Love in the time of corona

It seemed far away until it didn't.

A novel coronavirus, Wuhan. I listened to The Daily and read the Washington Post until I hit the paywall. I updated the safety and health section of the website at work.

But it's just a bad flu. But it's only deadly if you're really old. But all the old people in China are smokers anyway. But. But. But.

It was far away until it wasn't.

Eat ginger and drink hot liquids. Stay home if you are old or immune-suppressed.

But being over 50 is a risk factor. But young people can transmit the virus asymptomatically. One day a health reporter on The Daily advised me not to ride the subway...while I was riding the subway. Suddenly I was a bullet filled with COVID-19 in an unfired gun, a sword smeared with virus on the tip of the blade.

This is how "Station Eleven" started.

I washed my hands for 20 seconds and opened doors with my sleeve. I brought a container of anti-viral wipes to a staff training session. I tried not to breathe too deeply on the subway, but the virus was suffocating.

I've never lived through a pandemic. When I think about the catastrophes I've lived through — 9/11, Trump's election — nothing about my day-to-day life really changed. Now everything is about to change.

We took a socially distant walk in the woods.

Flatten the curve. Socially distance yourself. Cancel everything. Your ancestors were asked to save the nation by going to war and you're just being asked to stay home. Have courage.

But after every catastrophe I've lived through, the message is the same: Keep moving forward. Fight on. Persist. Never before, except maybe during snowstorms and hurricanes, have we as a nation been told: Stay where you are. Touch nothing. Be still.

I keep thinking about the high school I visited on Friday, just before the world stopped turning, where students had prepared for months for a videoconference with Jessica Meir, an astronaut aboard the International Space Station. A student asked her, "What are some interesting things you have seen, felt or learned in space that you wish everyone on Earth knew about, and would it change the way we think about certain things?"

This is what she said: “The view we have up here is extraordinary, and when you see that with your own eyes, and you’re looking down at this fragile blue ball beneath you — everywhere you’ve ever been, every experience you’ve ever had, all the people I’ve ever known in my life — you see it from this unique perspective. You don’t see any borders. It makes you really understand and feel that we truly are in this all together.”

Everywhere I've ever been. Every experience I've ever had. All the people I've ever known. I have to believe that we're all in this together.