Trite

The problem with being an English professor is you know when you write something and it's trite.

I've drafted a hundred posts and Tweets about our current situation and then deleted them, often mid-sentence.
Posts about how current reading of desert mothers, how doing less, paring down, self-reflection, can help us, lead us, in times of trouble.
How reflecting on the past, plague emphasis or not, can help us see that there's a way through today and in the future.
The really cliche post I drafted last week about how planting seeds, throwing wildflower seeds to the wind, was a perfect metaphor for our current situation-making moves that we won't see the payoff for weeks yet.

Other Tweets or posts I've started and then deleted when I realized there were a hundred, thousand, better voices already saying all those things.

There are shared thoughts that small things, like videos of birdsong in the morning, coffee on the deck, silly animal poses, connect us and remind us of small joys.

I've seen others return to hobbies, activities like photography, drawing, doodles, knitting, crochet. I can see how producing something, making something, pushes back against feelings of powerlessness.

Like other professors I have spent a good chunk of the last week reassuring students, checking in on them, trying to make sure they're okay, while also preparing for teaching the rest of the spring and the summer semester online.

We started spring break early, to get students home, and give faculty time to plan. Technically today is our original first day of break. But I am not relaxed.

I had planned on planting the front of my house, bare at the moment. Yucca and Russian sage and wildflowers and lantana. I planned on planting honeysuckle, jasmine, and roses along the rough cut side fence. Wildflowers interspersed. Screening evergreens along the property line so I'm separated from the rotating door of rentals next door. Hydrangeas.

But staying at home means only leaving for grocery shopping, prescriptions, the essential stuff. So no Lowe's run. Plus, even though my job has said they're not planning on firing anyone, the panic of growing up poor has kicked back in. So I'm saving money other than $10 on wildflower seeds from the grocery store.

A week ago when I went to grocery shop after work there was no toilet paper or Clorox wipes, but plenty of soap left on the shelves.
Friday, it was a different story. No meat. No rice. No frozen foods, cheese, milk. Still no toilet paper but now that entire aisle was empty- paper towels, wipes, napkins, all gone. The Clorox wipes and hand sanitizer still gone, but soap still on shelves. As I waited in line it took everything I had to stuff down sheer panic.
I made it to my truck then cried. It all seemed pointless, and awful, and there was nothing I could do.

I know this is most people's experience. Some larger cities have more options, local, smaller stores, bodegas. But I'm in rural NC, so your options are Walmart outside of town, three Food Lions, and a handful of Dollar General/Dollar Tree stores. All empty-ish.

Nehi and I's lives ares similar to our long weekends and breaks. We get up, there is morning coffee and news, walkies, shower, breakfast, work til lunch, lunch, read, watch tv. We are homebodies, so staying at home is our default not a hardship.
I am worried about my students. I am worried about online friends stuck in cities. I am worried about online friends with wee ones at home. Friends with health issues.

I sent real mail out last week and ordered some cards and stamps to be able to continue to do that. I love real mail, so thought I'd share the world.

The rest all seems like treading water. Waiting for the other shoe to drop.
More cliche, trite sayings. But what else is there?
There is little to reassure us, make us hopeful. Except the small things we create at home- animals, plants, singing and dancing.

I worry that so many people are being so selfish, so self-centered when people's live are on the line.
I worry that we're not doing enough as a collective.
I worry that we'll reach the other side of all this and not have learned anything about caring for our most vulnerable, how to burn down, toss out, improve systems for the good of all.
I worry.

I've got nothing new or special to contribute here. I don't write as a way to offer answers. I write because the other option is screaming into the void.

I am grateful for all the folks working so hard to save the ignorant and ungrateful.
I am grateful for the puppy and kitteh videos.
I am grateful for Nehi, in all her weirdo, passive-aggressive, hysterical, joy.
I am grateful for my Internet friends who continue to be present.

I don't know what tomorrow, or next week, or next month looks like.
I know our stories don't stop, that life finds a way. And despite it all we'll write our ways out.