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!
Day 302: It’s Time
Shelter in Place, San Francisco, January 19, 2021
Since this pandemic began, there has been a blank space where mourning should have been. National mourning, respect for the dead, solidarity in grief. Today is the first time that we have been asked by the leader of our country to stop for a minute and think about the 400,000 lives that have been lost, and to honor their memory. This is hope. This is healing. Nothing could be more important today than to join President-elect Biden in mourning such an unfathomable loss and to dedicate ourselves, as a nation, to do better for each other going forward.
Day 301: Cleaning House
Shelter in Place, San Francisco, January 18, 2021
The sun is out, the windows are wide open and we are enjoying the sound of neighbors cleaning yards and houses: vacuums, electric hedge clippers, and the like. Good noise. Maybe it’s the holiday; maybe it’s the weather, maybe it’s the thought that in Washington for the next few days, the country will be literally and figuratively cleaning house, thank goodness, and not a day too soon. Whatever the reason for it, the busy-ness is a welcome buzz, the energy is catching.
So today I’ve started the task of trimming back the old Cecile Brunner tea rose, climbing over the lavender to reach the branches that should go. “Be bold,” the experts write. “The more you trim, the more your rose will bloom.” It’s good advice, I guess, but every year I find it hard to muster the courage to cut back the many knotted branches that have already begun to bud. So I take it slow. Over a week or so, I come at the rose from different angles. I bend and weave among the branches as thorns grab me every way I turn. I cut the most obvious and useless branches first and work my way towards daring.
Two more days and this is what I’m thinking as I duck and weave: may the clearing of the White House detritus be thorough and let's hope it will be fast.