O.K. Take a breath, wash your hands, and consider this…
Do you recall, not so long ago, but seemingly decades ago in relationship to the tsunami of information foisted upon us visa vie the Internet — the looping coverage of Donald Trump’s wall? Now, let me ask you, has the banter and vitriol about the wall faded for you of late? Has it blurred, bled-out into the fabric of your life’s backdrop? Has the coronavirus eclipsed it? If you wanted to know what’s happening with the wall, would you have to virtually find those special glasses that you bought to watch the moon eclipse the sun and repurpose them to see the coronavirus obscure the wall? But, really, who has the time to go hunting for those glasses?
Try this instead. Take a deep breath and wash your hands. The fact is that the coronavirus trumps the wall, any walls — the Hadrian wall, Trump’s wall, the Berlin wall, racial walls, your heart’s walls, fear’s walls, partisan walls … This isn’t to say that these walls have been razed, but it is to say that they are revealed for what they are: duplicitous ploys of power/fear.
Isn’t it interesting that it has taken this virus, this act of nature, to roughly shake us awake and insist that we pay attention? This curling virus has two things to say to us — one: nature always wins, and two: it invites us to recalibrate our perspective on what is essential. It calls us to view our world’s global disarray, to examine the walls we’ve built in and around our lives, and to name those brick and mortar walls for what they actually are: edifices of racism, sexism, fear and greed. So, am I sounding like a doomsayer? On the contrary. This virus is, in a backhanded way, an invitation to get our ducks in a row. Please note, at the bottom of this invitation is printed: “Decline at your own risk.” Now, take a breath and wash your hands.
