Welcome
It is March 22, 2020. I am sheltering in place, as the fortunate ones among us are. I have texted, posted messages on Facebook, played Words With Friends more in the past three days than I have in the past three years. I take my temperature every three hours. Perhaps three is the magic number, I think, as I face what may be The Year of Magical Thinking. From Joan Didion, I veer towards Gabriel Garcia Marquez: Love in the Time of Cholera becomes Life in the Time Of Corona. I read Bring Up the Bodies by Hilary Mantel, noting the references to plagues in London and of Henry VIII’s escapes to the countryside. I play word games with book titles: Tinker Tailor Toilet Paper, For Whom the Paper Rolls, Charmin Billy. I edit the nine thousand photos in my iPhone, pleased with myself for buying way more storage than I will ever need. Then I import way too many of them into Shutterfly, order the special-offer freebies (do I really need another mug? A canvas tote bag? Apparently, I do.) Am I shocked when the cost of shipping these items exceeds the amount I would have paid had I not taken advantage of this promotion? No. I have thirty minutes to cancel; I weigh this time against the hours I spent choosing these photos. I decide to keep the order.
And why did I hunt down these particular images? They have one common theme: a deep longing for connection, and the loss of it. Pictures from the Guthrie Theatre, where two weeks ago my husband and I saw Twelfth Night. From my son’s graduation; his master’s degree in Special Education cannot now benefit his autistic students, incapable of remote learning. Photos of my daughter, taken at a niece’s wedding and at lunch at a favorite restaurant with my future daughter-in-law. Of my husband, at the bustling patio where we celebrated our fortieth anniversary.
And as I shelter in place, I work diligently on what I hope is the final draft of my novel, The Empty Places. I’ve been working on it for I don’t know how many years, setting it aside as I tore apart and rebuilt my life; as I did the same with the house where I and my husband of forty years now shelter in place. Our home is not one of the empty places the women in my novel work to escape from. It is a place of love and light.
Welcome.
