Editorial

Many Things Can Be True at Once T he coronavirus and the related deaths of seventy thousand Americans and nearly two hundred thousand more people around the world, would seem to be a shared enemy that could bring people together – even people in a country as divided as ours.

Instead, this pandemic has handed us new beliefs over which to divide. Stay at home to save lives vs. reopen to save liberties – the liberty to roam free, to work and to support our families, to not end up homeless, to keep from going crazy, etc.

Both positions are valid and reasonable. And complicated. And important. Both are hard choices that involve sacrifice and risk. And faith. Who am I to Judge?

Celebrating my motherin-law’s 87th birthday, as best we can

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I’ve not left my home for two months – with the exception of a few journeys to the market or to stand masked outside the fence of my in-laws’ senior living home to hold up a Happy Birthday sign and balloons so that my mother-in-law, who spent her 87 th birthday in quarantine, could glimpse her cherished family from afar. Not exactly how she planned to spend her golden years. So, I’ve been following the rules pretty religiously. Does that make me a saint? I’ve been able to work from home, I’m lucky. I can put out a paper and a newsletter, and even help launch a virtual cash mob, from the comfort of a home in one of the most beautiful places on earth. So, who am I to judge?

This is a difficult, mind-bogglingly complicated and undeniably sad time. And there is not necessarily a “correct” perspective because the fact is, as I often have to remind myself, many things can be true at once.

We want our families to be safe, but we also want them to be fed, with a roof over their heads. We are sick of being home, but we’re scared to go out. We enjoy being alone with our loved ones, to an extent. We want businesses to open, but are we ready to go out and shop and dine?

I hope so, but I fear not. As governors around the country, ours included, suggest that businesses will begin reopening as soon as this Friday, my guess is that opening the doors and getting people to go in is a different thing. I suspect people will be tentative. For months and for good reason (in my opinion) we’ve been encouraged to be cautious and to stay home. When I go into a store to buy necessities, I find that there’s little contact of any kind with other humans – not eye contact, not physical contact, not human contact. Sometimes it’s even hard to recognize masked friends. People want to get in and out quickly making sure to touch as little as possible – things or people. I never thought I’d say this, as the mother of two screenagers, but…

Thank God, or Better Yet Thank D.A.R.P.A., for the Internet!

It’s poignant to take a moment and reflect that the internet was initiated by our military way back in 1976 (by D.A.R.P.A., the Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency) for precisely the sort of situation we find ourselves in today: the need for nimble and flexible communications when our normal communication lines are otherwise failing.

It’s thanks to the foresight of D.A.R.P.A. that we have much of the contact we do have today, from Zooms to internet posts to binge watching, to our entire vir-