In our neck of the woods we have been “sheltering in place” for over a month. In some ways it seems a lot longer than that. It is hard to remember a time “before”- before empty grocery shelves, decreased road traffic, public face masks, social distancing. There are certain markers that remind me when this began: the news reports on the television in my mother-in-law’s hospital room, the first Sunday of “no church”; the beginning of daily drives of a friend to the hospital for appointments and procedures and our discussions of pandemic plans.

How much of our lives are remembered by such markers? “The afternoon I broke my wrist, the day mom died, the day of the diagnosis, the night of the phone call, the morning Fido died.”

In a short amount of time, our world and its view becomes changed. Even my physical view has become very limited to what I see outside my office window, the square images of blurry faces on zoom calls, the weekly trip to the grocery store.

It wasn’t until yesterday when I was contemplating standing in a grocery store line entrance (decided the hour long wait just to enter, not even knowing if what I planned to buy was in stock, was not worth the items) that I truly realized this might be the long haul; there is no going back to the way things were.

We have been watching The Durrells of Corfu as a nightly diversion. A fun, entertaining story set on the spectacularly beautiful Greek island of Corfu, it shows the life of the eccentric English Durrell family who lived there for about five years leading up to WWII. As we watch the show unfold, there is a sadness in my heart knowing that for the real Durrells as they lived during this time, they had no idea of what would befall them or the world in the future. I want to shout at the TV, “Enjoy what you are experiencing now, because in a couple of years all hell will break loose.”

It makes me hyper aware of what is going on in this world. Will we look back at the beginning of this pandemic and think, “If only we knew how good it was during these first few months. We had no idea of what was going to hit us”? In the first week I was worried about getting the extra items from downsizing my mother-in-laws apartment to the Salvation Army store before all closures happened. Now, worrying about our son and his fiance’s health in the thick of it outside NYC is much more of a concern.

Yet for all the time markers that remind us of what was and how it used to be, there are time markers that remind of us what is possible and what might be in the future: the day a baby is born, a family member gets married, the day a job starts, the email of the school acceptance.

The thing is, there will always be a melancholy for what is missed and what was. That is not a bad thing. It is important to remember our past and the lessons learned. If we do not contemplate what happened before and its cause and effect, we are in danger of repeating the happening. But I think that there is an even sadder situation if there is a missing of the future because of the continued remembrance of the past. I have heard it explained that if we try driving a car by only looking in the rear-view mirror, we will definitely have an accident as we accelerate forward.

While we have been going through this for over a month and we may be enduring this for more months to come, I do not want to only be thinking of what could have been or things that have been missed.

Not that my broken wrist is on the scale of a pandemic, but the time since last November when I broke it, have been times of wondering- “what could’ve been, what I have missed, what I will miss because of it, if only…” As I have moved through the healing of my wrist and recognizing that things may never be exactly as they once were, I am also in a newer place because of it. I have a new friend in the once-acquaintance who helped me immensely in my physical therapy regime. The broken wrist led to other surgeries that I had been putting off but desperately needed. I have a better appreciation for those who go through physical pain. The healing time for the wrist provided me time to regroup and consider my own work and my dedication to it.

We do not know what the future brings. This pandemic has underscored that we need to hold our future plans loosely. But that doesn’t mean one needs to be fearful of the future. Sure, things can deteriorate but they can also improve. While our past molds and shapes us, it doesn’t have to cement us into a permanent segment of time.

The story of the Durrells did not end in Corfu. Yes, they endured WWII and life changed dramatically for them. Perhaps they pined for those idyllic days but they had to move on. However, the experiences from Corfu helped define their future: Gerald Durrell wrote delightful memoirs of his time there and the outdoor explorations he experienced led him to become one of the world’s first conservationists.

What about you? Do you have remembrances that are marked by certain events? How does that shape your outlook? Do you “drive your life” looking in the rear-view mirror or looking ahead? How can you enjoy today without clinging to yesterday and worrying about tomorrow?

I am reminded of Ecclesiastes 3: 11-14: “He has made everything beautiful in its time. He has also set eternity in the human heart; yet no one can fathom what God has done from beginning to end. I know that there is nothing better for people than to be happy and to do good while they live. That each of them may eat and drink, and find satisfaction in all their toil—this is the gift of God.”