there are some patterns developing, as we all hunker down, and it's now been over three weeks, really, since we even left our house for anything more than groceries once a week.

we are lucky, compared to most, because for us staying at home still allows us to go for long walks, go back into the forest, spend the day outside, things like that. in some places people want to go to the park or the beach, just to get outside, and find it is a highly politically charged action, like going to church on sunday. it's defiant. there is social pressure against spreading the disease.

everyone goes a little bonkers, not talking to anyone, or watching way too much television, or talking to their furniture. about half a dozen of my friends posted that one post about talking to things around the house (the plunger told me to stuff it) and this is how i knew that they were suffering, alone, but still had a sense of humor. we are lucky in that regard, too, as there are six of us, and we have enough room to avoid each other but also have each other, when we are really bored, to get on each other or get some entertainment.

finally, we are lucky that the internet is working fine. the water is coming from the well. the power is still on. the food supply chain has been a little interrupted, but we are flexible in that regard. mostly life has been easy.

april is a very dry month in new mexico. i have a hard time getting used to that, because all my life, it was one of the wettest months; now, we're lucky to get even a drop of rain. the grass crackles beneath my feet. things i planted dry out and wait for the rainy season which isn't until the fourth of july. when there's a tiny drop of water, all the birds gather round and try to use it quick before i put it on the garden.

i am a creative person, but i am also very sensitive. i find it difficult to write short stories when a thousand people just died in the state i went to high school in (new york). april is going to be a rough month, my daughter says, and she's right - and furthermore, it is her birth month as well as mine. and the queen's too. we will all have a rough month. if a thousand die on my birthday, in my home state or in any state, that's a bad day. how is anyone supposed to write a short story? my creativity has dried up. instead i am obsessed with news and death. and geography, as usual. i am obsessed with where it takes off the most.

there seems to be a pattern - it's where people congregate in large numbers, and then go off in their own directions. they then give it to everyone they come into contact with, and this goes on for a couple of weeks, until they feel symptoms - suspecting something, they may limit their contact with people. but the damage has been done. and it goes about a month that way, because it takes another two weeks before they have to be hospitalized, or die. lots of people have not made it that far, but will, soon enough. john prine. boris johnson. some folks in various nursing homes. "we'll all know people," my daughter says. "it will come home to us."

we have been faithfully staying way out at the end of the road. our kids are restarting school, online. i am going back to work, online. we wait for the all clear. it may take a month, or two, or three. no telling where it goes from here.