The Vernal Equinox and The Virus

We have just witnessed an early Spring Equinox—equal day and equal night time, twelve hours of each. I can’t help but to use this as a metaphor for the circumstances we are living in now, a time that seems extremely dark, and yet we might remember that there is just as much light if we look for it.

Earlier this week, I drove through six states, over two days, in record time, during a global pandemic. That’s a lot of prepositions! As I hurtled down highways in my Sani Wiped Jeep, I had plenty of time to think about human nature, emotion, and action.

While two brothers in Tennessee hoarded 18,000 bottles of hand sanitizer, I encountered the spritely, gray-haired lady outside a Dollar-type store in Utah. I had stopped to purchase Playtex gloves, paper towels, and bleach. As I exited the store, having actually found my goodies, the window of a big boat of Plymouth came down, and the gray-haired lady stuck out her head. “Honey, what kind of bleach have you got there? Let me see.”

I held up my prized gallon of splash-less bleach. “Does it say ‘disinfecting’?” she asked, scrutinizing the label. “Nope. It sure doesn’t. You got to get the kind that says disinfecting. Now, you be safe.” And she rolled up her window. I checked it out online, and sure enough if it isn’t chlorinated disinfecting bleach, it doesn’t do the trick.

And then there was the busy woman at my hotel breakfast counter who accepted my water bottle. “Let me wash that out and I’ll fill it up with our good, filtered water.” About 100 miles later, I took a sip, refreshed by icy water, flavored with a slice of lemon.

This is the light that balances the dark. Kindness, good humor, and thoughtfulness can be more contagious than a virus. What a wonderful world it will be, if we all leave a few rolls of toilet paper on the shelf for the next person.

As I drove, anxious to get home, my thoughts drifted to my husband’s grandmother who had contracted and survived the Spanish Flu of 1918, my grandparents’ lesson-filled stories about living through The Great Depression, and my uncles, father, and cousins who served in WW II, Korea, and Vietnam, respectively. I remembered clearly 9/11. Those, too, were dark times to weather. Times to get through. Times where we had to wait.

When an “on demand” world grinds to a halt, it’s disconcerting. What do we do? Well, maybe we actually do live in the now. Other than streaming Forrest Gump, we can calm our nerves, our anxiety, our fear with a jigsaw puzzle, a meaty book, a rifle through those dusty  boxes of photos that need sorting, spring cleaning to get every last germ out of the house, and picking up that craft project abandoned years ago. Maybe we take a walk outside, even in the snow and the rain, and we notice that the robins have come back. We fly a kite.

And finally, my thoughts, not at all mapped out like my journey, turned to social isolation. Friends have cancelled weddings, students aren’t graduating, restaurants and livelihoods are shut down, I can’t even hug my good neighbor. We are robbed right now of celebration. So, let’s light candles, hang sparkly fairy lights, play loud music, bake something decadent and eat it, too. Maybe we send comforting emails and cards to all those we love, especially those who share different religious, political, and philosophical ideology.  Maybe we connect by including more of humanity in our prayers, meditations, and gratitude journals.

When I stopped for gas and sustenance (Skinny Pop and a Slim Jim) in an off-the-beaten track station in the Nevada desert, the rough and gruff looking man behind the counter made me a cup of vanilla chai tea in his microwave. I paid him for my gas and goodies, and when he handed me my receipt with a blue vinyl gloved hand, he looked me in the eye and said, “Enjoy your life, Miss.”

And so, in this unprecedented time of a viral equinox, we do have the power to balance the gloom and doom with equal and ever-increasing amounts of light and love.