Amidst all the fear and confusion and sadness, there was almost a good feeling in the first few weeks of the coronavirus crisis.

Everyone seemed to feel we were all in it together; the politicians hadn’t yet figured out how to divide and conquer us, as they so often do. We seemed to rally around one another, and that felt good.

There was a shared sense of excitement, and an even stronger sense of community, something almost all of us badly want and need.

There was an exhilarating urgency in our lives, a need to watch out for one another and care for each other. The community rose to the occasion. That was thrilling to me. I felt needed and valuable.

That feeling still exists, but in such a divided country, with so many politicians whose fuel is hatred and division, it was only a matter of time for the small men with big guns, and the ever-opportunistic and scheming politicians got into it, especially in an election year.

So the challenge is on me (us maybe) to stay steady and grounded.

This morning, I took the bait and watched a half-hour of the Senate hearings on opening up the country. I guess I’m like an aging hooker in Times Square; I keep looking for love in all the wrong places.

Everyone stayed on script, except Sen. Rand Paul, who went after Dr. Anthony Fauci, our National Granpa, as expected. Dr. Fauci, despite the growing and personal attacks on his character and motives, is perhaps the most trusted and admired man in America right now.

Senator Paul told Dr.  Fauci that he wasn’t an “end all” when it came to the virus, and he had a hunch. It just wasn’t going to be that big of a deal. We need to open up right now, he said.

Dr. Fauci can take care of himself, and he did.

I’m sure Senator Paul pleased his followers, but he made my stomach sink. Every time I think we can’t sink much lower, somebody does.

If we can’t get together on this, this year will be hard to bear, along with a couple more perhaps. I’m getting more robust; I will make it, barring some bad fortune.

I would hate to be the doctor who to explain to a mother and a father why their child or mother died because some politicians had a hunch that the virus wasn’t all that serious, and we didn’t need to wear masks or stay inside for a week or two longer.

A former reader (she stormed off last week in protest to my writing about this) messaged me this morning to say, “I hope you get the virus and die, you don’t deserve to stay on this earth, writing the trash you write.”

I answered her and told her she just might get her wish if we all abandon the scientists for the senators and just pretend we can all go back to normal because we want to and some politicians have a hunch.

I call this the yo-yo virus because they keep us going up and down, up and down. One day, progress, the other conflict. One day we stay in place, the next we must open up, one day we band together, the next day we scream that our rights are being stolen from us. One day, the President has all the power, the next, the Governors do.  One day we have plenty of tests; the next day people can’t get tested.

One day Dr. Fauci is a hero, the next the inevitable goat.

Every message we get seems to have an evil twin, like the devils sitting on our shoulders. One whispers a message of patience and love; the other is full of anger and contempt.

The talk of the virus is like writing on social media, no idea or guideline can live a second without a thousand people correcting it, arguing about it, changing it, or storming off in a tweetstorm (a very creepy term all its own.) Someone issues rules, the same person tells people to ignore them the next day.

Somehow, saying we are a divided country isn’t quite enough.

For me, I’m embarrassed to say I’m having a decent, sometimes good, Pandemic.

We (me and the Army Of Good) are on a roll.

We are making sure the refugee families have food to eat,  helping the Mansion residents weather their lockdown, pestering people about Jean’s Place (that’s Kelsie above) assisting a refugee student and her family keep their apartment a while longer.

I often write that it feels good to do good, and that is true for me. We are doing a lot of good, and I am feeling good about it.  People from far away ask me in an anxious voice how I am doing, and I tell them the truth. I am fine. So is Maria.

I am keenly aware of other people’s suffering, and I selfishly turn it to my advantage by working to ease it. It does good, but it also keeps me feeling good. I think people who do good are often selfish because it makes them feel good.

Nothing they do in Washington can make me feel bad about myself, or even our future, they can eat one another alive, but that won’t alter what I do or how I think.

I guess that’s my answer to the yo-yo virus, I accept the conflict, but no one is stopping me from doing what I want to do, and I am getting good at it. No one is going to make me feel miserable about life, especially mine.

The virus has given my life significant meaning and purpose. I have little time to fight and no interest in doing so. In one sense, I had this awful wish that the Pandemic had come earlier, I might have skipped my breakdown. How selfish is that?

A priest wrote me a message yesterday and said, “you know it’s like sex what you are doing. You don’t need so much of it as you get older, but there is nothing to stop  you from helping people and doing good.”

I wrote back to him right away and said I mean no disrespect, but I am having more sex than ever and loving it more, and I feel the same way about doing good.

I guess I’m a lucky Old Man At Risk. Don’t believe the news.

If the virus should find its way to me, as my former reader hopes, I will go in peace and end up full of myself. I don’t have the same high hopes for her.

None of the refugee families in the Bishop Maginn community are going hungry, the super-disinfectant fogger we purchased arrives at the Mansion tomorrow,  along with a special lunch, some puzzles and games, and a socially distant visit with Zinnia and the residents.

Jean’s Place is going to make it, I can feel it.

The fogger is arriving just in the nick of time. No resident is sick. Nathan MacKenzie will fog bomb every viral microbe that dares to come into the building.

I will survive the politics and the news. I am, as my Governor suggests, New York tough.

I can’t prevent them from trying to tear us apart, but I don’t need to go along with it either.

We have our program. I’m sticking with it.