I hope the plague has left you alone to tend to your shelter in place business…whatever that business may be. No questions asked, no judgements. What happens in your shelter stays in your shelter, unless of course you get a bit tipsy, and your better judgement turns its blurry eye toward posting a video on social media.

For the sake of future employment, once this apocalyptic pool drains, have a loved one duct tape mittens to your blabber-mouthed hands. This will keep your fingers from walking your future self eyebrow deep into a permanent self-quarantine quagmire.

The college where I work, like every other educational institution in the world, asked us to move our classes online until a sneeze is not cause for duck-and-cover. Most of the courses that I was teaching face-to-face this semester, I had taught online at one time or another, so it wasn’t too much of a hassle to shift gears halfway through the semester.

The students seem to have taken it in stride, as college students often do, and were most likely tired of having to sit and watch me pace around and blab anyway. So it goes.

I am quite cognizant of the fact that “it wasn’t too much of a hassle” is probably not the catch-phrase consensus you would hear from the majority of educators whose reality suddenly went virtual over the past few weeks, and I feel for them.

I feel for everyone whose world has been knocked a bit wonky as of late, and count myself among the fortunate that have been able to keep on keepin' on. Business, sort of as usual, from the socially distant comfort of my kitchen table.

I feel for those whose place of employment has been shuttered and left them without all that their place of employment brought to their lives. I feel for those who, like my wife, continue to go to work and face the day-in-and-day-out uncertainty that each person they come into contact with brings.

I teach completely online during the summer semesters, and it is a bit embarrassing to admit that the current shelter in place, social distancing, stay spitting distance away from homo sapiens other than your spouse mandates, have left me feeling…normal. My normal anyway. We each have our own version of normal, which is most likely abnormal to anyone that is not us.

Anyone that is not us is a lot of anyone’s, so don’t get too carried away patting yourself on your abnormal back…weirdo.

Feeling “normal” when many in the world have been plunged into anything but is odd, and sometimes unpleasant. Not unpleasant in any manner that would, or should, elicit concern or sympathy from anyone, but unpleasant in a guilty sort of way. I was raised Catholic, so guilt is no stranger.

This guilt is that which comes from you having yours, and somebody else not having theirs. You having yours through dumb luck, and they not having theirs through no fault of their own.

I wish all the best to all of you that have lost a significant portion of that which made your life yours, and sincerely hope it returns soon.

As with any situation, some good, and some bad, will inevitably be left in its wake. I know that trite platitudes of empathy, sympathy, and general good-will happy talk are of little use to those with the scale currently tipping predominately towards the bad, but…

That’s a big but, and I honestly don’t know what words would be useful following it? Someone once said that each of us is the center of “a” world (not “the” world), and that we have a responsibility to that world of which we are the center of and to the people that share its orbit.

I wish you, and your world, all the best.