Woke up at 3:00 with a start from an anonymous dream. As my head cleared I heard the steady roar of the rain. Made my way downstairs, rain coming down in buckets, a dreary 43 degrees out. Perfect. Weather straight out of central casting, my 60 hours of freedom over. I stood at the back door and watched the downpour. Maybe everyone would stay at home today, never turn on their televisions, refuse to take in more bad news. Maybe they won’t call today, I think, knowing that they will. They always do on Mondays. Its always worse after a weekend of breathless, caterwauling from the Barbie and Ken dolls that fill American television screens with the latest dispatches from the apocalypse. The latest news this morning is the failure of the Democrats and Republicans to agree on a relief plan. The collapse of weekend talks is supposed to be a horrible thing. Maybe. Maybe not. But oh, they will call alright.
I will tell them what I know of our strange new unknowable world. They will ask me what they should do and I will answer based on my education, training and experience. It is all I can do. I will tell them what I believe is true. I will council patience and calm. I will ask them not to act out of fear, but it is hard to hear, harder to do. Then the phone will ring and I will do it again. In between I will scan the universe of information at my disposal, trying to make sense of conflicting sentiment. I will sort through the latest data looking for both confirmation and contradiction. I cannot give in to stubborn rigidity at a time like this. I have to be willing to change horses even in the middle of so turbulent a stream. If the weathermen are right, the heavy rain will submit to a driving drizzle by afternoon.
I will come home for lunch. My house is only a mile and a half from my office. I will make myself some lunch and eat it while listening to Colin Cowherd on I-Heart radio. He’s a sports talk show host and I have found it mildly amusing listening to a sports talk show host do his job when there are no sports happening anywhere. He still finds things to yak about for three hours everyday. He’s a professional.
After lunch, I go upstairs and sit in my recliner and worry about my kids for a while. I put some music on in the background and try to rest my mind and body for thirty minutes, an hour if I’m lucky. Then, I will go back to the office and start returning calls and making a few of my own. There will be new headlines to decipher. The markets will take turns skyrocketing and swooning over rumors. When the bell finally rings at 4 o’clock I will do my best to either ponder the remarkable rally or survey the damage from another relentless sell-off. My resolve will have been tested, my faith challenged, my nerves rattled. Then I will make the quick drive home, get the mail out of the mailbox, go inside and immediately wash my hands while singing Penny Lane is in my ears and in my eyes, there beneath the blue suburban skies.
I will check in with my friend who has endured the exact same day as I have...while recovering from nine months of cancer and recent major surgery. We will commiserate, exchanging war stories, understanding completely what the weight of responsibility feels like during this crisis. At some point, I will attempt to lighten the burden by cracking jokes. Sometimes they make her laugh. Other times they fall to the ground and burst into a million pieces.
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