In Real Time, with Real Hope

It dawned on me today, that only now, more than 50 years after I read The Diary of Ann Frank, do I truly understand the extraordinary nature of her work. I'm a captive in an apartment, hiding from a virus, not an army.  My "captivity" is nothing compared to hers. There is no one to get on my nerves, soldiers are not hunting me. I have plenty to eat. Her writing seems to me now on the level of Michelangelo. She not only wrote about her experience, but she also had to write through it--yet the young woman's words live on, nearly a century later.  

During World War II, the British government encouraged its citizens to keep diaries. These personal memoirs and annotations continue to this day to be invaluable sources for research and understanding. We can all take a lesson from the beautiful Anne. Consider writing down or recording your observations and experiences, even your fears and dreams during this time. I hope people are doing that now--around the world--and that we will learn from a collection of registers of human life during this time, at a point when we can refer to "that" pandemic, placed squarely in past tense

I learned today that since my last post two days ago, 6600 more Americans have died. I also learned my local supermarket has discontinued its anti-virus practices, such as physical distancing. They are not requiring customers to wear masks. Given my own health status, this means it will be a good while longer before I can consider going on my own to the store. My physician agrees. How much longer? Who knows?

I wake up with a vague queasiness in the pit of my stomach, a mind full of fear, and a desperate need to make my too-quiet life still matter, a life that used to feel connected meaningfully to others. The connections are still there, but made artificial and difficult by the viral invasion. To sit in a cafe and share a coffee with a friend seems like something I read about in a novel--and impossible to do now. What does it matter if I dress well or fix my hair? Who sees me now, but my cats? How do I matter in the center of this isolation? 
What do you do when you can't do? Where do you go when you can't go? Doing and going were such big parts of my life for so long. 

For the present, I'll have to hope for things other than leaving the house and keep being grateful to be safe indoors and not suffering anything other than desperation to be normal, see family and friends in person, and continue coping with my limitations. Compared to what Anne Frank lived through, my life is luxury.

I hope you are safe and healthy. I hope, like me, you will keep looking for hope, even as the world seems to be narrowing upon us. The evidence makes me exercise caution to survive, but hope is my key to feeling alive. I will not sacrifice it, not yet, not for a long time to come. 


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Great article on why to wear a mask and how it can help our economy.