Listicles from a Plague Year

Stay off Facebook, they say. Stop watching the news. Meditate. Do yoga. Use this time to X. Now is the time to try Y.

Here's a list of ten things you can do to fend off boredom, address your fears, organize your home, and be a better parent/human/pet-owner/sustainable-gardener/atheist/christian/buddhist/poet/ teacher/citizen/doer-of-anything/while-not-doing-anything during the pandemic.

Hey, List-makers!

I'm not bored. I have plenty to do. Plenty to think about.

And I'm not doing any of it. Hardly.

More than one well-intentioned person has pointed out to me that Shakespeare did some of his most remarkable writing during plague times. That's awesome for him. I'm socially-distance-walking around my neighborhood taking pictures of flowers and posting them on IG because that's about the extent of my mental and emotional bandwidth right now. Oh, and I'm also lecturing my FB friends on the importance of political engagement and voting. Really.

The woman who delivered groceries to my door today was at least ten years my senior. I'm 57. Let's get fucking politically engaged over that privileged cancer patient shit. How did my cancer somehow trump her seniority? Isn't she supposed to be getting groceries delivered to her, too? Damn.

Breathe. Be grateful for now. Live in this moment. Yes. Of course. I'm especially good at that. I have metastatic cancer. I'm grateful for every day I wake up. I know the future is imaginary.

Seems like lots of other people are registering that too. We can talk all we want about hope, about "after this." I do it all the time, as in "for my next treatment after this, I'll try X." But we don't really know, do we? Not really. Not ever. It just feels...more so not ever now. Weird, huh?

I still think, though, that most of us are going to be okay. Eventually. That's not a scientifically supported observation though, just a rough calculation of the human spirit left on the planet keeping it spinning. A lot of folks won't be okay though; that's true, too—I think especially of those directly traumatized by illness, and the first responders and medical folks who have had to deal with impossible circumstances. And the economic catastrophes everywhere. But somewhere, in the misty not ever...well, I don't really know. Maybe ask one of Macbeth's witches.