These are strange times. Isn’t this weird? Wow, never experienced this before. Just about everyone I’ve met recently has started the conversation with something similar. It’s understandable, no one really knows what to say because none of us really knows what to expect.
The people I know are all right, but it’s the uncertain future that leads us all to feel concern. The unknown is always frightening.
It is interesting how quickly panic set in, how shelves were emptied and long lines formed at grocery stores. The surge in gun sales is particularly depressing.
On the upside, though, it is nice to see even in those crowded stores that for the most part people were being kind and well-behaved. I imagine it is because we are all in the same situation and during a crisis people tend to pull together.
When I approached the checkout line with a few items a lady with a full basket allowed me to cut in front. I was grateful and smiled. However, when I got home I notice a social media post that stated when in the grocery let the feeble elderly cut to the front because “they are old and probably afraid to be there.”
I try to walk every day. Sometimes there will be other people out there but they seldom acknowledge me in passing. But since the “shelter in place” almost every time I cross paths with someone he or she waves or smiles. I have also seen quite a few couples and even families walking together.
I saw a father and son outside playing catch. It is a house I pass every day. It was the first time I saw the father out with his son. Most of us work long hours, come home exhausted and share little quality time with our family. Forced to stay home new interactions occur. I could tell the ball throwing wasn’t a regular routine because the father threw the football way too hard for the young son. I was grateful it zoomed over his head rather than a bit lower where it might have broken a nose or bloodied a lip. But they were having fun and it was nice to see.
A friend told me she felt that this virus crisis had brought her family closer together. They looked after each other’s well-being more than before.
I was pleased to read many professional athletes were stepping up to help pay wages for the stadium employees that had been laid off. I was surprised when some employers began sending their workers home and continuing to pay them.
I noticed communities rising to the occasion. I noticed many people offering to help those less capable.
I love the fact people are becoming aware how “essential” retail clerks, grocery workers, restaurant help and janitors are to our culture and some even suggesting maybe these people deserve more respect and a living wage.
I noticed someone trying to instigate a Christmas house decorating drive to help lighten the mood. Although when I looked closer at the photo the house looked an awful lot like my cousin Lazy Larry’s who never takes down his lights, so, I’m not so sure about that trend.
We Americans are a strange cultural breed. We can be extremely self-centered, greedy, rude, arrogant and jingoistic. But, in times of crisis we still seem to gather our strength and work together for the good of all.
We have no idea where this virus crisis is headed. Stay “Sonoma Strong.” And remember what songwriter Gary Allen once wrote, “Every storm runs out of rain.”
Gabriel A. Fraire has been a writer more than 45 years. He can be reached at gabrielfraire.com.
