There’s almost no “normal” activity left right now: face masks at the grocery store & dog park; empty freeways at rush hour; riding in elevators alone. Yet I still feel few of us—certainly not me—have truly gotten our heads around the cataclysmic change we’re experiencing. /1

I’m not sure it’s possible. The human mind, as marvelous an instrument as it is, is also designed to keep from fritzing itself out. It can spur us to panic in the short term, but it minimizes a lot of what could traumatize us in the long term. So of course we’re a little numb. /2

But I keep trying to see the scale of it, or feel the enormity: Will everyone know someone who’s died (kinda like with the opioid crisis)? Will everywhere look like the traffic jam of cars waiting at the SA food bank? I stumble over the idea of never seeing some family again. /3

Sometimes I think: This is how it feels to be a character in a novel. Maybe it is even how it feels to be a hero! Events are converging, the plot is twisting, but no view over the horizon. I just have to make the best choices I can, every day, not knowing what they’ll mean. /4

I can’t know the people that won’t get sick because I’ve stayed home. Will banging pots at 7pm raise the profile of the women of color who work in so many “essential” jobs? If I give money to the restaurant workers fund, will someone’s troubles be eased even a little bit? /5

But the reason I’m writing this is that I’ve come to recognize the vast unknown of our future has always been that: vast, unknown. Everything can always change in an instant. Most of the small changes or sacrifices we make in our lives ripple away beyond our view. /6

(Not that we should only be making only small sacrifices or changes.) /7

What’s different now is the awareness of our precariousness. What’s different now is our awareness of the ways that small actions *will,* eventually, mean the difference between someone else’s life and death. /8

What’s different now is that we ask ourselves *everyday* about what is *essential,* and what we can do without.

So, a controversial opinion: this awareness is part of the unthinkably large change upon us. It’s our connectedness that’s overwhelming. /9

The controversial part: I hope I never lose that sense that the fate of each and every one of us is inextricably linked. It is almost too much to bear, keeping it in mind is one of the ways we can survive. /fin