Legions of people are working on our behalf. We have water in our faucets and electricity to illuminate and in myriad ways facilitate our existence. The Internet keeps us quasi-connected , which is better than nothing. I’m still getting my newspapers and the mail delivery people still bundle my mail so I can bring it in with one hand (my left wrist still healing from a break). And a therapist works to make me functional.
Farmers and clerks are still managing to provide sustenance. Television still provides both essential information and diversion. My old cat provides comfort and my vet still provides the special food and medicine to keep him going. My pharmacist conjures needed medication. Texts and telephone and occasionally Skype help us keep track of each other. And new developments, like Zoom, promise new forms of connection.
And do not (ever) discount the wondrous benefits of sunshine and emerging tulips and trees pregnant with thousands of new leaves.
And chocolate.
I have long loved John Donne’s poem, written more than 400 years ago. [And now forgive its myopic gender focus because this particular time and circumstance calls for our acknowledgement and celebration of human connections.]
No man is an island,
Entire of itself;
Every man is a piece of the continent,
A part of the main.
If a clod be washed away by the sea,
Europe is the less,
As well as if a promontory were:
As well as if a manor of thy friend's
Or of thine own were.
Any man's death diminishes me,
Because I am involved in mankind.
And therefore never send to know for whom the bell tolls;
It tolls for thee.
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