Warily, we welcome the hope that spring brings

At our lockdown last weekend, we worked outside burning and mowing and composting and planting. We moved around, busy and dirty, not a mask in sight.

The warmth was more than solar radiation. It blew life into everything and made the world feel at least a bit more normal.

We did venture out to a friend’s house the other night, but did not go inside. Sat by a roaring fire in a light, cold rain drinking rye whiskey, all of us talking like auctioneers, trying to savor having someone across a fire to talk to. I have also now twice sat in a friend’s barn — hoop house, really. The plastic walls arch right over the top, making the framed end-walls give the place a cathedral feel. The hoop house is a cathedral to what grows in long rows inside.

We sat more than 6 feet apart, masks off so we could sip cold cans of cream puff, feeling good about supporting a local brewery. We had music on the Spotify, were well sheltered in that place. Could have sat there all night. We will do it again, for sure. Beyond that, I’m being pretty cautious.

As for meeting up with people, I won’t go beyond these few visits for now. We all know everything and nothing about this thing roaring through the world. The news is the same, all day, every day. The science of discovery of what this infection is and does evolves chaotically. We are like a group of people running through a room in the dark, trying not to hit our shins against coffee tables or trip over toys lying on the floor, and the news reports on every stumble and start.

I’d love to talk about something else for a while, but what else is there? As the weather warms and as the news roars on, frustration will win over caution, and then who knows?

In the grocery store the other night, I saw a range of opinions on the virus spread out throughout the store. Some people wore masks, glasses, gloves. Others were uncovered and seemed to challenge the virus to just try to touch them (or pass from them to others, which is more likely). Running into friends in the aisles, some wanted distance (I’m in that group), and others came in for a chat.

God knows what to do. I turned down an invite to sit with a group of buddies around a fire, not ready for more direct challenges to the R Naught of this thing. It is testing us, scaring us, making us step up (or not).

An old friend is stepping up. He is a doctor in a rural hospital (not here). We talk now and then, and this thing is tougher on him than it is on me. He talks about intubating and now and then extubating patients. Extubating is the good part. He talks about stripping down in the garage when he gets home. Washing everything before going into a room with other people. Sleeping like the dead. Doing it again.

I know nurses and doctors and carers of all stripes and grocery store clerks and loggers and cops and EMTs who face up to the virus each and every day. Like spring, they bring hope. Push the thing back, get life back to some level of normal.

I thought to myself about my friend. He has maybe been preparing for this thing his whole life. He is a great guy, always good for a conversation, thinks the best of things and people, knows his craft, likes to laugh, is a good listener and a great doctor. He decided to go into medicine late. A calling, I guess. Glad he heard it. Glad he took the call.

During this past incredible summer-like weekend, as the sun started to fall around 7 that night, I took a text from my doctor buddy. He was having a downer day. He’d lost three patients and was sat at home listening to John Prine, himself recently felled by the virus.

Now, I sure love John Prine, and I’ve been playing a ton of the troubadour’s music, too. But I suggested to my bud that he might consider something else after a day on the front lines of this communal nightmare. I thought maybe The Traveling Wilburys “Margarita.”

“I was in Pittsburgh late one night/I lost my hat, got into a fight/I rolled and tumbled ’til I saw the light/Went to the Big Apple where I took a bite.”

A song from before the virus, for sure, uplifting and full of life.

My pal made the change, and I put on the Wilburys, too, and my bud and I texted back and forth. I shared my theory he’d been building to this time his whole life, to be the guy taking care of those of us hit hardest by this bug. He didn’t reply directly to that, but did tell me, “At least I got to hold the phone for a patient while he said goodbye to his brother.” There’s that, at least. There’s that.

The burning hot sun will be back. Within a week or two, the hills all around us will bud green. Those seeds in my garden will sprout. We will stumble through this thing, and the world will start spinning again, and we’ll put this thing behind us.

David M. Rocchio lives, works and writes in Stowe. Email letters to news@stowereporter.com.