My neighbor always used to blame me whenever she caught a cold or flu—”You gave me this”—and now I know she should have washed her hands before touching her face. I do not think she will be able to blame me for this. “Worser and worser” was the ungrammatical line from my childhood. A new Brevity post about how to write during this pandemic is meant to be a list of humorous writing prompts. The author suggests subtly informing your younger self to learn to cut your own hair. I have cut my hair since I was fifteen.

I knit Gary’s sweater—such a handsome man!

I cut my husband’s hair and my children’s hair. Although my husband often fails to comb his hair and sometimes resists haircuts for a long, long time, no one, not even him, has ever suggested I do not do a good job. We clean our own house, do our own gardening, wash all our own clothing, carry our garden clippings and recyclables to the recycling center. We do not build, but often do our own repairs. I can sew and Gary could change the car’s oil until the latest model made that impossible. We have both changed headlights on cars. Both of us have rewired and done minor carpentry and addressed other household concerns. I can bake and can and change a tire and I have always been proud of my ability to do for myself. So I checked that box and kept reading.

“Write about one of the hardest times of your life. You know, other than right now.”

That’s where the author lost me. I thought: when I was a suicidal teenager; when my grandmother Genevieve died; when I had postpartum depression; when my dog was chased by that same well-intentioned neighbor onto the highway and she died, and I went into labor six weeks early; when I was in labor for three days; when my father died of cancer and my father in law too; when the contractor tore off our roof and then, when it started raining at four in the afternoon, he went home for the weekend; when that contractor blamed us; when we lived with six Afghan Hounds and a Saluki in four hundred square feet with two toddlers for eight months; when, after moving back into the house, my husband did dishes in the bathtub until we could afford to have a kitchen sink installed. When we thought for terrible weeks that Gary had bone cancer. When I was teaching more students than any teacher in my building and coaching cross country and advising yearbook and I cried every day driving home from school because I needed to take care of my mom and I could not manage it all. When my mother’s health seriously spiraled down and she would not take doctors’ advice. When my brother stopped speaking to me because he said I lied about our mother’s condition. And when she died.

Why would I go there?

A neighbor walked up to Gary on the beach this morning and handed him a slip of paper declaring that the LED lights newly installed in the tunnel were a threat to our safety. One of my sisters-in-law is an anti-vaxxer, convinced that Paul McCartney died years ago and that Queen Elizabeth is a reptile. Don’t even get me started about my schizophrenic brother-in-law’s convictions.  Conspiracy all over the place, and haven’t we got enough trouble? They believed the air was infected with spirits causing disease once upon a time. Some want to blame China for covid-19. People will insist on a villain. Some place to put blame.

The coronavirus did not need to be created. Diseases have arisen, usually in Europe, for centuries, almost forever. It’s there in the Bible. Millions of Americans died in North and South America after Europeans arrived and called this the Western Hemisphere, and mostly they died from diseases that had never existed here before. The invaders hardly ever did it deliberately. The Santa María was about 117 feet long, the Pinta was 65 feet long, and the Niña was merely 45 feet long with a crew of twenty-five. Social distancing?

Those who think our current social distancing is the worst hardship might consider past millennia when diseases such as the Sweats and plague raged . . . with no treatment, no vaccine, and no understanding of cause. Hospitals were a place to die when they existed at all. Henry VIII frequently went into seclusion during times of disease. Just as today, wealthy people of the past fled the cities, fired staff, and waited out infection in comfort because they could afford to escape. Poor people, unable to flee, died in cities just as they do today in places like Singapore and New York. Do we need a reminder that poor people love their children and parents just as we do? Hundreds of years ago, people loved their families just as we do.

This is not new. The invisible enemy has always lurked. We are vulnerable.

Disease is stimulated by overall population pressure, city living, poor sanitation, and consumption of animals. People died because water was tainted with sewage in London. People died from being bitten by infected fleas in the past (and today too), but English sailors also ate the rats infected by fleas because they were hungry and poor and the rats were there. That isn’t what killed them. Think about that the next time your cat brings you his kill. He’s concerned you aren’t getting enough protein.

Except we are getting plenty of protein in America. Meat is not a necessary food and we are not carnivores. We might want meat, and that’s fine, but meat packing plants have been exposed as seriously dangerous places to work in this pandemic. Local seafood plants in my county are experiencing outbreaks. The president orders these places to stay open even though workers cannot be kept safe. Unemployment and lost savings? Medical care almost no one can afford? Suffering and dying without anyone who knows and cares enough about you personally to cry when you’re gone? Everything in perspective.

This afternoon I have a dental appointment. “How long has this been hurting?” she asked when I called this morning. At least two weeks.

Count your blessings, they used to say. It’s only going to get worse.

“Write about the most beautiful and challenging times of your life.” My intentions.

When I finally had a best friend; when I realized I might be an artist even though Ann Dawson was a better drawer, because three dimensions!; when I met my husband and held on for dear life; when cats and dogs joined our family; when we married; when we decided to move to my great grand aunts’ home and start a family; when our first son was born early and everything was fine; when our second son came fast and was strong even though he was early too; when we moved back in to our house with no doors or finished floors or trim and the boys and I ran around and around shrieking with laughter with so much space; when the possible cancer turned out to be a benign tumor from an injury caused by an elephant; when I discovered how much I loved teaching English; when I hear from former students; when Gary discovers a pain pill from an extraction years ago, tucked in the back of a drawer . . . and it works to calm my aching molar.

A little rain. A new warp on my loom. The whimbrels are back. Ravens. Osprey. Eagles. Band-tail pigeons. The dawn chorus! Right now and here.