Hi, all,
We haven’t gathered together since March 3. I remember that. I can’t remember why we didn’t gather on March 5. But I know my wife had the flu on March 10, so I was home with the kids. Then I went out of town for work. I was sitting in a hotel room in South Carolina, watching the NBA, when suddenly, the game was cancelled and the reporters and announcers were all confused. And then a few hours later, we learned that one of the players who was going to play in that game, just tested positive. Then, another few hours later, the NBA suspended its season. I watched from my bed at a Hampton Inn. I watched confused and nervous. I woke early, got in my car, and came home. That was Friday. The university shut down for two weeks that day. And we know where we are now.
Geez: I don’t know where we are. But I know we are good. Because we got our writing. I might be naïve or aloof or just plain dumb, but I believe so strongly in the power of writing. We make sense of what we see/fee/hear/are through our written words. Moving our hand across the page, our fingers across the keyboard, we learn what we think, we learn what we feel, we get it out because if it stays inside, oh, we don’t want that. We are in a new and crazy place and we find some sense of stability and possibility by letting our words run free on the page for others to read (like this email) or for no one else to read (like the journaling I do in the morning, outside, with my blue pen and in my cheap spiral notebook).
And you are the generation who will keep these records—who are young enough to be around in 2 generations and tell others what it was like. To tell your grandkids, who may not really care: to tell your grandkids who might care just a bit like we do when our great-grandmother tells us stories of picking blackberries as a kid in south Georgia. We listen but not really. Because it is so far in the past.
Write down what you feel. What you see. What you wonder and worry about. Keep that writing. Your voice is needed. And, really, you need to hear your own voice at times to keep the sanity. I know I do.
Yesterday afternoon, I was sitting outside in my driveway with my kids. I was drinking a Tropalica; it was around 5pm. The sun was out. I was listening to Wilco on my Bluetooth speaker. And I decided to write on the street with my kids’ chalk. I picked up the yellow piece and sketched LOVE into the black pavement. Cars came and went. People still going to work and still coming home. My five-year-old daughter asked me how I did that. I found the question odd. How did I write with chalk? I thought to myself. I told her: “Darcy, you know how chalk works.” She didn’t respond and how I wonder if she was asking a different how question. Maybe she was not asking about the literal process of chalking but the exigence. What led to it. Kids are sharp like that.
We went inside for dinner. Came back out. LOVE had faded into the black. Just smears. But I like to think pieces of the yellow chalk attached themselves to the passing tires. Stayed on the tires as the cars pulled into driveways and floating into the homes. I like to think that way about love—as some little seen chalk dust moving us along, keeping our heads up, and hearts warm.
Know that I am here. Sitting at my laptop most days. I can send food, send books, send more time for assignments, send encouragement as we move through this world.
Be well. Smile.
-Michael
J. Michael Rifenburg 