Portland now has a shelter-in-place order, starting at 5 p.m. So Tom will be going to work today; after that, who knows? Construction is still listed as an essential service, but, clearly, renovating an empty vacation home is not one, though as today's definitions go it's also not particularly dangerous--not like bagging groceries. One friend's wife, a doctor, suits up every day in hazmat gear and runs coronavirus tests in a tent. Another friend works long hours in a group home, where social distancing is impossible. Tom's biggest danger is cutting off his hand with a table saw. Why should I worry?

That's one of the strangest elements of this crisis: the reconfiguration of risk. Today, logging is probably one of the "safest" jobs around. Out in the woods alone, just you and your chainsaw. Nothing to fear, except for dropping a tree on your head, or amputating a leg.

Yesterday I did manage, finally, to get some paying work accomplished. I finished up one editing project and shipped it to the press, then got a chunk done on another. I managed to start working my way through the stack of "read this, friend" items in my inbox . . . items I welcome, that I want to spend time with--poems, essays, family histories--but they all arrived at once, and I've been distracted by "survival," whatever that means. So many definitions are in flux.

Meanwhile, Paul has been watching online performances of Greek plays, trying to get through a week of "vacation" before his classes start again on Monday. Together we shoveled some snow and went for a walk and admired a toddler who was happily jumping up and down in slush. Alone in his Chicago apartment, James cooked a stew and went for an evening walk and cleaned both of his bikes thoroughly and mulled over new ways to attach his window blinds. Tom drove home from work and along the way stopped at five different grocery stores, none of which had even a single bag of flour. I did some mending. A mourning dove sang.

This afternoon I'll bake some bread, and tonight I'll make roasted butternut-squash soup (not sweet, but with garlic and sage), black-pepper croutons, and a big composed salad (canned tuna, hard-boiled eggs, capers, anchovy paste, greens, cherry tomatoes).

I'm thinking of you, in your own turmoil and tedium. Isolation is easy to achieve, nurturing solitude not so much. Yesterday, I shared the following poem with two friends who are struggling with deep fear and loss. Though I'm not a particularly religious person, I turn to George Herbert's poems--especially this one--as a stay and a solace in times of misery. It's a prayer, so maybe try saying it aloud. To me, Herbert's words in my mouth do feel like a gift from God. 

Prayer (I)

            George Herbert

Prayer the Churches banquet, Angels age,

            Gods breath in man returning to his birth,

            The soul in paraphrase, heart in pilgrimage,

The Christian plummet sounding heav’n and earth;

Engine against th’ Almightie, sinners towre,

            Reversed thunder, Christ-side-piercing spear,

            The six-daies world transposing in an houre,

A kinde of tune, which all things heare and fear;

Softnesse, and peace, and joy, and love, and blisse,

            Exalted Manna, gladnesse of the best,

            Heaven in ordinarie, Man well drest,

The milkie way, the bird of Paradise,

            Church-bels beyond the starres heard, the souls bloud,

            The land of spices; something understood.