Spring is Going Viral
Aaah April. Sunshine, flowers, Easter. Spring is a happy time unless you’re sulking, panicking even, over the C’s: China, Coronavirus, Consumer Confidence, the Crash, and always Climate Change.
Who knew when wishing everyone “Happy New Year” in China their New Year instructions were to quarantine in place?
Like most of the planet, Wuhan was not a place I’d ever heard or thought about.
Remember when our president told us is this virus would be over by April? April Fools.
Friends have cancelled their cruises and trips abroad. Some are stockpiling food and cash and waiting for the vaccine.
I have a friend who swears turpentine is making a comeback. Just google it.
I had a flu shot and still got the Type A flu. If the flu is coming for me, I’m sort of fatalistic.
Many remember the polio epidemic in the ’50s with people isolating or the Y2K when some stockpiled batteries, cash, food, and flashlights because rumor had it the entire power grid would go haywire.
With this being a global pandemic and everyone connected through the internet, we are in uncharted territory. People are afraid and without much to do, bored.
Yet there are some silver linings.
Families are cocooning and moving forward. There are lots of things to do.
Remember spring cleaning? Now you can clean out those closets, polish the silver, organize old photo albums, weed the yard, and maybe an elderly neighbor’s as well.
Share stories, ideas, meals. Sing, dance, pray, play together. Turn off electronics and read a family book, like Robinson Crusoe. Play cards be it go fish, gin rummy, or building card houses. Play charades, hopscotch, 20 questions.
Call people. Teach someone to sew on a button, mend, crochet, macramé, fry chicken, or make a casserole.
Fingerpaint with chocolate pudding with toddlers. For teens, teach them how to change a tire, fix a faucet, iron a shirt.
The stock market has gone beyond correction, and with economic volatility, the presidential election is now in play. Yet babies are still being born, and couples are falling in love, so the world is still spinning on its axis.
As for me, I’m going to go outside and pull up my pansies and plant begonias… like I do every April.
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