Before the alarm sounds, I wake up and read the overnight alerts on my phone. Non-essential businesses closed, economy collapsed, 15,000 infected. Good news, nothing unexpected. Then, I turn over and scroll through my email. NBC Rundown. Donald McNeil. (Praise the Lord for Donald McNeil.) Rejection letter. Elated, I put my feet on the floor and get up. At least the magazine is functioning.

I have been writing fiction for the past few months. It is a liberating pursuit, having covered real people and actual happenings for all of my career. My first short story was accepted for publication this Spring, and I hope that the production schedule is still intact. Meanwhile, I’ve been having a hard time pressing on with the collection from which it comes, as the themes don’t directly relate to isolation facilities or protective gear or community spread. It feels that creativity now should serve the greater good, but then again, creativity by its mere existence has always done that. So, I am stuck. Is what I’ve been writing about important enough right now? Appropriate enough? Responsible?

Each day, I tutor my students on the computer and think about the characters under the keys. I know that I will return to them soon. My expectation is that the work will change, having experienced this, having observed this. The words will just sound different, as they have in the past, emerging on the page after struggle or upset. I suspect, too, that new meaning will surface from what I’ve already written. Isolation, protection, community…the characters have contemplated these ideas. Now, maybe, they will sing them out. And that is good.

I have a new boyfriend. He is the best…compassionate, analytical, honest, smart. Oh, and he’s funny, too. To me, anyway. Most important, he knows what I’m thinking, and not about the silly things, like which movie I’d like to see or paint color I’d choose for the living room.

Yesterday, while I was telling everybody except for him that I was upset and worried about the people in the park, the throngs of people in the park, he just went ahead and took care of it. No fuss, no question. And, I had no idea what he was doing, not until this morning. I just love that.

I am a lucky girl.

We tried a different walk time today.

Last evening, you’d think there was a concert being held in our neighborhood park. People crossed the avenue in groups of three and four, arriving from all directions. They wheeled toddlers on bikes. They gathered in the middle of the sidewalk, blocking easy passage.

Parks have been left open. Presumably, people were to use their best judgment about entering, treating the decision as a gift, an oasis to be rationed and protected. People do not think this way.

We’re lucky to have one of the city’s most serene spaces just across the street, unruffled, beloved for its well-tended foliage, circular paths, peace. There is a footbridge where people sometimes set up easels. There are crocuses and statues and small-town smiles. There are benches for reading, thinking, crying. People, here, love their little park. Now, it could have been a refuge, even for a few minutes. It could have helped.

Instead, I imagined the human swell from four floors up and decided to try 10:36 instead of 7:50 or 8:02 or 9. Across the street, voices rose up from the playground, the lawns. Body after body poked through the trees. Everything was different.

Charlie walks just twice a day now. We take the stairs to the lobby and hurry out the front door. At first, he was afraid of the concrete, painted to a shine. Slick. Not like his steps in the park, the pretty flagstone, the grip under his feet. It is good that we live on the fourth floor. He manages the three flights. He manages them better than I.

My daughters and I have been inside since last Wednesday, nine days ago. I had the feeling in my belly walking home that day, the feeling that it was time to come in. To stay in. This past summer, both of my daughters decided to move home for a bit, one after graduating from college, the other to take a new job and apply for her Master’s. For the previous four years, I lived in Apartment 4A with just Charlie, missing my girls, so far away they were from New York. We have done well, navigating a small space, appreciating different habits, as we did, really, throughout their growing up in our house in Texas. They have come to like the city, finding work that they love, figuring out the subway, finding a friend or two. I am relieved that they are here now, that we are together, despite the tight quarters. My mystical side would have me believe that they somehow knew to be here.

On the sidewalk, Charlie trots quickly, the new routine already settled in his bones. We turn the corner only in the morning, when the street is empty. I keep my eyes peeled. A figure looms down the block. Hurry, Charlie. Everyone’s a virus. In we go, up the steps, careful not to slip and fall.

Just something I wrote on the subway. To buy a paperback or ebook…Click here

A piece about Andrew Morton’s latest book. Click here

Thank you for reading my essay in today’s New York Post. And for my strong and courageous fellow single moms, congratulations to you all for so many jobs well done. Happy holidays. Click here

Horns and sirens would be nice. Click here.

Happy to have a new gig at The New York Post. First up, a smart book about the future of higher education. CLICK HERE