Into Song

Back to the grind, I say out loud today.

I think I have exhausted myself enough feeling so much about all the deaths in the world, and about the kindnesses that people have been showing others during this pandemic.

I think about faceless frontliners, about kids they don't get to see anymore, about parents they might infect. I worry about those who are far away, about friends I love, and about my own brother and sister. I've cried watching Italy break into song, and equally in frustration about how This is being handled in our own country, and about how ill-equipped we are to handle it any other way.

There is so much to feel.

But mostly, it's the kindnesses that break my heart, and I am reminded that our hearts could break that way, too: for the bravery that is summoned everyday by nurses I don't even know, and the choices I imagine are being made by doctors who decide to be present, and whom we know nothing about. And then there are those who step up in the grocery lines to pay for items other people couldn't afford anymore, and young people going out of their way and into the store for the elderly who are too scared to step out of their car.

My god. We can be this kind, too. We can take care of each other like this.

So now, I force myself to get back to the grind: back to my notes, back to work. To put back some normalcy in my day, until it's time to look at the news again, to see more grieving, more fear---but hopefully, to also see more courage, and more people breaking into song.