week ago. Flip forward, slashing through meetings and deadlines and plans all canned for the next month. 

Pad softly down the hallway and watch your husband bent over his morning tasks. Feel quietly grateful for this unplanned enormity of forced time together. 

Eat breakfast late. Make more coffee. Put on recordings of your symphony. Dust off your weirdest playlists. Sing along to 70s folk.

Respond to despondent emails with hope. Talk to your colleagues and to your donors. Communication is the best tool we have right now. Catch up on those work projects you always put off for the off-season. 

Quick dance break. Download TikTok. Feel shockingly confused because you are thirty years old and do not regularly interact with teenagers. Try the Renegade dance once. Delete TikTok.

Work some more. Everything is on pause. Reach out to your colleagues in the other cities. Sign off every email, "Hope you are healthy." Research ways to help in your community. Feel small and helpless but squash these untruths and do your fucking part.

When there's no more work to be done today, shut it down. 

Go on a long walk in the sunshine. Smile at the dogs, the dogs who are, again, manifesting their best canine selves. Keep the recommended distance from people and understand that this is deeply unnatural, but necessary. Wash your hands when you come back. Enjoy the sunset on your deck, you lucky bastard.

Nurture your interior life. Read some more. Dig out Korean language lesson materials. Revisit your manuscripts. Remember creation happens in dark times. Soften. Write write write. 

Root new plant cuttings. Order tomato and radish and herb seeds online and feel slightly dramatic but remind yourself this was a spring project all along, well before the virus changed everything. Mist your current plants so they don't feel neglected. Ignore how you are anthropomorphizing your plants. They are living beings too. Wonder, can my plants get the virus?

Cook simple and healthy meals. Cook elaborate things, because you have the time, because you can center on this, this frivolous-feeling treasure. Bake bread and yes, eat chocolate, yes, eat garbage. But eat mostly vegetables, please. Plan for kimchi. 

Drink a finger of fine whisky because you are probably going to have to cancel your big Scotland trip in May. Postpone and feel sad but do not be discouraged. People are facing way bigger, more important problems in the world right now. Scotland will always be there; Scotland can wait. In the meantime, develop scotch palette. 

Read Murakami, find solace in his atmosphere of the weird and the rote and dwell within his unhinged, parallel worlds. Remember how you said, I will never have enough time for all the books I want to read. Now you have some time. Read read read.

Do puzzles and play board games and watch Youtube and TV and movies. Indulge your inner child's wildest dreams and treat yourself to the new Animal Crossing game. Light a nice candle. Do a sheet mask. Tend to the apartment. Keep it clean and tackle those organization and decor projects you haven't had time for. 

Say out loud to your husband, "This is all fucking crazy." Say it to yourself. Say it a few too many times in one day, spiral into anxiety, have a panic moment and then recover. Cry on each other as needed. Relax. Stitch yourself closer to him, laughing often about how neither of you expected your first year of marriage to be like this. Chase each other around the apartment like a pair of energized kittens. Hold tight to your big dreams and your plans for each other.

Avoid calling your parents round-the-clock. Acquiesce to your mom's demands to drink ginseng. Check in on your friends more. Everyone is scared. Everyone has hope. Demand pet pictures. Schedule video chats and virtual happy hours and lunch dates. Whisper to yourself in McConaughey-voice, "time is a flat circle." Tally your days spent in your cozy clothes. Tell your friends you love them; tell them often. 

Write, revise, write some more, revise. Appreciate this time to turn inward. Validate yourself. Accept every riotous emotion. Keep hope and make your summer plans. Keep going.

Remind yourself that after everything else, love is immutable. That there is hope. That there is always hope. That the modern world has never endured this and the weeks and months ahead are unknown but we do know small and beautiful things, that they are singing on balconies in Italy and the dogs are still ready to play. 

Keep going.