Looking for light in the gray, hoping for blue skies ahead

The Boston Globe

Hanging on by a thread. Getting through the days. Waking up each morning from half sleep and vivid dreams, which vanish in the light.

It’s gray light mostly. And rain. There’s been so much rain.

I look out the window. The world is pretty even in the gray light. Daffodils. Tulips. Green grass. Buds on the trees. The birds are at the feeder. I watch a squirrel chase them away.

Coffee is good. The first sip. Hot. Strong.

I pick up my cellphone. Check my messages. Check e-mails. Click on “Today’s headlines.” “Coronavirus briefings.” “Five Things” I need to know. The news, not new, is the same every day. There’s constant talk online, on TV, on the radio. But what is everyone saying? We don’t know. We’re not sure. Only time will tell. Stay home. Wear masks. No real answers. Just more questions. Projections. Conjecture. What now? What’s next?

“Words with Friends” distracts me. It’s a Scrabble-type game you play on your phone. I play with friends and with people I don’t know. I play too much. It’s a time sucker. I could be organizing photos. I could be learning Spanish. I could be learning to make masks. I play this game instead.

I eat ice cream every day. Brigham’s chocolate chip. My daughter keeps me supplied. I pour Kahlua over it. The Kahlua is getting low.

In early March when we were talking about what we would do in a lockdown — a fantasy then— when asked “What one book would you take with you on a desert island?” I told my family that I would reread my journals. I have 32. They date back to 1993. We have been sequestered for 48 days and I haven’t read one.

“What’s for breakfast?” my husband does not say. He pours his own coffee, makes his own toast. I go for long walks. I listen to “The Daily.” One podcast, a story about two sets of identical twins separated at birth given to the wrong mothers and raised as fraternal twins, takes me out of the now. It’s riveting. It’s what I would have listened to before.

At home, I think about hardship. I think about the British in 1940, packed into makeshift shelters night after night, as German fighters dropped bombs on their cities. I think about mothers who put their children on trains and sent them out of London to live with relatives. I think about how they must have asked themselves what we are asking ourselves now: When will this end? How will it end? Night after night, I sit in my family room with my big screen TV riding out this new apocalypse in comfort. I am not cold. I am not hungry. I am not afraid of bombs.

But I am afraid.

I watched a movie last week, “About Time.” It’s about a young man who learns on his 21st birthday that he has the ability to travel back in time. He uses this gift, sweetly and humorously, to win the heart of a girl. It’s a movie perfect for right now, an old-fashioned, tender love story.

One scene specifically speaks to now. Our hero is having a bad day. He is frustrated at a business meeting, impatient and disengaged while ordering takeout, and annoyed on the subway because he can hear the music coming out of the headphones of a guy sitting next to him. He calls the day “a tough one.”

But then, on the advice of his father, he goes back in time and lives this day again, “noticing how sweet the world can be.” He makes light of the meeting, smiles at the takeout girl, and be-bops along to the overheard subway music. This, his father tells him, is the secret formula for happiness: taking note of all the sweetness.

I call Katherine, who used to live in the house across from me, where the azaleas right now are lush and purple/pink even on the grayest day. And we talk and we laugh and we reminisce and it feels good, connecting.

I am not on the front lines. I am not an essential worker. There is nothing I can do but what I am doing. I am following the rules. Sheltering in place. Keeping a stiff upper lip. Reaching out. Reaching in. Eating ice cream. Walking. Reading. Gardening. Connecting. Disconnecting. Seeking out the sweetness. Looking for light in gray.

And waiting, as so many over the centuries have waited, through wars and plagues and insurrections and disasters, for these difficult days to pass.

Beverly Beckham can be reached at bev@beverlybeckham.com.