Time in the Love of Virals

“I see you’ve gone and changed your name again
 And just when I climbed this whole mountainside
 To wash my eyelids in the rain"

 "So Long, Marianne” lyrics by Leonard Cohen 

 ********** 

Dear Alex,

Months forward when we recount to friends and strangers March 2020 the month of pandemonium in bans and stats that to wipe out risks and fear we swiped shelves swapped schedules and sworn in sanitized breaths, we shall confess it was a time of viral love for viral cries and laughs for so long we forget for better or worse the memory of a name. COVID19 looks and spooks as an alien.

Our hearts are just as alien, cryptic and unpredictable. Like a name gone viral.

Italy, home of the the oldest population in Europe, is now named as having the world’s highest number of deaths from the pandemic virus besides China. Months earlier, its name evokes fabulous flashes and incredible victories on world stage for soccer, fashion and food.

And I imagine if you were a woman who loves make-up as much as I do, then you would go viral over Italy as maestro of clean cosmetics crushed and creamed with the most luxurious certified organic extracts - rosehip seed oil, beeswax, vitamin E and more - without synthetic fragrances or petrochemicals. When you reach for these clean, made-in-Italy blushes and balms, your complexion gleams with adjectives labeled on packages such as these ones in shades of peach, nude and rouge listed from $18:

   Embrace
   Precious
   Blossoming
   Sun touched
   Joyful
   Desired Glow
   Abundance
   Reverence
   Happy
   Lovely
   Above & Beyond

My daughter’s school is closed for the rest of the academic year. Classes are now switched to online platform. Her high school graduation may likely be canceled and diplomas to be emailed in PDF version. The international students on campus will not be returning home for Spring Break.

So this afternoon she and the girls went on a viral strike against viral curses: they played tennis at a local park for 3 hours. I am going to stop writing now to pick them up.

In time of pandemic hurry and excess, our progeny seems to recount for us the cries and laughs of Esmeralda and Quasimodo and helps us cry and laugh all again.

Yours, Kate