It's been a long time since I've been inside any building other than this house. It's been a long time since I've traveled further than Westbrook, to pick up a warehouse grocery order. It's been a long time since anyone other than our triumvirate has set foot inside my door. And yet I've been sociable. I've also managed to keep working . . . even, at the moment, to have too much work. I'm reading a lot, writing a little, planning a conference. I'm editing manuscripts, preparing to review applications for a writing residency, slowly making my way through a friend's new novel, agreeing to write a blurb for a poetry collection. Six weeks ago, I was scared: scared of illness, of losing all of our income, of struggling to keep my family fed. Now, though I don't feel exactly safe, I do feel steadier.

Of course my preexisting hausfrau tendencies have been a big help. But so has the behavior of the people around me, both those in real space and those in distant connections. Everyone has been resourceful. My younger son is figuring out how to stay focused and upright as a student. My older son is figuring out how to enjoy the chatter of his solitude. My friend Angela is inventing a safe pipeline to move garden plants and bulk supplies from her country outpost to my city homestead. My friend Maudelle has catalyzed our online experiment at the Frost Place. My friend Teresa makes me talk about Rilke. My neighbor Valerie leaves cookies on my front stoop. This list could go on and on.

Beyond any circle of sweetness looms a tar-pit thick with disease: of mind, heart, body. But it cannot negate the good. It cannot.

Creatures of stillness thronged out of the clear
disentangled forest, from nest and lair;
and it wasn’t cunning, wasn’t heed or fright
that put such softness in their step, 

but listening. 

[from Rainer Maria Rilke, "Sonnets to Orpheus," trans. Edward Snow]