The last time I sent out
The Muse was January. We missed February because my client work, and preparing for a full slate of art events for Aria, has been unrelenting. "Welcome to 2020! A new year, a new decade, a new horizon," I'd written, full of hope and excitement for what I imagined would be a decade of insight and innovation. How surreal, how poignant those words feel now. A mere two months later, our entire world has been turned inside out.
On March 19, Governor Newsom issued a
shelter-at-home order here in California. We were the first state in the union to do so. It seemed a bit precipitated to some back then, prescient to most now.
It didn't take long for that exponential curve to hit, and we haven't peaked yet. As of this writing, there are
785,979 confirmed cases worldwide. That's "confirmed," as in having been officially tested. The likelihood of many more undiagnosed, unconfirmed cases is fairly high.
I've already heard from some of you, asking me how we're doing and when the newsletter is coming out. Apologies for skipping a month, almost two in fact. A client, a company that provides point of sale systems for small business merchants, has been putting out rivers of communications about the crisis, and I'm part of the team responsible for those communications. We've been working 10- to 12-hour days; at home of course. (If you're a seasoned business writer or know one, please
let me know because we could use more help!)
For the past 3 weeks, my family and I have been at home, going out only for food, short walks, and exercise. We've deep-cleaned our master bathroom, power-washed the patio, and repaired countless items that have been haplessly lying around waiting for us to stop being so busy. We've made every single meal from scratch. This past Friday my husband and I finally took a break and watched the movie
Contagion, a brilliant and chillingly on-point account of a global pandemic caused by a virus originating from a bat whose saliva infected a pig in China.
Watching the film was surreal, because it felt like a documentary rather than fiction. And yet, somehow, it made everything we're going through now more real and understandable. The fear, the panic, the courage, empathy, and compassion. All of the things we're doing, as a community and as families, to help flatten that curve. The impact on our lives, our supply chains, our economy. The interconnections among people. The complex web of relationships we all have. The sacredness and fragility of life.
There's a longer musing about the virus I've been working on that I'll share in the next Muse. Promise it won't take two months.
Till then, I'll leave you with an extraordinary message from an amateur filmmaker in Italy, titled simply,
#ASCOLTA. (Here's the
version in English, although the original Italian is so much more emotive...)
Stay safe and stay strong. We may all be apart, but we've never been more connected.
~ Birgitte
