Maybe the nightmare of uncertainty will be over by the time you read this. Maybe we will have some answers, a vaccine, or mitigating strategies will have contained the unseen enemy traveling the globe.
But for now, we are here.
Here for me is a condo in Florida. Rented as an experiment to escape the gray gloom of March in Chicago, it has lived up to its sunny reputation.
What we weren’t counting on was managing our beloved dog’s care during liver failure. We weren’t anticipating a marauding coronavirus and its impact on the financial markets; sleepless nights for my trading husband, followed by white-knuckle days.
We weren’t planning to be worried about our grown children’s travels; to be sad when they sensibly curtailed their visits; to be accepting but nervous when some travels carried on.
Long FaceTime chats with friends in Italy and in Spain gobble my days. One has been under lockdown; the other, trying to get home to the UK.
Our lanai overlooks a pond.
The pond is serene, with white noise delivered by a fountain. It gracefully cascades in predictable patterns. Water birds delicately nose the periphery. Others paddles about. Snowy egrets high-step into hibiscus, searching for lizards and the like.
Fish nests have been burrowed into the sand, and lone parents guards eggs I cannot see. The turtles know they’re there. One comes by, and despite best efforts to encircle and deter, nature takes its course.
The turtle prevails.
Golf course fauna deliver more material to ponder. A bald eagle lands where it wants, in a sand trap, near my ball. An alligator languishes on the other side of a water hazard. I am glad he is far away.
My ball lands in pine needles, and what I thought were butterfly wings turns out to be the warning postures of a cotton mouth pit viper. Poisonous, of course.
Another bullet dodged.
Our perceptions seesaw between extremes. The glory. The gut-wrenching.
Playing the long game, gathering lessons, we settle in.
This too shall pass. (c)
