Shelter in Place, San Francisco, January 21, 2021

It felt a perfect day yesterday, full of promise, kindness, generosity and hope. Statesmen behaved like statesmen, Republicans and Democrats alike. There was poetry and people cried. I cried a lot. I could feel the relief in my chest last night when the new First Family made it safely onto White House grounds. “It’s like we have all been hostages,” somebody wrote, “and we didn’t even know it.”

Yet no one - certainly not our new president - minimized the challenges ahead. He exhorted us to join him: “Now we’re going to be tested,” he said. “Are we going to step up, all of us? It’s time for boldness for there is so much to do. And this is certain. I promise you we will be judged, you and I, by how we resolve these cascading crises of our era.” Yes! My friends and I texted each other, we have to stay involved. How can we help? What can we do?

But then last night as the President signed his first executive order mandating masks on federal land, and the television cameras settled on the glowing pool-side lights that represent the COVID casualties so far, I received word that in the midst of all this rising hope and light, I lost a cousin to the disease. And suddenly, this morning, things look simpler. Whatever you think of our new president, whatever you hope to see (or not) in the next four years, I say this: Please stop this political theater and do the simplest thing to save yourself and me. Please. Just wear the damn mask!