Time Travel

Sometime around March of 2020…

Three weeks ago…

The temperature was in the high sixties today. Sunny with an occasional firm breeze and a few passing clouds sheltering the sun from our illness for a few moments. The days continue in this surreal whir of existence. It feels as though there is a muffler on time, and space is mired in a gelatinous film. The weather, nature itself, is deceiving. That hardly seems possible. The city I now call home has ordered us to Stay at Home or Shutter in Place. We’re allowed to run and hike and walk and ride our bikes, so long as we stay six feet away from other human beings and don’t spit or sneeze or cough or high velocity single nostril project snot on them. We’re also allowed to do essential business such as buy food or alcohol or weed or hardware or lumber or a toilet or go to the hospital.

Today…

That feels like an eternity ago. Not much has changed other than our minds and emotional content. More people have died. Many have been sick. Many more are and have been healthy. People seem to be doing what they understand to be their civic duty. We pray or hope or wear masks and gloves or stay home or work in the garden or all of the above. We try not to be afraid.

Some time between…

I walked out my front door tonight, a being confounded by the news and health and illness, absorbed in my thoughts, in a clutching embrace with my own feelings, and as I stepped down from the threshold onto my porch, I looked up. The early evening sky was shimmering with astral glory. Venus in the western sky glowed like an illuminated crystal, slightly to the south stood Orion, proud and gallant, the waxing crescent moon comfortably between the two. I was overcome with a merging of awe and shame, as if I was receiving the gentlest scolding from a benevolent and stunningly powerful force saying, “We’re still here.” I felt small. The world and our troubles felt small, though not insignificant. This compassionate force was not belittling the suffering and the challenges of our human race or of our planet earth. It was simply reminding me there was more out there. More working in grandest harmonies than my feeble consciousness could decipher or encompass with my paltry feelings or intellect.