Toes in the Grass and No Teeth

Saturday, April 11, 2020

Total Confirmed: 1,777,517

Total Deaths: 108,861

Total Recovered: 365,585

We got our SPCA Exceptionally Subpar Animal Portraits of Sherlock and Nelson. They are so, so bad. And we are crazy about them. Sherlock has a giant nose and no upper part of his mouth, and no teeth…and Nelson…well, Nelson’s ears are enough to make you want to write a book about. So funny. Must’ve been done by either a kid, or an adult with drawing skills matching my own.

And the rest of us set up obstacle courses for our cats and post them online. Made from precious toilet paper rolls, or makeup set up all over the floor. Watching cats carefully pick their way across and watching dogs plow their way through.

They’re expanding testing for antibodies, and I hope when I was sick back in February, it was COVID and I’m now immune. I want a test for antibodies much more than I want a test for COVID. It feels more productive. I could still be a carrier, but I could move through the world with a little more peace.

People were super into comparing the pandemic to Fighting a Global War! and then when that lost it’s power, they moved on – If the neighbor’s house was on fire, you’d go help them so it didn’t get to your house!!! But then that approach lost it’s magic too, so now they say it’s like HIV. You’re only as safe as your last partner! Everyone wear your masks!!! And I imagine it will only be a few days until they come up with another. As long as they stop using the word ‘unprecedented’, I’ll be happy.

Writing ‘Dear Stranger’ letters is a thing now too. Sending a note out to the universe and waiting for a letter to come back. Just for people to anonymously get things off their back. Just to try to connect to someone with a snapshot of their day and their thoughts and their loves and their hates and their fears. And everything COVID.

I think kids will remember – now that we can’t see each other’s faces, strangers look each other in the eye. Kids will notice that we’re moving into to a kinder time. When neighbors wave and talk to each other across the street. A time when people were scared but they laugh a lot and go up in the hills and sit in the sun with their Toes in the Grass. And watch that crystal blue sky. And let a stray ant crawl its way across their fingers.

Expressing ourselves during this time is important. However we choose to do the expressing. Some people are cats, picking their way around all the obstacles and the rest of us are just plowing through with No Teeth.