It has been a long weird week.

For all of us…..

Falling branches, falling stocks, stocking up, taking stock.

Global pandemic, global panic, world in the toilet, toilet paper as currency.

I have seen my new neighbors rush to help me during my own crisis:

“Let me call my friend to help you with these smaller damaged trees.”

“I know an auto body shop who might be able to help with your car.”

While I have watched via my computer (still no TV) the world go off the rails; people coming to blows over paper products and bottles of water while others film and post the mayhem. Lines hundreds deep at Costco.

Watching shows like The Walking Dead have always made me question the sanity of the protagonist. In all of the apocalyptic, end of the world scenarios, the “heroes” are always seeking out other people, always searching for community. If these shows have taught me anything it is that times of crisis will always bring out (good or bad) people’s true nature and more often than not, other people turn out to be more dangerous than the crisis they are facing.

It often turns into a “them or me” mentality.

I get it.

I do.

As a wife, as a mother, my instinct is to protect MY family. To put the needs of US first. Then sanity and reason kick in ( I hope) and I realize that very few people (myself included) are prepared to survive this world alone.

Much as we may not want to admit it, much as we may believe differently, we really are all one tribe.

We are as strong as our weakest member and as weak as our strongest self serving urge. We may survive but we have to live with what we have done to do so, with the base versions we have allowed ourselves to become. Is it really surviving if the good and decent part of who we are no longer remains?

As I sit here on my porch reading a book and sipping my wine, waving to Temple members arriving for Shabbat, listening to the music from downtown wafting up the street, I realize the Things I Am Loving RIGHT now all start with the letter M.

Malbec, Murder Mystery, Music and Meals.

All of the things that speak to gathering, to community, to unification.

All of the things that bring us together rather than tear us apart.

Television may have taught me to turn inward, but my instincts are telling me to trust in others. To believe in good. To turn and reach outward.