I Have This Window; Part 2--They're Gone

The crowds have dispersed.  Several weeks ago, the scene outside my window was one of people, people, people.  They couldn’t go to work because doing so might spread the coronavirus, so they stayed home and went out for walks.  

During that period I could see that I actually had neighbors, that those houses up and down the street weren’t just arrangements of lumber but wooden boxes in which real, live people resided.

But this is California.  We expect perfection in the weather.  Cloudless skies and seventy-five- degree temperatures are just fine.  But rain brings on the fear that like metal we might rust, or like sugar we could just melt away.  And heat drives us indoors where we can inhale deeply from the air conditioning outlets, like an asthmatic getting a fix from an inhaler. 

And this is what happened.  A couple days of drizzle flushed the streets of dust, dogs, and people.  The return of mild weather didn’t last long and was followed by temperatures above the century mark.  Then a few days of cooling came, then heat again.

Now most everyone seems to be inside.  Or maybe they’re back at work.  One never knows about these things. 

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Painting the Restroom--Really?

I don't mean to come across as flippant or unconcerned, for the current epidemic is indeed serious business, and it does indeed worry me.  Nevertheless, I think  that maybe an occasional offbeat diversion helps ease the strain.

For instance, I made a morning drive today to the American River Parkway for a diverting and restful view of a beautiful stretch of the river.  At the parking lot, one of the restrooms was closed, a sign over the door advising, "Restroom being painted."

Painting the restroom?  How can they?  At a time like this!  Don't they know there's a crisis?

Ah, yes, but that ordinary activity of painting a restroom is a reminder that life goes on regardless of news media bombarding us with grim stories and body counts and frightening guesses of what could come.

Or maybe we're going to win this one with a cliche.

"Your actions help 'Flatten The Curve,'"  Kaiser Permanente emailed me.  I guess, that here in the New America, we've moved away from dramatic battle cries like "Remember the Alamo!" and "Give me liberty or give me death!"  Instead, the order to flatten the curve seems to be the marching order for the fight against COVID-19, judging by the millions of hits on search engines. 

And then there's Dr. Anthony Fauci, the director of the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), who in Newsweek (April 3, 2020) turned loose of a  sports metaphor:  "We're not even at halftime . . ." Fauci, a prominent member of President Donald Trump's coronavirus task force, said.

Fauci went on:  "What would be really nice, to continue the analogy, is 
that if we can just hold our own and then when we get back in the
second half, just come out, like, blazing. And that's what we really need
to do; otherwise, this stuff is going to be really, really very harmful to us
as a society." 

Give him credit. He didn't say, "Win one for the Gipper."

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