Gardening and the Coronavirus

We, the gardeners, are the lucky ones.  We get to stay outside, where there are no lines, and little or no probability of getting closer than six feet from another person.  We wear gloves all the time without worrying about anything except how long they will last. Our friends and companions are others interested in the natural world, one where we are most excited by a germinating seed, or the first bloom on a plant watched for years.  We are the ultimate optimists. If not this year, we believe it will happen next year. We are able to focus on a small area of soil from which we pull unwanted seedlings, or plant newly divided plants and we live with visions of how it will look in the future—maybe this summer, or fall, or next year or 10 years later. 

We live and work surrounded by small miracles. A long awaited flower appears without warning. We get seed set on rare narcissuses, cyclamen, and unusual species or crosses of hellebores. Our lives are filled with hopes and promises—hope that the weather will cooperate and the promise of future plants. We come in to hear frightening accounts of this new disease—one which selectively attacks the elderly, and are reminded that we, or rather I, am the target. We are not discouraged but are cautious, not depressed but are invigorated about the world around us and its daily miracles.