Day 15 – April Fools – No Joke. This Year. Clap Loud.

Since the pandemic feels like one huge apocalyptic April Fool’s joke perpetuated on us – I feel somewhat humorless about cracking April Fools jokes today. Pranks on hold until next year.

Impressively New Yorker’s have been taking the stay at home message seriously (and for good reason – as of today 40k infected, 1,097 dead in NYC alone).  

7pm in Manhattan and neighborhoods across New York City, resembles feeding time at the zoo. Everyone stops what they are doing, runs to the window, thrown open to the joys of Spring and loudly and rightfully, claps, bangs, hollers and barks for all our first responders, doctors, nurses, police, delivery men, grocery workers, pharmacy workers, the new heroes of this crisis, who go out every day to help support the city and the millions locked inside their apartments. I never would have imagined a cacophony of sound such as this could produce emotional joy. Defiantly proclaiming – we are here, you may not see us, but we are here, not just prisoners in our own home.

For the most part, millions of people, confined to their apartments, have been maintaining good social distance when they are out food shopping or getting some exercise. My runs are getting a little trickier. There are simply too many people running in Central Park, which is making it problematic to duck & dive away from spittle, coughs and the like. At least that’s what people are probably saying about me.

Despite the burst of flowers and the thousand yellow daffodils sprouting up to remind us of spring, one jarring contrast is the makeshift hospital in Central Park, and the US Comfort hospital ship docked in Manhattan’s west side, a sobering reminder of things to come. It got me thinking about FDR and the throwback to the Great depression. History should not repeat itself if we learn from the past.

#community #flattenthecurve #stayathome #washhands

Makeshift hospital, east 90’s Central Park, NYC