vivienne's pearls AUTHOR Diane Forman
44 | APRIL 2020
David Whyte’s poem reminds me that Everything is Waiting for You. That it’s a great mistake to act the drama as if you are alone, to feel abandoned despite the intimacy of those around you. That it’s a mistake for us to believe that while we each have a solo voice, we aren’t part of a larger chorus. It is said that we are all one, each a solitary cog in this inexplicable quagmire of a machine. Humans. Nature. The Universe. And yet. One can swoon at the swell of the ocean, but it can’t swoon back. A tree can’t really hug. Sometimes the only sound one hears is her own foot on the pavement, maybe an even strong step, but single file. Being alone in a pandemic is claustrophobic. I’ve been thinking of my ex motherinlaw, alone in a nursing home; like everyone in her situation, she’s unable to have visitors. The residents are now sequestered in their rooms, even for meals. What gives the day a shape, when there is no place to go, no one to see, no one with whom to share a word? When you might not know why your son and daughter no longer show up, and wonder if they just stopped caring about you? I was never fond of my ex motherinlaw, and the feeling was mutual. The first time I met her, she gave me a quick once over, me in my jean skirt and embroidered top, her in a crisp, belted, whitecollared dress, that might have poofed like Marilyn Monroe’s had she walked over an
