It’s 6 AM. The fog wraps an opaque vapor all around our home. The valley below is gone. The city is gone. The mountains are gone. Naked branches pierce the softness. A pair of robins dance on our porch scoping out a nest site. A red tailed hawk zips by with a long snake twisting in its talons.

What an amazing morning to be alive. To be shut down. To be shut in.

I’m pumped up. I slam the coffee pot in to gear. Rarely drink the stuff. Today I want it. In moments I’m feeling its buzz. Energy to burn.

Damn, this virus thing. Right or wrong. Hype or real. It’s got us separated, isolated and invisible to each other. Its just like the fog.

From within its vaporous shadow it calls in fear and stillness as if they were one and the same thing.
Perhaps they are. But what do I do with that?

I’m pumped up. Ready to make stuff. Ready to explore. Ready to sow the seeds of welcome to the team. Ready to ask that sweet question over and over again: “What do ya wanna do today?”

But, I’m suspended like the fog. A fog so thick that both I and the sun seem powerless against it.

And yet, I’m pumped. I step outside. Sweet bird songs drift down from the tree tops. Daffodils press up through the mulch waiting patiently for the tardy sun.

This impossible-to-see-through stillness is beautiful even as it harbors fear. What’s hiding in the fog?
This virus, the unspoken stench of ancient wounds, the fraying bonds of culture, a restless world. And, well, my future?

I breathe in the fog, the stillness, the birds songs, the fear as if the were indeed all the same thing.

I breathe out these words: “This is our time.” No, wait, I can’t say that for others. This is my time. 
This is my time to let it all go.

Let go of the urge to protect, explain or blame.
Let go of the want to own, acquire, accumulate.
Let go of the need to do or be anything.

To fall into stillness
Smiling
As I wander toward an act of love

Yeah, That’s it
That’s all of it

Let the fog roll in
Let the songbirds pierce my heart
Let fear be my friend

Then ask my friend, as friends do

“What would you like to tell me today?”

~Robert Bellows

3/27/20