The roads were a ghost town as I practised my first driving lesson. I forgot to ask the instructor if he sterilised the wheel - but it was too late because we both shook hands and there's no going back from that. These days, and I mean only the past week (but it feels like a lifetime), I feel like a criminal for for being too close to anyone or like a traitor if I drive anywhere because then I might be accidentally killing people. Will we be blamed or charged for infecting the elderly and ending their life a year or so too soon? Even today, as I hiked through the cleansing forest soil, I was wary of keeping my distance. We're all criminals now, tip-toeing around each other so no one is ratted on for coughing. I can imagine it now, "Don't tell my husband I left the house! I swear I just needed to get more coffee. This isn't a dry cough, promise. I feel fine!"
We're all escaping to the woods now, not wanting to return to our newly named prison cells. Quick release, quick return before we are judged. Breathe out, breathe in.
Right now, I'm looking out my kitchen window. I'm watching a black bird clutching onto a bare branch as the wind bobs him up and down like he's a ship on the waves. I've always been baffled by how birds can survive in the wind and hold on so well with their fragile limbs. They are literally light as a feather, yet fail to blow away. Their hollow bones are as sturdy as an organ when played with gusto by a child. But I digress. Or do I? Are we not all that little bird right now - digging our 10 talons into the tree branch and waiting for the wind to change? What the bird probably already knows but is too worried to think about is that, green buds will soon be popping underneath him.
The world may be a ghost town on the outside, right now, but Spring is still on schedule. Don't let the wind push you off the branch - the one thing you can always count on is right beneath your feet. Like clockwork, nature never fails.
