Diary 26

Monday, April 13th

It seems that the current situation is one that is rendered in numbers. Nearly 2 million Covid-19 cases; 22,000 deaths in the USA; the Stock Market falls, then rebounds hundreds of points, then falls; 16 million unemployed. I suppose that’s what happens when we simply cannot get ourselves to comprehend what it will all feel like, or when we just don’t know what our emotions are doing.

It was also a day of unusually bad weather, with very high winds. 60,000 people in western Mass lost power. And yet – what comes through to me is the extraordinary resilience of people. Sure, there’s fear swirling around us, but most people remain calm, somewhat resigned, and many are deeply thoughtful about how their lives were before all this. They’re also thinking about how life needs to be after all this is over.

Taking a walk by the river I noticed a blue heron. Looking closer I saw nine of them in total, perched in social-distance manner in a series of trees, fluffed up against the cold. The ancients often thought of herons as harbingers of change. My sense is that change is already here, and we’d be well advised to pay attention to what it may involve.