Our town is small, but it’s a very tight community. One woman made masks and put them on her front porch so that people could come and get them.

People around our neighborhood started becoming fussy around the doctor. We were worried not only about him, but about his grandmother. Slowly people started losing their minds. There were threats written on the wall of his house.

I monitored the Facebook groups for airline employees. Flight attendants’ posts from Jet Blue, United, Southwest, Delta, American. Not feeling well. Sick. Trying to get tested. Exposed. Quarantined in hotels. Alone.

With the help of YouTube, I sharpened my skills to get ready to make my first pattern after a break of 17 years. The whole process was very nostalgic, from fixing the fabric in the hoop, to drawing the pattern.

As a library staff member, I came to work, I was at my desk, and I thought, “I’m going to walk around the library, to move around and see all the books.” It didn’t help. Every nook and cranny that usually has a patron in it, the children’s room … they were all empty.

I was upstairs closing the bedroom shutters when I first heard the sound. What was it? I ran downstairs to find my husband and the boys standing at the open front door. The clapping was loud and rhythmic. They joined in.

Here I have seen strangers become friends; I have seen people come in for a chat after a rough day at work; I have seen young performers practicing their art. We developed a sort of community– they became a part of my life. We exchanged conversations and swapped life stories.

I’ve noticed during this physical distancing period that despite being alone in my apartment and within my busy mind, there are daily moments that demand a quieting of thoughts to make way for collective emotional expression (grief and gratitude).

With my body shaking, I returned to my room, before trying to reach out to the instruments of justice. Alas, 8 p.m. is probably too late for NGOs, and COVID-19 too urgent to address cases of domestic violence.

wet rinsed morning
wipes the face
the wind whispers
tide at the door

listen

This virus, whatever else it’s doing to us, is defragmenting the world and defragmenting me. Two years ago, I wrote a poem about a conversation with the God of death. In it, he had come to take me away, but I say, “Please let me stay back, because I have a lot to do.”

Clarity, confusion, ignorance, observation, springtime birds returning from wherever they wintered, anger, divisiveness, uncertainty, left versus right, fear, awareness, experiencing longer than normal wait times, short supplies, long lines, masks of every shape and size, solitude, loneliness, pain, every possible learning experience …

I was heartbroken, after seeing a post of Seven Sisters from Southdown National Park: ‘They’ll still be there, in the same spot, when we can all get outside again safely’. I’ve been planning to go there, waiting for this perfect spring weather, trekking its edge for hours. Now, I might not get the chance to see its beauty before heading home to Indonesia. I might not have the chance to do things that I wish for.

One day early on during the shelter in place, I was helping a provider, as an interpreter in Kiswahili. The first question the client asked was, “Why hasn’t the bus come to pick up my children and take them to school?”

One particular day, when the news about the death figures got particularly overwhelming, I imagined my window to be a patient, body still warm in the newness of death, and the fistful of sky visible from it became a hurriedly-stitched hospital gown providing a morsel of grace to the dead.

The framing of the pandemic as a war (in many countries) has echos of HIV, where the enemy is then identified as the infected person, not the virus. This has already played out in some areas in South Africa, with people being forced out of neighborhoods. Similarly, some provincial Ministers of Health are threatening (and enforcing) forced isolation for those who test positive.

There’s a stark feeling of scarcity in the air these days.
Not enough masks or PPE.
Not enough hospital beds or ventilators.
Not enough tests.
Not enough toilet paper.
Not enough time slots for grocery pick up.
Not enough competence in our current leader.

I concentrate. Turn on NPR. Scroll through my newsfeed. Open news article after news article. The John Hopkins coronavirus map. Day by Day. The pieces forming, coming together. So far still to go. Social Distancing our framing. Boundaries created. A world in turmoil. The picture, blurry in my mind. Waiting for completion.

I have never: cleaned, washed, pruned, planted, and painted so much all in the confines of my yard and house.
I now know my neighborhood, like never before.
The Jones, with their quaint cottage,
Old Man Rogers, his place no more,
The Stantons, what a mess,

In India, when the whole country was put into lockdown, an ambulance was not able to pass through our village, because we were so afraid someone would open the doors and we would be infected.