Here we all are practicing social distancing, staying at home, and trying to reduce the extent of the plague. Suggestions for quarantine activities like art, music, dance, and writing are everywhere. Considering the reckoning in the streets today, I’m well aware of my privilege: I can work from home, I’m not alone, and we’re safe in our cozy apartment. I can see trees out of the window. Life, though miserable, could be so much worse. The present should be the perfect time for fruitful outbursts of creative energy. Instead, I’m paralyzed as I consider humanity, unable to put fingers to keyboard. Yet, I know future generations will need to understand our stories of today.

It’s possible that some stories just end where they end. Someday, few or many might piece together what we record during the pandemic and compose historic fiction about the spring of 2020. The compositions will be accurate or absurd, dramatic or mundane.

Talking to Mom was uplifting and then depressing yesterday. She told me how incredible she thought I was. Then she apologized on the part of her generation for this fucked-up world. She got philosophical and talked about walking along the bay. Said the choppy waves were sending us a doomsday message.

I begged her for some positivity. She started in on actuaries, and how long they might estimate she would live now that we had met COVID-19. Then she said, “Doesn’t matter, everything here is all right. How about you? Any kicking yet?”

Ruth Ticktin, an experienced adult educator of language skills and writing, has coordinated, advised, and taught in the Washington DC area since 1977. Raised in Madison and Chicago, graduate of the University of Wisconsin, Ruth encourages sharing stories. Coauthor: What’s Ahead? (ProLingua Associates 2013.) Contributor: Bending Genres Anthology, EnglishClub, RCC-Muse, Niveous, Storyhouse, ThinAir, Genre UrbanArts, YellowMama, Dash, Weekend Excerpts. Find Ruth at https://ruthticktin.blogspot.com/