It was soon after our relaxed and warm lunch with Eve Marko, and just after she got into her car to drive home to Massachusetts.

I wonder if this visit would even be possible in a day or two.

When I went back into the house, I checked in on the news. I could barely believe the waves of closings and emergencies and warnings and alarms that had occurred during the two-hour lunch – banks, groceries, schools, bars, sporting events, restaurants, businesses, the thread and fabric of our lives – were closing, cutting their hours, laying off workers.

Before I could digest one, there came another and another. It is coming, just like Godzilla, in those cheesy but somehow enchanting old movies.

Governors were ordering older people to stay inside, banning concerts and meetings, reporting on panic runs on food,  toilet paper, bleach, tissues, tuna fish, the Fed’s flooding the system with a trillion dollars for the banks, and all at zero interest.

Politicians and health officials everywhere are beginning to order people like me off the streets under threat arrest. It’s not Armageddon, but it’s starting to sound a bit like it.  I’m barred from the Mansion and Bishop Maginn.

Our faith is not  yet helping the needy, but worshipping an abundance of caution, not love.

And I’m now a person at “risk.”

It seemed my life was pouring through my fingers like sand on a beach.

So many people frightened, hurting, afraid.

We all have to figure out who to trust in all this; my choice is Dr. Tony Fauci, the hero researcher of the AIDS epidemic, a man I learned to trust and respect as a reporter, and the government official I most trust now.

The problem with lying all the time if you are a President is that nobody believes you when you are telling the truth. It’s a tough spot for him, and us.

Dr. Fauci, who has always told the truth,  said this crisis is just beginning, and we are not yet prepared. He said we had to do much more that we had to change much more to get out of this and save a lot of lives.

Much more, I wondered? How much is there left? Will they take the donkeys next? Turn off the lights?

If someone else were saying this, I would write it off as hyperbole. But if Dr. Fauci says it, I know it is true. He does not lie or prevaricate, and he knows whereof he speaks. So I need to accept it and get used to it.

I realized that much of the country was rushing out to hoard food and supplies for the next few months while I was a good citizen (except for grabbing my toilet paper roll from an old lady).

There were more alarms about shrinking food and medical supplies.

People aren’t rushing out to buy milk for the snowstorm; they are rushing out to buy what they need for their families for two months. How could this be a shock and surprise?

I could hardly blame anybody for panicking; I nearly did it myself.

I have suffered from mental illness – anxiety – for much of my life, and this disorder has been mostly dormant these past few years.

My life with Maria and my work with the Army of Good and my blog has brought me so much happiness and purpose, and stability.

Today was different.

I felt myself feeling the old panic, the old fear, and uncertainty. It felt awful, bile in the soul.

No, no, I thought I won’t do this again, I won’t permit this to be my story again, I worked too hard to let that happen, it is essential for me now to be strong, calm and clear for lots of reasons beyond me.

I won’t go back there, to that awful place.

It was time for what I call a reset. Those of us who have experienced mental illness know there is no absolute cure for it (as there will be one day for the coronavirus).

You get to recover a bit every day if you are lucky, but it’s a bit like alcoholism. You should never believe it will completely go away, that is a sinkhole.

It is always there, lurking like a Ghost deep inside the soul. The ghost showed himself today. I felt the old stirrings that signal a panic attack, something I haven’t had for four or five years.

I called Eve shortly after she got home, and I told her the old Beast was shaken loose by the torrent of disheartening and frightening news. “Write about it,” she said, “people will be comforted to know you are human and feel the same things they do. You are always honest about what you are feeling. Don’t start hiding things now.”

Good advice, as always from Eve, who is also a Zen Master. She knows about being calm.

I know what to do. First, I told Maria how I was feeling, and she cried, and then I tried to comfort her. Maria is always willing to talk and listen, and soon we were reassuring each other.

Talking honestly is healing for her, along with treks to the woods with Fate.

I meditated for 15 minutes. I took Zinnia out to the pasture and gave two carrots to the donkeys. As always, I loved the sound of their patient crunching.

I came in and sat down to write about this. I feel better; I see my mental illness has a bright side – I get to recover every day. I took some deep breaths. I listened to some Gregorian Chant, some sacred music.

We are defined not by how we accept good fortunate, but by how we take challenges, fear, and pain. The coronavirus brings all of these things, and it creeps upon us like a silent but mighty tidal wave.

I will do what is necessary to ease Maria’s worry about me. I will follow every direction and instruction from the health authorities. I will not submit to being confined to the farmhouse for two months. They can fine me and lock me up.

I protest to this bigoted and mindless labeling of every older person in America.

I will avoid public places, as requested, and physical contact or close contact with any human being. I will scrub and scrub all day, and whenever necessary—no more supermarkets for me.

Like a dog, I had to shake off the idea my government has that I am a useless old man who needs to be hidden away in his tower, too fragile to live in or contribute to the world.

I did shake it off, that does not and will not define me or accurately describe me. If they said this about any other ethnic or social group in so indiscriminating away, the roof would come off of the U.S. Capitol.

Today, I raised more than a thousand dollars to get food to the Bishop Maginn refugees, and I will raise more to help these refugee students get the technology they need for their virtual lessons.

Nothing wipes away panic or despair than doing good and being useful, at least not for me. Nothing lifts me up and heals me more than considering the many growing blessings of my life:

Maria, the dogs, the Army Of Good, my therapy work, the donkeys, the farm, my blog, the Mansion, Bishop Maginn High School, my friendships, my daughter and granddaughter,  my pictures, my life that is rich and full of harmony and meaning.

I never had so many blessings in my life, and this is not the time for me to panic or live in fear. Creativity is all about change, and creativity is in my heart and soul. From my study, and my computer, I resolve to do my work and to do the good we started to do several years ago.

I can handle losing Chlorox and tissues and toilet paper and tuna fish (a farmer at the store suggested old rags), there is nothing I truly value that I will lose or surrender to panic and confusion.

(Okay, one confession, in the panic I bought a bottle of Chlorox on Amazon for $30.)

I started writing this 20 minutes ago, and the fear is gone, the Beast has retreated to his cave, beaten back one more time, bloody but unbowed, just like me. This is what writing does for me; it helps me to understand what I am feeling and get it out into the open; it is a virus that cannot stand the light.

I think my  Beast is the mirror image of me in so many ways, willful, unpredictable, vulnerable.

He reminds me that I am no Saint or Super Hero, but a very human man with a lot of pride and purpose and the gift of being loved and sometimes, even needed. And that he will always be with me, hiding and waiting impatiently for me to stumble.

And there was Janice from Ohio, who sent me a message just a few minutes ago, saying, “whatever you do, don’t stop writing.” Never, I said, not even in Quarantine.

I spoke with the Beast, as I was taught to do. “You know what?” I said, “go back to sleep,” and he was gone.

Is there anything to panic about?