Sheltered in Place
FIRST PUBLISHED: 4/12/2020
Today, our first warm spring-like day in weeks, I stand at our split-rail fence watching our neighbor girl ride her horse, a safe six feet plus away. Madi circles the swather while she waits for her mom and brother to saddle up and join her. After a few turns she pulls the loop reins against her patient quarter horse’s neck, saying, “My mom says to switch directions.” A petite, sharp-as-a-whip child, Madi calls out a hello if she sees my husband or me in the yard. “Hi Lorna,” she’ll holler. “Hi Madi,” I call back, happy to be spotted.
Owen, Madi’s twin, isn’t quite as outgoing. He’ll wave and sometimes call hi in response to my greeting. But Madi is genuinely tickled to see us and doesn’t hold back. I know it won’t last – at some point she’ll become self-conscious or less interested in what her older neighbors are up to – so I make a point to rendezvous with her at the fence, as I have today. Madi remembers everything, especially about the peacocks, who travel between our farmyards. Lately, she’s educating me on peacock nest behavior – “They’ll make a fake nest, for their predators,” she explains. “And their nests don’t look like a nest; they might have stuff like pinecones in them,” she bends down to sketch an imprint in the dirt.
This day, she chatters on about her horses. “This is my third horse,” she says, “and he listens really well. Piper, my first horse, had joint problems.” I remember Piper’s problems. His legs gave out when Madi was barrel racing him in a junior rodeo. Later, I asked Madi what she was thinking when Piper’s knees buckled. “That I had to get off that horse,” she said, her tone suggesting this should have been obvious.
“My second horse, Dixie, didn’t listen. Friday listens good,” she repeats. Friday is a handsome horse, chestnut with a white lightening streak, or a blaze, down the length of his nose. He plods as if he knows how tiny is his charge. Madi wears skinny jeans tucked into cowboy boots, and a helmet secured over her long brown hair. She reminds me of my oldest daughter, Ryann, who also has an expansive imagination and loved to play outside as a child. Except Madi talks a lot more than Ryann did.
“Have you ridden Friday much this winter?” I try to recall how often I saw them in the field.
“We were over there,” she nods toward the riding arena to the east of our places. “Then that coronavirus came.”
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That coronavirus. Madi has expressed exactly how I feel – the coronavirus is too familiar, too expectant. That creates some distance, puts us, and it, on guard. That coronavirus wakes me in the night to worry -- not about myself or my husband, who are sheltered in Montana with food in the freezer and all the space we need -- rather for Ryann, who is now a family medicine doctor in her second year of residency. Last night on the phone Ryann told us that they couldn’t wear N95 masks because hospital policy is to “even the playing field.” So goes the reasoning, make more medical workers sick because there aren’t enough masks to go around? How about finding more masks? Asking local manufactures to share their stash, as our community has done? Using some imagination.
I know Ryann’s not alone in this. I read Global Health Now, a newsletter published by Johns Hopkins School of Public Health that Ryann shared years ago. Medical workers are rightly angry and frustrated. Our federal government lacked leadership and delayed taking steps to secure the country, which has cost lives. Ignoring science comes at our own peril.
I suggest she take enough masks from home to cover her colleagues in the clinic. “Mom, I have eight,” she says. She has eight because I found a few in the barn left over from spring-cleaning, to guard against hantavirus. Plus, her dad’s friend gave him a few to send to Ryann. Eight, which she now can’t use at work.
“Wear it anyway,” I say, feeling frustrated to the point of tears. “What are they going to do, rip it off your face?”
“Bad form,” Ryann lies on her couch, looking tired in a maroon sweater that I knit for her medical school graduation gift. Two short years ago. I can’t help but wish she’d chosen another profession – this beautiful woman who could have done anything.
Jon asks her how we can help.
“Do you have rubbing alcohol? I want to make a spray for our workspace, but I didn’t have time to shop before this hit. I don’t have Clorox wipes, anything.”
We promise to mail provisions in the morning, then say goodnight; she has an early day. While others are working from home, Ryann joins those who are needed in place.