![\"\"](\"http:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1188\/2020\/12\/GuilhermeforMar-1024x723.png\")
image from Education for All series by Guilherme Bergamini<\/p><\/div>\n
<\/h3>\n
\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Thanks to a doe-eyed TV assassin named Villanelle, I found<\/p>\n myself thinking of ghazals and sonnets. With its repetitions and rules<\/p>\n sestina is the art of quarantine. My daughter, who never exercised outside<\/p>\n of gym class, is now running for miles, doing yoga and pilates, applying masks<\/p>\n and serums, preparing for a beautiful future with clothes and boys. What\u2019s new,<\/p>\n pussycat? More YouTube, more Zoom, more books and home<\/p>\n <\/p>\n cooking, handmade wontons stand strong against tedium and despair. Stay Home,<\/p>\n Stay Safe, Wash Your Hands, Take Off Your Pants. Turn on the TV and pledge newfound<\/p>\n allegiance to State Farm and McDonald’s. Be together apart, stir-fry the new<\/p>\n normal, celebrate heroes with Free Taco Tuesday. First responders rule.<\/p>\n My daughter and I walked to the public gardens, full of tulips and couples in masks.<\/p>\n As any dog can tell you, it\u2019s just so good to be outside.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Get this: I was scheduled for knee surgery this summer, now there\u2019s an outside<\/p>\n chance I\u2019ll be replacing my own patellas and femurs right here at home.<\/p>\n I\u2019m in med school at the University of Google, have my surgical mask.<\/p>\n Until then, it is Saturday, unless it\u2019s Sunday or Thursday. Like Apple, I\u2019ve found<\/p>\n two-factor verification is best. The pill-sorter and the garbage truck. The rule<\/p>\n ran away with the exception. Nowadays people are burying old hatchets, says The New<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n York Times<\/em>. Sadly, others are digging up those hatchets or making hatchets anew.<\/p>\n Sleeping dogs + crowded quarters = quarantine apocalypse. In skies outside,<\/p>\n with Mercury in Aries, a Scorpio moon gets stuck in transit. Ruled<\/p>\n by Venus, sensual Taurus consolidates her sorrows and celebrates at home.<\/p>\n Sixty-two! Yowza! I\u2019ve ordered felt-tip pens and a one-egg fry pan. Lost and found:<\/p>\n The cat, a reason to live, the original cast album of \u201cHair.\u201d Underneath this mask<\/p>\n <\/p>\n I am smiling at you, old friend, I wish you could see it. Still no masks<\/p>\n in my dreams, but last night I did receive a Zoom invitation. Sailing to the new<\/p>\n world in my 1950s boat, I hit the gulf stream of consciousness, and I foundered.<\/p>\n Mayday, Mayday, Mayday. My cousins had to stand outside<\/p>\n the window of assisted living to get a last glimpse of their father. They went home<\/p>\n without telling Aunt Joan, who is in memory care. Despite the new rules,<\/p>\n <\/p>\n four instead of three were permitted at the burial, and the bending of this rule<\/p>\n appeared unto them as a blessing. They stood in their yarmulkes and N95 masks<\/p>\n around the grave of their father, and each told a story. Their elegant childhood home,<\/p>\n his box seat at the Meadowlands. At 97, imagine finding a new<\/p>\n way to die. I know my mother would be interested in discussing this. Outside<\/p>\n on a sunny golf course in another dimension, perhaps she can be\u00a0found.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n Here at home, we have just a few rules:<\/p>\n Whatever you\u2019ve found is yours to keep. Don\u2019t jump. Do unmask.<\/p>\n My daughter will take your new headshot. Meet us outside.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n with lines from Michael Ondaatje\u2019s \u201cFor a Sad Daughter\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n <\/p>\n Want everything. If you break <\/p>\n Yesterday I learned I have been washing myself wrong<\/p>\n all my life. You don\u2019t put soap in there, Mom. Don\u2019t you know<\/p>\n what that does to the pH of your vagina? My ancient puss<\/p>\n blushed at the attention. All the things you know about<\/p>\n eyebrows, oat milk, \u00ad\u00adwhite privilege, and I can barely<\/p>\n brush my teeth or read an expiration date. I take<\/p>\n the blame for those pillowcases that made your hair frizz.<\/p>\n Mine was a butch mom; my trousseau, martini olives<\/p>\n and a pile of golf hats. I can still teach you all my best mistakes.<\/p>\n Want everything. If you break<\/p>\n the butter dish or the dachshund statue, get out the crazy<\/p>\n glue, start writing. Potential embarrassment is no reason<\/p>\n to leave a door unopened. Don\u2019t be shy, don\u2019t be\u00a0afraid<\/p>\n to raise your hand. Give the answer, place\u00a0your order,<\/p>\n tell the waitress, tell the teacher, tell that icky man<\/p>\n to go away.\u00a0Do you need me to say this? You always win<\/p>\n at cards, beat me at Scrabble. You know, and you know<\/p>\n you know, and what you don\u2019t know, who knows. They say<\/p>\n it can\u2019t hurt you. But the line between brave and stupid is thin.<\/p>\n Break going out not in.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n No college kid in America wanted to come home<\/p>\n when quarantine started, and some didn\u2019t.<\/p>\n You did, miserably, weeping for your sophomore year,<\/p>\n but since then you\u2019ve showed everyone how it\u2019s done.<\/p>\n Nine-minute miles, Wheel and Dancer, granola and yogurt,<\/p>\n protests, TikToks, All Cops Are Bastards. Your hair<\/p>\n stops strangers in the street, exclaiming as if they spied<\/p>\n an adorable pet. I was sad, at first, about the hand-<\/p>\n inked tattoo, but here is something we share:<\/p>\n How you live your life I don’t care<\/p>\n What I mean is, I trust you.<\/p>\n I have been making portraits of your self-portraits;<\/p>\n when someone asked if you don\u2019t mind, you had to<\/p>\n laugh.\u00a0Since the late nineteen-eighties I\u2019ve only<\/p>\n made pictures of children. You popped in twenty<\/p>\n years ago to give your brothers a break. It\u2019s true,<\/p>\n for me, parenting has been one big scam.<\/p>\n Before we open your presents, I\u2019d like to ask\u00a0Michael<\/p>\n Ondaatje if this is really such a great thing to do.<\/p>\n But I\u2019ll sell my arms for you.<\/p>\n <\/p>\n <\/p>\n photo by Greg Dohler<\/p><\/div>\n University of Baltimore professor MARION WINIK<\/strong> is the author of\u00a0The Big Book of the Dead\u00a0<\/em>and winner of the 2019 Towson Prize for Literature. Among her nine other books are\u00a0First Comes Love\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0Highs in the Low Fifties<\/em>. Her award-winning Bohemian Rhapsody column appears monthly at\u00a0Baltimore Fishbowl<\/a>, and her essays have been published in\u00a0The New York Times Magazine, The Sun<\/em>, and elsewhere.\u00a0A board member of the National Book Critics Circle, she writes book reviews for\u00a0People, Newsday, The Washington Post,\u00a0<\/em>and\u00a0Kirkus Reviews; she\u00a0<\/em>hosts The Weekly Reader podcast at WYPR. She was a commentator on NPR for fifteen years; her honors include an NEA Fellowship in Creative Nonfiction.\u00a0More info at\u00a0marionwinik.com<\/a>.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" Welter has commissioned two poems from UB Professor Marion Winik. We hope they’ll help you through the last months of COVID. Reread as necessary.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3453,"featured_media":0,"parent":1261,"menu_order":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","template":"","meta":{"footnotes":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1126"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/page"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3453"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1126"}],"version-history":[{"count":21,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1126\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":1566,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1126\/revisions\/1566"}],"up":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/pages\/1261"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1126"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}Things to Do in Quarantine<\/strong><\/h3>\n
For Your Twentieth Birthday, in Quarantine<\/strong><\/h3>\n
\nbreak going out not in.
\nHow you live your life I don’t care
\nBut I\u2019ll sell my arms for you.<\/em><\/p>\n![\"\"](\"http:\/\/blogs.ubalt.edu\/welter\/wp-content\/uploads\/sites\/1188\/2020\/12\/Marion_Winik-web-150x150.png\")