After the Plague...

What if, after all this is over, whether that’s weeks or months or years, what if we keep some of these things?

What if every person who wanted or needed one had a safe place to sleep, and a shower, and a warm meal.

What if we reimagined cities for walkers as well as drivers, painted more bike lanes, created pedestrian areas, and widened sidewalks? What if we walked and biked more and drove less?

What if, even after it’s back in the shops and we have seven different kinds to choose from, we used less paper towel? What if we only went to the shops once a week and instead used what we have in our freezers and pantries?

What if we reached out to neighbors to check-in and shared extra yeast and cups of sugar and left posies at each other’s doorsteps?

What if we paid teachers properly and funded schools appropriately and saw them not just as test scores and color-coded levels on a school performance framework but as safe places where our kids are taken care of and given warm meals and learn how to be in society?

What if we made things with our hands and wrote and painted and knitted and dug in the dirt and planted herbs or vegetables or pansies.

What if time expanded and became abundant and not something scarce and we spent lazy Sunday afternoons together doing nothing, or read books for hours or did 2000 piece puzzles without feeling lazy or as if we were wasting time.