Coronavirus fear is in full swing here. We're all out walking, the last thing we can safely do, looking almost defiantly chipper. Young families and their dogs are making a speedy trickle down to the parks and on the residential streets with the mountain views. Everyone seems to be walking faster. I detect that some dogs have detected this, that their owners are pepping them with a faster pace. I made eye contact with one labrador and we seemed to say to each other "Weird times!" It was by far the most intimate moment I have shared with the species. They're a little excited now, in their stock image canine smiles and stupid tongues, as if expecting someone to throw them a ball. I still can't stand dogs.
Wide sidewalks and parks and plenty of residential roads make social distancing easy here, it's not obvious we're all doing it but we definitely are, all of us reserved, educated, anxious who listened to the latest on NPR this morning that said that the governor just decided that any gathering exceeding ten people is dangerous. We're meekly smiling each other as if to say Sorry this is all I am willing to give you.
All public schools have closed for the next month, which means that there are also a surreally large quantity of children on this 11AM on a Tuesday. The framework of society has shaken. The kids are explosively active; i saw two approximately 10yr old kids building, actually building, a treehouse. Other groups are playing frisbee and one serious middle schooler went running around the track with what looked like his dad (or was it a random man?). It is the task-driven momentum of the school year scrambling to attach itself to something. It's probably not healthy.
Although maybe it's healthy for there to be a global awareness, an undiscriminating threat that urges us to think about some things: mortality, biology, ecology, disease, community, globalism, presidencies... There is a palpable change in the air, like the coming of a new season, where everyone is prompted to pause and reflect on who they've become and what they've overlooked. People are out here reassessing what kind of new purpose will define their daily lives. They're looking around, up at the trees and squirrels, for clues.
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| These flyers are everywhere |