One hundred thirty-three days and counting.  That’s how long I’ve been enjoying my stay at home. This morning, after my workout in the basement, I swung open the closet door to fish out today’s clean outfit.  It’s the same as yesterday’s clean outfit.  And the day before.  And the day before that.  Comfy pull-on pants.  Soft bra.  T-shirt with a slogan on it commemorating a church connection or a running event or a community action project. Different versions, different colors.  Same outfit. Sometimes, for a ZOOM meeting perhaps, I’ll put on a “nicer” shirt.  But no one besides my husband has seen what I look like below the chest since online took over.

To my right in the closet hang clothes I haven’t worn in one hundred thirty-three days.  Real clothes, as I call them now.  Perhaps I will get an extension on the life of my clothes which are not being worn, like the refund on my car insurance because not driving for weeks on end.  Perhaps I should start using those colorful scarves to make a statement on ZOOM? At least the shoes get a workout.

As the pandemic continues to get worse in the US, life gets worse and worse in countless ways for so many people:  People without jobs worried about rent.  People with children worried about school. People with empty pantries, empty pockets, empty hopes. The historic injustice of America ranges from access to medical care to voting rights to the challenge of everyday life for people without, say, washing machines in their homes.

I can wear the same clothes day after day because I can do a wash in my home. Imagine keeping up with a family, all at home in virus time.  Are coin laundries open?  Do people have coins to use them?  How safe is it to hang out until the whole load is done?

My guess is that no one in the federal administration thinks in terms this small. But “small things” are the reality for millions of people.  Everyday life, even before the virus arrived, is a steep hill to climb for so many.

What’s my point?

Profound gratitude, for one thing.  In my comfy retirement, I can afford to give no thought to “what I shall eat, what I shall wear” while I watch the “lilies of the field” bloom in my front yard.*  My activism now happens at my computer, where I sit tapping out messages to senators and candidates and clicking Donate buttons. Does it count?  I hope it adds up.  However, I feel sad every day, infected with anger, impatience, and shock in the terrible shadow of moral darkness.

What’s the saving grace?  You’ve heard it here before:  Fear not.  Do not be afraid.  God is in charge of this universe.  Not the God I “believe in.”  Not the God someone else does not “believe in.”  But the real One in Whom our little smidgen of time matters infinitely, but only as we add all our lives together in love for one another.

*Matthew 6:25ff.

The poem below has recently won recognition in the 2020 Maria W. Faust Sonnet Contest. It is included in my forthcoming new collection, The Beekeeper and other love poems.  Watch this space for the publication announcement.

OLD LADY WITH NO COMPLAINTS

The outward qualities already met:

the white hair, glasses, wrinkles, overweight,

the random names I’m likely to forget,

the words for things (like icebox) out of date.

The comfy sweats retirees get to wear?

I live in those, with sneakers on my feet.

Do I look puzzled with a distant stare

as though I needed help to cross the street?

I might be lost, but only lost in thought.

The road not taken troubles me no more.

Amused, I sift the clutter life has brought

and shut the past behind me door by door.

My bit in time seems infinitely small,

its prizes insufficient after all.