This Must Be Love

This Must Be Love / oil on black canvas / 5x7 / $68 including shipping

sold! 

OF COURSE, IT'S NEXT TO IMPOSSIBLE to ignore the economic calamity that this virus is forcing on so many Americans, including myself and so many of my friends and family members. 

But there are some positive aspects to the situation. Without all the airplanes, the air is clearer. Probably the temperature of the planet will drop noticeably - it did after 9/11, and it wouldn't surprise me if it did now.

I find that, for me, at least, it is OK to be not rushing all over the place all the time. Meetings I go to, gatherings I attend, they're just not happening.

I'm not shopping anywhere near as much as I usually do, and neither is anyone else. But when I am in the grocery stores, I find that people are talking to each other, and laughing, and living together in this shared new moment.

On the streets of my little town, the same thing is happening. It seems everyone is walking, and neighbors are stopping neighbors, just to chat, to discuss the virus - or NOT the virus - and to take a moment to slow down and really ask about life.

I know that this is a tiny Pollyanna-ish point of light in the middle of a terrible siege, but it is something to consider.

***

Thought for the Day

"You do not have to be good. 

You do not have to walk on your knees

for a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. 

You only have to let the soft animal of your body love what it loves. 

Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine.

Meanwhile the world goes on.

Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain

are moving across the landscapes,

over the prairies and the deep trees,

the mountains and the rivers.

Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air,

are heading home again.

Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,

the world offers itself to your imagination,

calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting - 

over and over announcing your place

in the family of things." 

- Mary Oliver