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If I don’t go into the living room, I
will miss my partner talking on the
phone to surgeons who are cancelling
elective surgeries. And if I do go into
the living room I’ll miss what’s happening
in this room—namely, waiting
for a Zoom link to load.
And if I go to the kettle-boiling
event in the kitchen I’ll miss the squirrel
hopping around on the fire escape,
and you can never predict when
that will happen again. But if I watch
the squirrel I’ll miss our social plan
for the foreseeable future: sitting on
the couch wearing noise-cancelling
headphones.
If I stand at my windowsill anxietystroking
the leaves of my plant, I’ll
miss whatever is going on in my closet,
and I’ve never been there before and
I’ve been meaning to go.
And while I’m here, repositioning
my desk against a different wall to
create a sense that I have left the room
in the past ten hours, I’m missing being
inside all my friends’ homes while they
reposition their desks against another
wall to create a sense that they’ve left
the room in the past ten hours, and I
didn’t go to that yesterday, either.
I’ve already committed to squeezing
inside our storage space for the next
half hour to recount the number of
toilet-paper rolls. The only thing is,
then I’ll miss crouching in the living
room and picking my own hairs off
the carpet in order to create a sense
of control over the uncontrollable.
It can be so hard to judge what really
is better for your health: a more
intense workout of jumping up and
down in place in front of your stove
or a more relaxed workout of floor
yoga poses beneath your bed. Either
way, I’ll know that someone, somewhere,
is having a Google Hangout
without me.
If I sit on the edge of the tub telling
myself to be brave, I’ll miss standing
at the window, looking down at
the street, and thinking that one good
thing about not having a dog to walk
is that I don’t have to touch as many
doorknobs. And who knows when I’ll
get another opportunity to take a selfie
with that dog from sixty yards away?
If I maintain my public image by
choosing a fly outfit, walking down the
street with confidence, and looking
into the dark windows of shuttered
restaurants, then I’ll miss ordering the
“It” cocktail to go at my favorite bar
in a Styrofoam cup.
And if I go to the grocery store to
wander the aisles of canned food which
have nothing left but artichokes in a
jar and dented cans of pearl onions I’ll
miss Skyping with my friend while we
say over and over, “This is so crazy,”
and maybe this is the one time someone
really cool shows up to that.
I would sit at the dining-room table
with a thermometer in my mouth for
the second time today, but I’d hate to
miss listening to my partner negotiate
airline refunds, especially since it’s
spring break.
And if I call my primary-care physician
to ask if my cough is coronavirus-
related I’ll miss the tri-daily
bannister sanitation, and I already
responded to that event on Facebook
as “interested.” And if I go to my
primary-care physician’s office in
Manhattan for a test I’ll miss watching
another hour of a dystopian show
that used to scare me when I could
still leave the house without wearing
latex gloves.
And if I test positive for the virus
and go to a hospital I’ll miss lying on
a hospital bed in a gymnasium. And
if I go to a gymnasium I’ll miss the
while-supplies-last pop-up shop of
disinfecting wipes. And if I recover
from the coronavirus then I’ll miss
being injected with the new vaccine.
But if I don’t get the new vaccine
then I’ll get the coronavirus. So it’s
really hard to judge what the best
move is.
Honestly, sometimes I just want to
stay home and do nothing at all.
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