Calm at the epicenter

Fielding concerned calls from around the world is exhausting: are we alright?!?! What else can we say than that the situation is indeed dire, and frightening, that we don't even really know the extent of it... that it's going to get worse as hospitals reach capacity in a few days... that government at various levels did not get its act together fast enough (and at the highest level is undermining the rest)... but that New York is fighting back... that we're working from home, have plenty of food, have ingredients to make our own sanitizer (but no masks), have gone out only twice in six days (once today, where I found these azaleas), grateful for New York's wide sidewalks... that sequestered in familiar digs and not yet knowing anyone who is infected it feels eerily abstract... what else? Of course we're worried, spooked every time one of us coughs. Reports of anti-Asian attacks frighten us, as does almost everything the White House and its boosters say... But Spring is happening too, and work goes on.