Pontiac Grand Am

Dear Friends,

Your reserve tank is bigger than you know. And the thing about a reserve tank is, you don't need to know it even exists until the light goes on and you keep driving. Trust me. I once made it from Upstate New York to Penn Station in a 1997 powder blue Pontiac Grand Am with the light on for the last two hours.

This is not the situation we want to be in, but here we are. To be really clear, I don't mean that we need a reserve tank because we are sick of being in our comfortable homes with WiFi and cable. I don't mean we lack the ability to exercise free will and go out and expose ourselves to Covid (again if we've had it).

These United States have become experts in limiting individual choices in many areas, especially for women, but our choice to un-quarantine (or is it "de-quarantine"?) is pretty easy to override just by doing it, with few repercussions (although the repercussions are worse in predominantly black and brown communities). I don't recommend willfully ignoring Fauci and the epidemiologists, but you are capable of doing that.

Either way, here we are. March, April, May. No antiviral drug. No vaccine in sight for 18-months at least, the scientists say. There is no magic. I keep looking back in time and wondering about the signs. My son was hospitalized for a week with "Kawasaki like disease," that they then called "MRSA infection," in 2015. Now we have a "Covid related virus" in children that looks very similar. Have viruses been screaming along with the climate, telling us to change?

I don't know the answer. There is a lot of loss now. Life. Freedom. And we add many things we do not want: fear, anger, blame, sadness, hopelessness, and loss of faith. I lost a neighbor who I was very friendly with today to this terrible virus. Here we are, with all of these bad things staring at us across the room. Not moving.

Courageous friends, stare them down. Stop fighting. Call Sweden's approach heroic if you want. Call Singapore's smart if you wish. Call ours disorganized and shameful (I agree), but remember, we will move through this. Be prepared to drive down your reserve tank longer than you want to, and then please practice acceptance. That light is going to go on at some point, and you're going to have to keep driving. Go. You are not alone. This will end. Love you. XO