In the Shape of Chaos

“Instead there were little daily miracles, illuminations, matches struck unexpectedly in the dark. In the midst of chaos there was shape.”
-Virginia Woolf, To the Lighthouse

The full moon is a giant pumpkin colored disc as we watch it sliding down in the black early morning sky through our bedroom window. You hold me for a few more warm minutes underneath the blankets before I break our cozy spell and crawl out of bed, pull on sweats, and head to the darkened kitchen to pour myself a cup of coffee in my favorite over-sized mug. Nestling in with my journals and books, I take a long hot sip while listening to the little birds outside coming to life with myriad songs. Not a soul is stirring on this pre-dawn morning but I can hear the traffic sifting along on the highway just under the bridge far off. The traffic never ever stops, not even for a second. I’ve got a tickle in my throat which I am immediately convinced is the deadly disease everyone is panicked over but I refuse to believe it because it’s too frightening to even consider at the moment. I refuse to cough. I will not cough. We hold on to our days a bit tighter now. As we drive through the city and past the state park built around a wide open lake, everything is closed down, blocked off, patrolled by police. There is an eerie feeling in this kind of safety precaution. It implies we are not equipped to handle ourselves in this crisis. It suggests the only way out of this alive is through the taking of drastic measures. The crossing of fingers, hoping for the best. Remember that restaurant with the great outdoor bar we frequent in summer? Remember how we sometimes couldn’t even find a parking spot? How hard do you think it will be to get a reservation when all this shit’s over? We laugh and drink wine from inside the car on the side of the road by the river as a couple wearing crudely fashioned face scarves meander past with their two tiny dogs. It’s a hell of a time to be alive. To witness. To experience. It’s like there’s a static crackling behind everything. A sound like the pulsing of blood through veins inside a body which is the entire human race, waiting. All around us as we drive and drive and drive to nowhere. Open roads in no particular season. Water, clouds, sky, trees. Wildflowers scattered and tangled along the grassy sides of the highway. What are you living for? For what would you die?