Focus on the Strawberry
The best thing to go viral this week? Videos of quarantined Italians singing to each other. Listen to tenor Maurizio Marchini belt out "Nessun dorm" from his balcony and I guarantee you will feel better, even if you have a fever. Especially if you have a fever.
Sadly, inspirational behaviors don’t command much coverage right now, in favor of 24/7 reporting on infections, deaths, and overwhelmed healthcare systems. As someone whose inner circle is squarely Boomer, I’ve been consuming these COVID updates like vitamins since the US outbreak began. But now that we’re all holed up in in our homes for the unforeseeable future, I’m starting to realize that compulsively checking my inbox and news feeds isn’t equipping me for action. It’s just immobilizing me with anxiety. The irony is awful: in order not to become sick, I’ve made myself an invalid. For fear I’ll be robbed of my health, I’ve denied myself its privileges. And being of a certain age, I simply can’t afford to waste a day. Even in, especially in, quarantine.
This realization summons to mind that Zen story where a man, chased by a tiger to a cliff’s edge, and hanging by a vine that two mice are gnawing, notices a ripe strawberry. He plucks it and eats it. How sweet it tastes, he thinks. The moral of this story? Precisely because, no matter what actions we take, death is certain, we must stop dwelling on the tiger above and the rocks below and focus instead on savoring the small delights within our reach this moment.
The Italians, who’ve been civilized longer than most of us, totally get this. While Americans hoard toilet paper and stare slack-jawed at CNN, the Milanese are regaling each other with arias. How sweet the sound!
I am determined to use my isolation more delightfully. Thankfully, the season is obliging: where I live, willows are greening, peepers are peeping, fronds are unfurling, and bulbs are a-bursting. This is progress worth tracking daily. I try to get outside every day, even for an hour, not just to marvel at the magic show but also to wave at my neighbors or walk with them at an appropriate distance. Inside my house, thanks to the Internet, I’m hardly at a loss: my gym is live-streaming “quarantrainings,” The Neighborhood Project is meeting via Zoom, and Better Angels has re-tooled its workshops for online participation. My iPhone, bless its little battery, connects me to my kids and friends and siblings … and also to penguins, inventors, and podcasts (Floodlines and Infinite Potential being my current favorites). And in a concerted effort to avoid watching the evening news and exposing ourselves to a lethal spray of doom, my husband and I actually sit down to dinner at our kitchen table—just the two of us, or with one of our kids or siblings or friends on speakerphone—and offer thanks for all that we have.
Finally, because I cannot sing for my neighbors, I have decided to bake for them. Yesterday, with the last of the larder’s cocoa powder, I made a black-bottom devil’s food chocolate cake and shared it with the folks next door. I may come to regret using flour and eggs so frivolously. But oh! How sweet it tasted!
