Coronatime

I had been sitting at an outdoor table at my favorite coffee shop for what had seemed to be a very long time. Aimee’s is closed for the duration, of course, but I had to sit somewhere. I had brought a water bottle with we so I would have something with me to drink. It was water. In the past, I usually would have gotten the currant iced tea. Had it been last week? Last month? I was losing track of my days.

I just sat there in the shade of the building at my side on the sidewalk in the shade. I felt redundant. The wooden folding chair I was sitting on was a little bit uneven. I shifted it. It didn’t get any better. I tried to record some of the past week’s goings on in my journal. I stared as the blank page stayed blank.

If you can’t remember anything, does that mean nothing happened? Or maybe time has stopped? Or is it time that is passing you by? Am I waiting here for a bus that will never come? How long had I been sitting there, anyway?

How long had I been sitting there, anyway?  I had said that already.

Yesterday I thought it was Saturday. But it was only Wednesday. Or last week? Or next week?

We’re all living in coronatime now, people.

Limbo.

I’m beginning to wonder if I’m even still actually alive. Actually still alive. What difference does it make? Are my eyes actually open, or is this all actually just a bad dream? Or both? And I keep hearing things.

Ground control to Major Tom. No. That was definitely last week. I think. Ground control to Major Tom. I wrote that in something I wrote last week. I think it must have been was another time when I was sitting here? I think it was last week. But I still keep hearing the refrain. “Do you hear me Major Tom? Do you hear me Major Tom? Do you hear me Major Tom ...” I’m pretty sure that was David Bowie. 1972. And I still hear the refrain going round and round in my head. And it's 2020.

I don’t know how to make sense of anything anymore.

I sat.

And as I sat there on a rickety chair not watching the world not go around, I thought I saw a young woman running by where I was sitting. She was wearing maroon spandex. One running shoe against the sidewalk. Then the other. A dark pony tail bobbing back and forth. And then she ran by again – only she was going the other way. Could that be right? Coming? Going? Is that how it’s supposed to work? Except that I was pretty sure that I saw her running in South Park on Wednesday. Or was it Saturday?

What difference does it make? Does it make any difference?  I am here. I think I am here. But I don’t know where I am. Or when.

It’s like getting hit by a bus. And then you stand up, a little dazed. But when you check yourself up and down nothing seems to be broken. And then you get hit by bus.

When will it stop? Can you hear me Major Tom? Can you hear me Major Tom?

I sat. Empty pages blowing down the empty street. No buses. Only young women running by.  Back and forth. Up and down. Coming and going. And one guy. He was hardly sweating. He just went by and I never saw him again.

The stores around me were all closed. The coffee shop was closed. Everything was closed. Maybe it was New Year’s Day and we were all just really hungover. Hunkered down. Waiting for the dull throbbing ache in our heads to subside.

Can you hear me Major Tom? Can you hear me Major Tom?

I had no idea how long I had been sitting there in front of my coffee shop? I looked down at my wrist watch to see if it might be time to go home for supper yet. But there was nothing on my wrist. Not for a hundred years. Nothing on my wrist. Nothing on my mind. Time had lost its meaning.

Limbo.

Nothing is real.

And then I thought I heard a marching band playing in South Park. I turned my head to look. The stoplight changed from red to green, but that was it. Nothing. I began to gather up my stuff. I couldn’t stay there at the Aimee’s. They were closed. And my water bottle was empty. I was sure I had heard something.

And then I heard it again. Voices. Drums. Cellos.

Nothing is real. And nothing to get hung about.

I held my phone up to my ear. It was the Beatles calling.

Strawberry Fields Forever  (Youtube Link) 

Listen to the song. If it makes you cry, you’re not dead yet. And if you don’t, maybe next time you will. Cry. All that we have now is Strawberry fields – forever.

Ground control to Major Tom

It’s the age of the coronavirus. It’s a time of uncertainty. And so I did what I often do, I walked to the river.

The sun had tried to come out earlier in the afternoon, but the day had turned gray again. Light jacket weather. For me the river is a reminder of constant change – and the endurance of things. Sometimes I just watch the water as it makes its way to the sea.

On my way to the Kaw River Bridge, I stopped at Aimee’s Coffeehouse for my usual glass of iced tea. Cary, the owner, had reopened only for delivery and pickup orders. I sat outside at a table on the patio. I scribbled a few notes as I savored my tea. Mostly I just watched the few scatterings of people wandering along the sidewalk.

A man about my age I recognized but didn’t know by name walked up and got a cup of coffee and a pastry at the front door. He sat down at a considerable social distance from me across the patio. As a courtesy, he asked if I minded if he had a cigarette. I didn’t. I joked that he was downwind anyway.

Then an older woman wheeled up behind her walker along with an older man in a cowboy hat. She said that they were living at Vermont Towers, a residence for seniors. They had walked to the bank. Now they were heading back. She ordered two coffees – one with cream and sugar and one black. We sat together on the patio, slightly closer to each other than the recommended social distance, but it seemed to be a small risk.

Joanne quickly introduced herself and soon we had all met each other - and in the lyrics of David Bowie we were  “sitting in a tin can/ far above the world/ Planet Earth is blue/ and there's nothing I can do.” It was just the four of us, old and getting older, simply chatting together as people will often do at a coffee shop. Phil told a joke - not that funny, but funny enough. And then he told another one. Joanne made point of saying that she and John weren’t a couple. They were just friends. She laughed and said that she had always hoped to find a man with blond hair and blue eyes.

I asked her if Robert Redford might be her type.

Oh yes, she had replied. In fact she said that she had nearly met him once when she was younger. Nearly. A friend had told her that Robert Redford was going to attend an Eagle Scout ceremony at the Mormon Church. Joanne wasn’t a Mormon, but she sure went to church on that day. She was sitting near the back when she saw him come in through a side door near the front. She laughed as she recounted how she had spent the entire service looking at the back of Robert Redford’s head.

I sat there, leaning up against the iron patio railing and imagined that in her day, Joanne might have been quite pretty, with soft blond hair and blue eyes. Now her hair was tightly curled and gray. Her eyes sparkled when she laughed. My guess was that she laughed as easily then as she did with us.

The times have always been uncertain. A little more this week, perhaps, than last. John told us that in the time he had lived in Vermont Towers - not really that long - three residents had died. Phil pointed out that none of us will get out of here alive. A kind of punch line. I had to laugh a little.

I looked across the street at the Granada, a concert venue closed for the duration. The marquee  read: Stay strong, Lawrence. Be kind. Be well.

And then I had finished my iced tea and said my goodbyes. As I walked down the street Joanne called out to me: take care of yourself.

When I got to the bridge, I saw that the river was a little lower than the day before, although still high for this time of year. I could hear the honking of geese echoing off the Bowersock Hydropower Plant. As I headed back home, I looked over the railing to see a pair of Canada geese feeding near the south bank of the river – making plans for the future.

So the world is changing. Some things will stay the same. And some of us won’t make it to the other side. But here’s the question I have to ask: will we be able to laugh with each other when we get there?

Poem: a spider ...

......................................................................................................................................................................................... 

a spider

dangles from

a silken thread

the ice moon

drowns

in my garden pond

don’t wait up