It’s 17, I’m pretty certain.

My discipline as a writer or my memory is dodgy.

Headed in this morning in the ODAAT tip. Who knows what the situation will be tomorrow? The train is nearly empty and it’s not just the students who are absent. People are not going in. I’m questioning the wisdom of doing this for the first time since this started. Fear is funny that way. It’s like if you hang out at the barber shop long enough you’re going to wind up getting your hair cut. I’m not necessarily talking about catching the virus when I say this. I’m talking about wading into the fear. It’s really a palpable presence now. You wake up and the sun comes up. The birds are chirping. You take a piss. And you have fear. They are all one and the same now. It’s just part of starting the day.

It’s said that fear and faith can’t share a bed but that’s not really so true, is it? The big evangelical church around the corner from home was empty yesterday. They are about the most faithful people I know. They are also old as fuck, or at least a good many of them are. What can be said. God will sit home with them too, but he doesn’t seem too concerned with picking a few of them off and leaving their families mourning. That sounds so cynical and terrible and it’s not meant that way. It’s just a simple logic that pushes me away from faith. Faith in their definition of God.

It’s not that I don’t pray because sometimes I do. I prayed this morning, on my knees by the side of the bed. What did I pray for? Simply willingness to push through and the direction to do the right thing, whatever that may be. I’d say the 11th step prayer if I could remember the word. The gist of it is clear. The words are in the fog with all the other shit obscured by my crap memory. I remember images in exacting detail. Words not so much.

I think I know my role though. Seek to comfort rather than to be comforted. To bring peace where there is dischord. And so on. I just prayed for willingness to be that guy. And to push through to change myself.

That’s all. Everything else is action.