Writing in the time of Coronavirus

DATELINE—April 22, 2020 (Sometime between lunch and dinner).

Sheltering-in-place should be an opportunity for a fabulous writing retreat. Alas, I find myself distracted and unable to adhere to my writing mantra, “Don’t wait to be inspired. Write to be inspired.” Time seems suspended. Unnatural.

We are all living in the meanwhile, between what’s past and what’s next.

Suddenly, the ordinary is extraordinary. Going to the grocery store is a mission requiring vigilance. Waking with a normal temperature is cause for relief. I thank the postal worker for her service. I tell the man retrieving bascarts,“You are doing an important job.”

I am nesting furiously— cleaning pantry, closets, and riffling through file cabinets. Tidiness is out of character. I am the homemaker who hides things, who shoves the week’s mail in the pantry before company comes, who is shamed by an adult daughter horrified a beer in our fridge had expired in 2011.

Marie Kondo might have something to say about the spiritual reasons for my compulsion to tidy-up. But I’ve asked her to keep her thoughts to herself, for now.

I have tried to jump-start my writing life by beginning each day with one word. This technique I learned from Ray Bradbury in Zen in the Art of Writing, Bradbury describes how he…