We’ve given up unprecedented freedoms to protect each other from coronavirus. But one thing COVID-19 hasn’t shut down, at least not yet, is the backyard grill.
It’s spring in North America, ladies and gentlemen. And it’s time to fire up that grill.
Sure, the fun police are out in full force. Things we used to celebrate as healthy — travel, concerts, restaurants, hugging your parents — are suddenly potentially dangerous and weirdly taboo. The list of things that put us at risk of spreading coronavirus is vast.
But you know what? It hasn’t stopped many things we love. Winter will still give way to the warm winds of spring. Skeins of geese are still tracking north across the clearing skies.
Soon, fluffy goslings will scamper through sprouting cattails. Redwing blackbirds are already calling loudly while defining their territories, wing epaulets flaring brightly over marshy grasslands.
And as I type those words, I’m smiling. Because as much as our lives are upended as we “stay the F at home,” we can take solace in the simple fact that summer is coming. And with it, there is hope.
Sure, we all hope for the quick return of health and economic prosperity. But right now, today, we can start with the little things.
For me, there’s comfort in the fact that COVID-19, at least for now, has not affected my backyard grill.
Love Is Empty Spaces
The weather over the last week in Denver has been glorious 65 degrees and sunny. But the streets are quiet. The rush of cars up and down I-70 into the mountains is gone. Most of us are isolated in the little islands of our own homes.
It’s easy to look at the empty city streets and see the end of the world. But I read someone else’s great quote today, that the empty streets and shuttered stores are really “love in action.”
To paraphrase, “What you’re seeing in that negative space is how much we do to care for each other, for our grandparents, for our immunocompromised brothers and sisters, for people we have never met. It isn’t the end of the world. It is the most remarkable act of global solidarity that we may ever witness.”
I really love the sentiment behind this, as I understand, anonymous quote. And it got me thinking. What is one thing we can all do together, but apart?
Well, if you’ve ever smelled your neighbor’s grill, you know there are few more uplifting smells than that of a BBQ wafting through the spring air. And I have a freezer full of elk and a lot of time on my hands.
So you know what, COVID? It’s time to make the best of a bad situation. For me, that’s about to mean a whole lot of BBQ action.