“Jon, you need to stay home. You’re at great risk. Don’t play the “it’s ok if I die game.” The animals need you! The death is the same as drowning except in your own secretions.”- Jo, writing to me on my blog.

I don’t know Jo, and I am touched that she is worried about me. Somehow, I gave the impression that I’m eager to die or play the “it’s ok if I die game,” which is a new game for me.

Jo, like so many people who spend time online, has picked up the habit of telling other people what to do, or what she thinks they ought to do or aren’t doing.

I am learning to be more accepting and tolerant of this, I am often scolded for being short-tempered and too short with people who challenge me. I want to be more tolerant.

Drowning in my and own secretions is not something I’m planning for.

The coronavirus is a moral threat, and an ethical challenge, in that it asks each of us to be mindful of ourselves and others and to police ourselves for the good of all.

This is perhaps long overdue in American life and politics, this idea of sacrificing for the good of others.  I like it. It can sometimes go too far.

We are, it seems, a selfish and greedy people, increasingly blind to the suffering and persecution of others as we count our money, pay our bills, shrink into the digital world and forget how to talk to people face to face.

I welcome the challenge of the virus. Every day lately I ask myself, as Maria does, “what kind of person am I?, and what kind of person do I wish to be.” Good will come of this.

The other day I saw on CNN a story that had gone viral of a woman who took $100 from an elderly couple hiding in the care of a supermarket terrified to go inside because people tole them they should never go outside.

They wanted someone to shop for them.

She took the money so that she could buy them the groceries they needed without their having to get out of their car and get so close to people. The media and politicians had convinced her that would be instantly fatal.

The video was so shocking it went on a major news network and then went viral.

I liked the piece on CNN and smiled at it. It warmed the heart. It was familiar.

In the parking lot of my supermarket – Hanniford’s in Bennington, Vt. – the regulars and I have been doing that for several weeks. Elderly people sit near the front of the store, waving money out of their car window, yelling for people to help them shop.

They park close, where they will be seen by newcomers and shout or wave money out of the window.

They are afraid of drowning in their secretions if they step inside. But the woman told me she did have toilet paper.

I love that everyone who passes by agrees to take the money and buys the groceries and brings them out and never takes a dime for it. One of the couples told me no one had ever turned them down.

In the lot the other day, my last trip to the supermarket, we heroes were laughing about the CNN piece, we never thought of videotaping the exchange and putting it online. Too late now.

I like that none of us thought there was anything special or newsworthy about it. We all felt the same way. Of course, we’d buy the groceries.  The virus gave us a chance to do good and feel good; I think we were all grateful for that.

The virus is bringing so many of us together.  It might single-handedly deal with some of our national wounds.

I am not inclined to dishonor it with false bravado, stupidity, or selfishness. I know exactly how many people have suffered and died. I check every day.

I’ve written that I don’t intend to stay inside of my house for the next few weeks and months, and this has given people the idea that I am indifferent to my safety, and also to the safety of others, whose lives may depend on my keeping to myself. Or maybe I’m just another stupid, ego-driven male.

Jo thinks I’m casual about dying. I love my life very much and have no intention of dying. And I don’t care what anyone says; I am not taking my life in my hands by going outside, or endangering anyone else.

I suppose it’s a simple mistake for a city person to make.

I live on a 17-acre farm with a lot of woods behind it. I go outside to my pasture a half dozen times a day, at least. I can walk Zinnia on a country road where you can go miles without seeing anyone; the ones you see are driving a car or truck.

I’ve never run into humans on foot on that road.

And Lab puppies are not believed to be carriers of the virus. If they are, I’m done.

Donkeys and sheep don’t carry the virus, neither to raccoons and rabbits and deer out in the woods. I can walk a half-mile and be on my property. The only person I could ever run into is Maria, a woodland spirit who talks to trees.

Zinnia and I often walk down a paved path to a nearby lake. On a crowded day, there are two or three other people with their dogs.

Etiquette says we walk on opposite sides, with 15 to 20 feet separating us, to get six feet or closer would be intrusive and uncomfortable. We nod politely to one another and try to say something nice about each other’s dogs; we aren’t there to chat.

When I do go into town, it’s to ride with Maria to the post office and the bank. I sometimes go into our food Co-Op, a small place with a handful of shoppers. I wash my hands when I leave (I go once or twice a week), and then when I get home.

And of course, there are the doctors. I have doctors, and there is much mask-wearing, sanitizing soap washing. None of them live in my town.

I read the directives and suggestions of medical health professionals every day, and very carefully.

I should say that no one in my town or anywhere close has gotten the coronavirus. This makes me happy but not reckless. It can appear anywhere in a flash. Still, we are not a flashpoint or an epicenter; we appear on none of the daily virus-tracking maps.

Jo is wrong about my intentions.  I’m not thrilled with the idea of dying; I don’t want to leave Maria, my dogs, or the blog. It took a long time to be this happy, and I’m not about to toss it away on some macho posturing.

But I am 72, and I do have two of those underlying chronic diseases that get the virus so cranked up. If this one doesn’t get me, the next one just might. They may not see that one coming either.

So I will die sooner rather than later, if my heart doesn’t get me first,  no matter what Dr. Fauci says.

I am ok with that. If the coronavirus should catch up with me and slay me, that will be a shame. But I will take comfort from the fact that I lived a full and meaningful life, right up to the end.

Like the farmer said, we all die of something when we get old, that’s sort of the point.

The ones I feel the most for are the young, banished from school, struggling for work, or the small business people whose lives and fortunes can be wiped out in a flash.

The airlines will be fine.

After screwing us for years with shrinking seats and outrageous fees, the government will bail them out again.

They won’t be bailing Jean’s place out, I can promise you that. And please don’t tell me about the chatter about helping small businesses. See me in a year.

I respect death; it is the one place where we shall all gather in the end.

You don’t need to rush it, but it’s pointless to hide from it. I don’t go anywhere there are crowds, and Maria has taken over the supermarket shopping because there are just too many people there.

She is a tyrant about this, and I do what she tells me, out of fear and love.

She does not let me do anything that would endanger me or anyone else, and to be honest, I’m not interested in trying. I will do anything I can to help this monster go away, so many people are suffering in so many ways.

Otherwise, I stay away from people, practicing the hideous phrases social isolation or social distance, now part of the collective dialogue.

But Jo, I don’t need to stay inside. And I won’t.

There are plenty of beautiful and open spaces where there are no people, beautiful landscapes, and enchanted and mystical woods. Places with no people, places where you couldn’t get close to anybody if you chased after them.

I’m so glad to live here. I don’t live in Cleveland or San Francisco or New York City.  There are no subways or crowded malls. The virus will have to work hard or hitch a ride to get here.

I am socially isolated all day and all night, and long before the virus.

So I will not obey any orders to stay indoors for a month or so.

If the Social Isolation police want to pull me out of the woods and haul me off to jail, I’ll do the time and pay the fine.

And Jo, I’ll be here in the Fall. I can almost guarantee it.