There is another world, but it is inside this one.
It is April 14, 2020. “I feel this joy that cannot be suppressed,” my friend Kathy wrote today. She can’t keep a lid on it. I know the feeling. It is springtime. The sheep are finding grass, butting heads, leaping straight up in the air, roaming in a close knit pack quickly from green spot to green spot, each more succulent than the last. The horses gallop in the field just for the hell of it. They make up stories to frighten themselves, just so they get that mad rush of fear and speed. A big cat, a bear! They are here too. There was a year that the coyote dogs got into the sheep barn to leave bloody carnage. Another year a horse broke out, running, crazy, eating the wrong plant, poisoned, put down as her belly heaved. I remember the year a young brown bear, rambled through the farm a few times. It was the fall, he was sleek and healthy, after a summer of eating. “There is another world but it is inside this one. ‘ writes Paul Eluard. We are always on the edge of a wildness. The virus is a tiny piece of genetic material wearing a lipid coat and protein crown. The spikes of the crown help it attach itself to target cells. It fuses with these target cells, removes its protein coat and releases its virus genome. It borrows cellular machinery to build more viruses. It runs wild – another world inside this one.
It killed Dr Frank Gabin, He was, The Guardian reported, “America’s first ER doctor to die on the frontline of the Coronavirus battle.” He didn’t have the equipment to protect himself. He knew the danger. He was steady. He was an extraordinary doctor, thoroughly decent, with an emotional intelligence that touched all around him. I read about him, how he was deeply loved and how the hospital management denied the shortage. “Not our doctors,” they said. A friend in Florida had sent gloves, as the ones at the hospital were too small; they split open on his hands. His finger tips, palms, exposed in the crowded ER room, while patients kept coming and every surface was contaminated. There was no time to stop. He did his job like so many. He did it with his heart and his exposed hands and the mask that shouldn’t be reused. He just did his job. He died unable to breathe in his partner Angel’s arms before the ambulance could get to him. Not in our hospital. Not in our country. Not in my backyard.
Frank had survived cancer. He had written a book about being a doctor in the ER and worked in disadvantaged communities. He had found a way to serve. His recent marriage had made him happy, happier than his friends had ever seen him. They could see joy in him, running in his heart – in the prime of his life – what they call a preventable death. Yes there are a lot of those in the world, but now we do it to our own, not just in the hard places, the disadvantaged places, now we see how easily we can do it to ourselves. Coming home to roost. All the ignorance and greed, all the copping out, all the false information, all the lies and incompetence all the complacency, coming home, running wild. Now we get to break our own hearts. Kill the ones we love.
Saudi Arabia and Yemen signed a cease-fire, as Stephen Colbert said the other night, ”it is too dangerous a time to be killing each other.” Was it that easy after all that, just to stop? Sign on the line. Power Prince and War Lord get together. Fear creeps into the palaces, past the armed soldiers – all vulnerable now to the strange persistent malice of a tiny piece of genetic material wearing a lipid coat and protein crown. It is not safe to gather in the war room to launch the missiles. The launch key pads need to be cleaned too often. It is hard to do social distancing and social carnage at the same time. Jared Kushner is good friends with the Crown Prince. The suave butcher. – the well educated killer. Easy to get along with. Whatever you want. Whatever money can buy. Power brothers – shysters. There is an old old part of me that wants to throw the curse, cross the line. Light the fuse. Send them down.
God help us, there is rage, rage inside this rage. Emerson tells us. Let it rip – let it “draw out of you that dream power, that river of electricity, that every night shows thee is thine own.” Let it consume. Burn. Run wild. There is a place for fire. There is heat in our bodies that can ignite the mind, tighten the eyes. That can kill. God help us. God help us all. Righteous ones. Throw the first stone. Can’t say I ever ordered people to murder and mutilate a journalist, then executed them to cover my ass. All in a days work. No problem we can’t manage. A little fallout in the media, a few calls to Jared. Funny how the spikes of the crown help it attach itself to target cells, how it fuses with these target cells, removes its protein coat and releases its virus genome, how it borrows cellular machinery to build more viruses – to spread evil and malice – consolidate its hold.
Frank was steady each day. Maybe some tears at night, but steady on the job. Whatever needs to be done. Clean the mask as well as you can for reuse. You can only do what is possible. Heal those you can. Fight for life, each life, whatever it takes. Compassion, compassion for the dying, for the loved ones, for the doctors and nurses and support staff. No room for anything else. Day by day. A different fire, a different fuel. A day by day close fought battle with the tiny crown prince piece of genetic material. Clean the surfaces, wash your hands, disinfect your heart, wipe it off, don’t let those sticky spikes get hold on you. Daily, hourly, minute by minute clean up. It is in the close in care. The eye contact with a frightened patient – a word said, even a touch on the protective clothing, with a torn glove.
There is a world inside this one – that is the one I choose.
