Morning Constitutional

As I sit here in my spot at the end of 12th Avenue, early Saturday morning, sipping my coffee from Portland Brew and listening to the birds singing on Easter weekend, I can almost forget that the world has stopped turning.  It's spring, the leaves in the tress in Sevier Park are green and, although it's cool this morning - the temperature is in the upper 30's - people are out walking and running.

My reverie, of course, is interrupted by the thought that less than five miles away from where I sit, people are dying of COVID-19 at Vanderbilt Hospital as doctors and nurses work around the clock to save them.  How can that be?  On Easter weekend, no less.

It's hard for me because I've always been a fatalist and a bit of a hypochondriac owing, no doubt, to the fact that my father died of hepatitis at the age of 30.  As I've said to friends and acquaintances more than once as of late, if I only knew that I wasn't going to die from COVID-19 and that no one I knew was doing to die from it, it would be easier for me to think more deeply about and, yes, appreciate the positive aspects of the temporary changes in my life.

And I do realize that's an entirely selfish thought, as thousands of people across the country and the world have died, and will die, from COVID-19.

My personal hope, though, is that at some point my life will return to a sense of normalcy, and the two to three months, maybe more, of social isolation and social distancing, will recede to a distant place in my memory.  Then and only then, perhaps I'll be able to have a better sense of perspective and to recall, even fondly, a few of the positive aspects of these troubled times, at least as they relate to me and my family.

For now, we're in it, and I'm scared.  Scared that I'll get sick and die, alone at Vanderbilt Hospital.  Scared that Jude and the boys will get sick, or Jude's parents.  Just scared.  That makes it hard, in the present moment, to look for and find - and to think deeply about - things I can and should appreciate about my life the past few weeks and, most likely, for the next few weeks to come.

Literally, as I type this, a truck drive across the street - Mid-South Produce Distributors - is walking around the outside of his truck, wearing a mask.  That's something I never thought I would see if you would have asked me three months ago.  Not in a million years.