Economic illness

Despite our intention to have some time together, Sue and I have been intensely busy with our commitments to grandchildren, Zoom calls, and texts with our families and friends, so that our days this week have felt busy and rushed and a little frantic. Her email was hacked; she had to change her Google password; that made Zoom inaccessible and created all manner of hoops she had to jump through in order to restore connection. I'm in Skype password hell, in a loop that tells me over and over that I have entered the wrong password, even though I have entered correctly the very one I just created.

On a brief mission in my car, we drove along Hawthorne Avenue, which has long been a hive of activity and commerce, and we saw, one after another, storefronts boarded up, Going Out of Business signs, row upon row of tents for houseless people, and other indications of financial collapse. I stayed in my mask in the car (there is plenty of parking on Hawthorne, where previously there was none to be found) while Sue went out in her mask with her camera to photograph some of these changes. There she is, at the apex of a building that was a Vintage Clothing store just a few weeks ago. There were no people walking in an area where she formerly practiced street photography among crowds.  

I see that all the philosophers and pundits known to the news media are busy creating some version of what they think is going to happen next. But nobody knows. Not knowing makes people insecure, so we make up some scenario we think we can prepare for. But we don't know. We don't know. We hope this crisis proves how interconnected we are, how important it is to care for the most vulnerable among us, how deeply we need to give and receive compassion.... But we don't know.