This is a better time than any to sit and write. To bask in the pleasure of sanctioned social distancing. To read wildly and extensively, dabbling promiscuously in one book after another. Now is also a good time to stare at my privileges in the face, as my eyes come to rest on the vast patch of green that is a private lawn.
It is the time, finally, to revisit the year 2019 in a much delayed and desultory manner, when the world around is woeful about the cursed 2020. But, this is a great year! Maybe not for the human race, but it is great for all else. The planet heaves a sigh of great relief. Religious warfare falls by the wayside—or so we’d like to think. Geopolitical borders melt under the gaze of the invisible microbe that we must fear. Such is the way of the virus, such is the way of god.
Coronavirus is a friendly reminder to wash your hands properly. It is also a friendly reminder that Richa was always right—wash your hands, don’t sit there, don’t touch that, leave me alone.
Let’s sit down and make a list of the ones we love—I just did. Let’s reconnect with them, just to be sure that we do love them. This is also a friendly reminder to cook at home, and while you do that, to spare a thought (and hours and days) for those with a hand-to-mouth everyday. What is it like for them to stay at home?
Let’s all stay home (which is that place?) to work on the things that matter and on the ones that don’t. To make to-do lists that change shape and size everyday.
In the time of coronavirus, I can stay at home, stay away from most people, stay close to some people, read and write, take leave from my work-from-home work, talk to my grandmother more often, eat better, whine because I can’t access junk food, and track the numbers as they grow and spill outside the lines every day. Like all news, this, too, is a statistic.
Now is the time to feel well, and to allow the mind to breathe down the body’s neck, keeping a close watch on any symptoms. Health anxiety, too, earns its stamp of social sanction.
2019 was a great year for me. It gave me strength and resilience, and numerous opportunities to put that to test. 2020 has been a wonderful mystery, but what’s nicer is that it has given me all the time in the world.