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"We stand with a different frame around us now."
Those words, from deep within my Ultravox block, second vocalist Midge Ure.  I'm standing in an uncomfortable group of morning patrons of the unlikely bakery on my street, picking up to-go orders, adjusting the space between us like anxious & annoyed magnets all flipped to the same pole.  I assume that everyone here has gone out of their way to show support for this local business, as safely as we can, navigating a nebulous new reality & living life as it is this day.  It isn't convenience shopping.  Except, it really is.
Sitting in my back yard with a totally unnecessary Americano & lemon curd croissant.  The fog has dissipated & four hawks are scouting above, making sounds like a rusty gate, reflecting the sun in a slow spiral of silvery feathers.  Violets have popped up in the shade of the compost pile.
Empty shelves at grocery stores, fights over toilet paper, ugly slurs & casual rascism directed at Asians, kneejerk hoaxers & jokers mock-coughing in the face of the world.  I'm not a fan of us on good days, so this disappointment isn't surprising.  We are part virus, part parasite, both communicable disease & rare benevolent host:  people gonna people.
How do you see this ending?  How many think this runs its course & life goes back to normal?  How many think there isn't another virus waiting its turn to spread through the overpopulated, international, spit-swapping free-for-all we exist in?  Not to be alarmist, mind you.  But we know these things exist.  We know how they spread.  Soon we will be pressured to get back out there & shop.  Crowd the bars, the restaurants, theaters & planes.  Frown at those who wear masks & gloves in public.  People who didn't watch someone die will wonder what it was all for & post memes of the Great TP Epidemic of 2020.  I can't help seeing this as a prelude to a time when PPE becomes fashionable & homes have decontamination chamber foyers.  But until then, please keep washing your damned hands & coughing into your elbow.  And I'll be doing my shopping at 6AM.
Wind is thrashing everything outside my windows.  A neighbor's flag billows above his roofline and tree trunks wear a shifting camouflage of shrub shadow.  The absence of traffic keeps Thursday's storm debris littering the street.