What are you reading? Watching? Streaming?

On the morning of Sept. 11, when two planes flew into the World Trade Center, New York City was shut down. The bridges were closed. Trains in and out of Grand Central and Pennsylvania Station were stopped. Subways were halted. By the evening the city was silent, with the exception of military planes flying in formation overhead.

New Yorkers went out. Every pub and restaurant filled as people gathered together in their neighborhoods, sharing their disbelief around the events that had occurred that morning. They comforted one another and mourned friends and colleagues who were downtown or trapped in the World Trade Center. Notwithstanding, life would go on. The mayor encouraged us to attend the theater and museums as a way to bring a sense of normalcy back into our lives. We hugged one another, attended funerals, planned memorials and helped our colleagues. Together we brought the city back.

Now it isn’t just New York City that has been temporarily shut down. It is, essentially, the United States and most of the world. Sheltering in place from a virus we can’t see or hear. A virus we don’t yet understand how to treat or prevent.

It isn’t a war. We can’t negotiate a truce or win a battle. The brightest minds in the fields of medicine, science, virology and microbiology are working together to develop a test, find a vaccine and the drugs that will eventually prevent and cure COVID-19.

The difference now is that we can’t be together. We cannot hug one another when we lose a friend or colleague. We can’t visit our family and friends who are locked down in nursing homes and other facilities. We can’t celebrate birthdays, weddings, anniversaries or the birth of a child. However, Queen Elizabeth, in her eloquent speech from Windsor Castle on April 5, found the appropriate words of comfort and hope:

“This time we join with all nations across the globe in a common endeavor. Using the great advances of science and our instinctive compassion to heal, we will succeed, and that success will belong to every one of us. We should take comfort that while we may have more still to endure, better days will return. We will be with our friends again. We will be with our families again. We will meet again. But for now, I send my thanks and warmest good wishes to you all.”

As challenging as it has been, we are fortunate that we have our books and technology to keep us entertained and allow our students to attend classes.

I would love to know what you are reading and share it with others. Please send me a note at elizabeth@laconiadailysun.com. And let me know about the movies and programs you are watching and streaming.

If one wanted to travel around the globe, it’s possible to walk through the galleries of the major museums. Dance companies, opera companies and major orchestras are streaming performances from their archives or performances that were previously only open to members.

April is National Poetry Month and I share with you a poem written by Samuel Menashe:

APRIL

It is the sun that makes her smile

As this young mother sees to her three

Children – bemused so tender over these

Her mouth and cheek bones and brow are

Moulded in their good roundness now-

It is the Sun and Spring has come

Soon it will reach Norway

Her wooden villages wet

Laughter in each rivulet

From: "The Shrine Whose Shape I Am, The Collected Poetry of Samuel Menashe"

Audubon Terrace Press/New York

Please stay healthy and safe and remember, “Better days will return.”

Elizabeth Howard is an author and journalist. Her books include: Ned O’Gorman: A Glance Back, a book she edited (Easton Studio Press, 2015), A Day with Bonefish Joe (David R. Godine, 2015), Queen Anne’s Lace and Wild Blackberry Pie, (Thornwillow Press, 2011). She lives in New York City. You can send her a note at: Elizabeth@laconiadailysun.com