Notes from the Pandemic: Chapter One: These Days: These Days

Nineteen 

I Can Hear the Bamboo. April 7, 2020 

Dear Lou – 

OMG, I'm laughing out loud. I love ALL of this information. Thank you for sharing. Although if I have the pleasure of seeing Keith in a face mask, I'm going to know it's his favorite old boxer shorts..... and.... well you know. Hahaha. 

I feel your love. I return it to you. I agree that we have been extraordinarily privileged during these days. To be in the exquisite light of LA, to enjoy the rain, to take socially-distanced walks with friends in the neighborhood. I'm struggling to understand the impact, to think about it visually -- my photographer friends in NYC are struggling to maintain composure and calm as they face what's happening there. And yet here, we "see" nothing...I've got a visual diary that I've been keeping. I need to update it; I feel I'm moving into a second phase with the work. I'm starting to work on some reportage (safely) that's taking me a bit farther afield into the city. 

My own act of community has been to bake a cake every Sunday and to put individually wrapped pieces on a table in my driveway (with my studio door pulled wide open), so I can invite walkers to take a piece. I did it for three Sundays, but not this past one -- it was quieter here.  

I'm okay. I miss touch. Like you, I'm a bit of a hermit, so the solitude doesn't bother me. 

The silence these past few days has been extraordinary. I was on a walk, almost the only person out, just before the rains and it was so quiet. I actually heard the clacking of a stand of bamboo trees in the wind. And last night, when I went out to put some trash in the garbage bin, the silence was so loud you could hear it. I have never in my life heard such silence in LA. And I grew up here. 

No pressure from me on the mask. I will look forward to it whenever it rolls off the assembly line. 

xxo 

Sara 

PS I think once it is safe to gather in small groups again, we will have to have another dinner in my garden....