It was a perfect and perfectly clear morning for a walk. Keely decided to go down to Lake Ella, which on Sunday mornings at 7 am is empty. There was one Lyft driver lounging about, waiting for a pickup request I suppose, and I wonder about the obvious: virus distribution and contagion.
Things are getting more panicky, and the photos that came out of US airports later this morning don’t help the fears. The thing is, fear is irrational, and if people are not stopping to think about things long enough to put the 20th package of toilet paper back on the shelves, there is no helping them to see reason.
None of that is obvious on a morning walk. Quiet and slow, the soft sun of dawn reaches out over the tree tops and brightens my world by degrees.
Keely isn’t bothered either way, more worried about unpredictable ducks than large scale pandemics. She picked up a few more burrs this morning that I had to carefully dislodge, but that is the worst of her day.
I keep spying to see if places are going to be closed — the Tally Senior Center is shut down until April 10th, all events cancelled. But of course the Circle K at 7th and Monroe was in full swing. Busier or less busy? I can’t tell, honestly. I do know that more than a few cars were already pulled up in the Golden Corral restaurant parking lot awaiting the opening for breakfast.
You could not pay me to go to a food buffet for the next few weeks, but as has been noted elsewhere, American exceptionalism begins at home, with the profound illusion that “it won’t happen to me!”
Maybe it won’t, but it will happen to someone.