Love in the Time of Coronavirus

(Originally published on Medium - March 15th, 2020)

Social distancing is easy this week in Los Angeles. It was already raining, after all. It’s been pouring or drizzling or misting for a week with another week in store. Maybe by the time we’re able to step out our front doors, the weather will be appropriate and what one would expect for the first weeks of spring. But today was good enough.

Walking my dog, I could tell it had stopped raining hours ago because the puddles, where they formed, were filled to half of their maximum capacity. I know the capacity because I have seen it rain here before. The hours-long dry period and the grey sky — lighter than it’s been in a few days — makes me pull out my phone to check the weather as my tiny dog squats behind a tree on the dirty, sloped hill below the 101 Freeway as it cuts through Hollywood.

Dry all day. Hallelujah.

Though it’s Sunday I, like many Angelenos, stayed in last night. I didn’t really know in any convincing way that this was an option, though I remember it happened once during Carmageddon (2011). I stayed in Friday (mostly) as well. Thursday for sure. Et cetera…

I was feeling good, physically. I was awake. Perfect day for a run, I thought, having not been for four days, and that’s just lazy, the angel living on my shoulder says. She is usually asleep, only waking when I’ve spent days on end sleeping well, returning from depletion. Here she is. Here I am. I will run. Good exercise. It clears my head. It’s the sort of thing you can do to get genuinely out of the house in the time of coronavirus.

At the top of a hill, a neighborhood or two away, a wide path lassos itself around a body of water, cutting a 3.3-mile trail. I do two loops. For those freaking out about this level of public exposure, of course you are. I assure you, there’s ample width to keep a good, safe distance from anyone you might pass, take a breath. Plus, not many people know where my running spot is, few people are ever there. I go there a few times a week and have, off and on, for 8 years. I wonder if I’ll see a single soul.

I stretch some compression layers over my body to guard against the chilly 54 degrees and head out the door before I head right back in two minutes later to retrieve the Airpods I forgot atop my desk. I’ve had them two weeks and I’ve made this mistake each time. I’m new to this.

I pull out of the driveway and navigate the route between neighborhoods and into the hills. Winding through the hills, I’m forced to stop and pull far to the side of the road to let the Hollywood Tours van get through. The van was, of course, packed with tourists from around the world. I round the last turn before the parking area begins, expecting to see a handful of cars, as usual. Not today. Cars lined the streets on both sides. The parking area, off the 4-inch edge of eroded asphalt that had washed its way down the hillside years before, and through a stretch of pothole craters, was filled with cars. I haven’t seen this. Ever.

What in the world, I’m thinking as I seven-point-turn my way back down the hill to search for parking. Walking to the entrance of the trailhead, I consider my prior reasoning — no one was supposed to be here. At what point would there be too many people following my same logic at once, crowding this vast space in a way that could reasonably create a non-trivial probability of a vector passing his illness to someone new? I guess we all have our own moral math for this one.

I stretch and take off, starting in the direction opposite my normal routine. I don’t know why. Though I began the run a bit annoyed at myself for misreading the number of people who’d be out, annoyed at them for making me wrong, I settled in soon after, remembering to execute a polite up-turn at the corners of my mouth for every person passing, being sure not to maintain more than polite momentary eye contact with any woman on the trail. I’m not interested in making someone feel unsafe with my presence, never would be. I imagined the peoples’ mindsets as they ran past me. This one is afraid. This one seems undaunted. This couple is freaking out. I wonder how many of these runs I have left before this, too, is shut down, if it comes to it. Where are the regulars? This couple is smiling as they push their infant in its stroller. This mother is strapping a small helmet to her son’s head as he steps onto a kickboard scooter. This father steadies his daughter as she pushes the pedals around for the first time, training wheels a few weeks from coming off.

Life remains somewhat normal.

Remember, I run this trail 100+ times a year. I’ve been here at all hours of the day, all days of the week. It has never, never been busy, much less thisbusy. Why now?

Well, most people won’t be working tomorrow. That has to be part of it. But, I’ve seen this trail during holidays. People didn’t flood the place in droves on the Sunday before President’s Day or any other Monday holiday. They don’t do it when things are quiet between Thanksgiving and New Year’s. Something is undeniably different right now. Not only do these people not have a job tomorrow, they don’t know when they’re working again. It’s possible that some of them may not work again anytime soon if their place of employment falls apart under the weight of the coming economic collapse.

All of this was very foreboding until it wasn’t. And it wasn’t long. I passed family after family out enjoying nature and their time together. But they’re never here. Did it really take this? Yes, it did, but that’s okay.

For many of these young families, today is the first day of a totally different life, at least for a while. Same goes for the single people who’ll eventually run out of things to binge-watch on Apple+ after they’ve exhausted Netflix, Amazon Prime, and Hulu. We’re going to be more or less stuck, more or less at home, for more or less anywhere between a few weeks and a few months. Most of us, myself included, will not be working on anything that makes us money. Whether or not money will run out before we start again is a question to be handled another day or maybe avoided entirely.

Remind yourself how truly remarkable it is that this many people know of this particular obscure location, yet none of them ever take the time to go. What, exactly, has changed? Certainly, it’s not the addition of myriad stresses, financial concerns, or fears for loved ones, tossed over our shoulders to sustain us for the weeks-long journey we’re embarking upon. No, it’s the fact that there is no choice but to procrastinate our ostensible priorities, and slow down in a way many of us have never slowed down in our lives. Most vacations are busier than this, more exhausting.

I suppose it’s a sign of maturation or comfort that I’m not freaking out about money, my career, and whatever else I spend my time freaking out about. To some extent, I’ve let that go. There is simply not much to be done.

Except for everything you would, should, and could be doing if only you had the time. Well, now you have it.

You want to teach yourself to paint or play guitar? Do it. You have relationships with your family or friends that have suffered as a side-effect of a lifestyle that said ‘go’ all the time before you eventually forgot to even check in with them, and it started six months ago or maybe ten? Pick up the phone. You can read a book. You can read multiple books. Those ones you always wanted to read. Or that one about the thing you don’t know anything about, and little do you know it, but three weeks from now you’ll have a new interest or a new skill and your life will have rerouted into a different career. Maybe you’ll be stuck in your apartment with your spouse or significant other and get bored and drunk enough to really hash out that problem you’ve been avoiding since that birthday party in 2017. It’s time.

Write the article. Write the book. Write the song. Watch fifty foreign films.

Clean the house. Clean out your closets. Hang the artwork.

Teach yourself a new skill that makes you better at your job than Dan.

Be the father you thought you’d never get the time to be, the one your kid thinks you don’t care to be. One day that kid will be thatmuch more likely to think enough of himself or herself to make good choices in life, realize who not to love for convenience, how to demand payment commensurate to their worth.

Use this time. This chance won’t come again.

I know, I know, some people are justifiably horrified at their future prospects. If you’re one of those people, use this time to turn to the people close to you, lean on your communities. If you have the ability to help these people, reach out to them.

The country has survived far worse. It’s our responsibility to use this opportunity to ease our divisions and our impotent hatred for people who disagree with us. Get off social media, or at least scale back the sarcasm and vitriol. Realize that your Twitter ‘activism’ isn’t saving lives. We’ve all gotten the memo about staying home. Screaming online about people who don’t abide your wishes is pointless. They’re not going to start listening to you no matter how many times you call them deplorable. See your behavior for what it is — a fearful and desperate attempt to grab back some semblance of control while the world shows that to be pointless. Let it go.

So many people, many of them prominent media figures, are missing this opportunity. They’re rageposting and horror-Tweeting multiple times an hour, seemingly round-the-clock, hammering away at the same agenda — proving that Trump has ruined everything. They will continue until this upheaval ends, even though the last time their cries of “wolf!” were effective were in mid-2015. It’s futile now. It has been for a long time.

When this ends in a few days, or a few weeks, or a few months, these people will have moved nowhere, gained nothing. They will be angry and self-righteous about what they’ve spent their time doing, convinced it was worth it, that somehow shaming internet strangers into staying in their homes was directly responsible for a Kentucky grandmother being saved. It won’t be.

When this ends, a great many people will emerge stronger, happier, more bonded to their families and communities, more fit, more informed, more sophisticated, more confident in their abilities, better rested, more mentally healthy. Absolutely all of that is possible for you, even amidst the stress, the financial worry, and the useless fear of the unknown, as if the known ever truly is that.

In a few days, or weeks, or months, you will be a different person.

That’s good.

Procrastinate everything that won’t be important to that person.

Do all the things that will.