Without words . . . .

Without words . . . I stumble.

I have not written in several days. And I feel the lack. Of words. Falling on the page. Slipping from my fingertips, thoughts into words. I did not think I would, could feel that again. This is not a feeling of overflowing with an overload of words. Or a feeling of drought. Or a feeling of tumbling from one thought to another. Instead, I have been caught up in the intensity of Covid-19. Snaggd inn the permeability of coronavirus. Waylaid. Consumed for a while with worry. Worry is the wrong word. I’m sitting in the middle of a moment of helplessness. I find I am too close to the middle of this corona. Distance would help, but there is none. It is not out there now. Now it is here.

Someone one that I love more than my life likely has been infected with this virus. The classic symptoms present themselves. So far, it is mild. A gift in its mildness. So many others do not have this gift. And for them, it is disaster. Disabling. Depriving. Rather than discomfort and dis-ease. But even this gift does not reduce the distilled terror, I can hardly write the word, the unraveling of my soul for this one, but I also feel for those millions of others caught up in this what-ever-it-is. I cannot slough it off. I cannot separate this awareness from my soul. I cannot separate this part of me that is love from the rest of me. I cannot even find the boundary of where it begins and ends. Loving those ones in our lives like this makes it impossible for all of us who are here, now. It is like riding an avalanche. No control. Only breaking time to be aware. To stop time for millisecond to millisecond in the middle of the slide. And know that this is where I am. Where we are.

And this one is not the first in my family. A great-niece has entered her third month dealing with the ravages of the cytokine storm that impounded her body. She is in the hospital tonight. We silently send her our love.

This is different from worrying about needing to wear a mask. About not being able to get my haircut or go out for dinner or buy a new top or go to a movie or a thousand other things in our lives that make us impatient. This, this is why our lives are on-hold. Because we love. Because we care. Because this is what we do when a tiny strand of RNA multiplies into the billion-trillions and takes control of our lives of our bodies. We care enough to set our doings aside, we care enough to find a way through this, and we care enough to be willing to start again when it is done. When we can breathe again. When we can breathe.

This is what we who love do.

Wishing and hoping you are well.