There is More To Admire Than to Despise

I almost want to hear something explode. Instead, I hear a hollow distant air in this usually bustling Manhattan neighborhood. But the quiet is not peace, because I know that everything is coming apart. Fear is ravenously enveloping us, while a profound despair slowly descends. It’s like an invisible storm that will steal our months, our work, our loved ones, and even ourselves. It is a darkness we have had the privilege to never know. We have read books about trying times—wars, diseases, heartaches—only to put the book down and have another cookie. Only now, we cannot put the book down, and there are no cookies left because we ate them all yesterday.

As recent as the beginning of last week, we were collectively innocent, going about our days sighing, joking, complaining, loving. Taking for granted the daily workings of our normal little lives. Now, the only thing most of us can do is stay inside and go on existing, puttering around our homes pretending the world as-we-knew-it is not ending.

So, in an effort to extract out the particulates of hope, here’s to the simple things that bring a new kind of joy now:

Here’s to the glorious morning sunshine which resets us to the mode of irrational hope, to the hard wringing of the mop, to very long warm showers and voraciously blooming houseplants. To the rising dough, and the swirl of milk in our teas and coffees. To music, which is almost as good as the sun. Here’s to the dust which gave me something to clean for days, to the recipes that rose from the dead, to my oven that works despite years of neglect, to the half-read books calling around me, to the friends that always make me laugh. Hell, here’s to lying awake at night with anxious half-headed epiphanies. Here’s to the 7 lemons I am hoarding in my fridge to make things seem fresh, even when they are canned. Here’s to the birds that chirp and fly around without knowing anything of the darkness. Here’s to email and FaceTime and texting and social media. Here’s to all the Words-With-Friends games I am losing. Here’s to hand soap and hummus and the many hugs that will come again some day. I love it all, with a new kind of love which is standing just as tall as pain.

“What we learn in time of pestilence: there are more things to admire in people than to despise” -- Albert Camus, “The Plague”