We’re all tired, get it, no, I mean really tired, I know, get it, so let’s change the subject, what are you doing for Mother’s Day? Duh, same thing as you.

Now there’s a name for what we’re going through; it’s called “coronavirus quarantine fatigue,” at least that’s what the NYT calls it. If you have no idea what I’m talking about and could use a definition, read the article, by all means. https://www.nytimes.com/2020/05/05/opinion/coronavirus-quarantine-fatigue.html.

But I have a hunch; if you’re like me, you don’t need to get so scientific about it. We know what we’re going through, we don’t need to read about it or be told what it is, we just want to get on with our lives all ready.

Oh, but Sunday’s Mother’s Day. A day when we are grateful for the love and nurturing of our dear mothers, only we’re too tired to care much.

When I think of those words, “I’m tired,” I know I’m dating myself as this movie came out in 1985, but I think of Jules having a melt-down in St. Elmo’s Fire. Demi Moore was the actress who carried such weight with her words when she said, “I’m tired, Billy. I think about this a lot: I never thought I’d be this tired at 22”. Okay, fill in the blank with the age that you prefer to be, it applies now.

You don’t have to know the movie, but if this sparks something inside you and you want to watch the clip, here it is along with a fabulous article about how you don’t want to watch the movie, but if you happened to see it, it sure is a memorable quote https://www.thecut.com/2017/08/i-think-about-this-a-lot-st-elmos-fire-demi-moore.html.

If you didn’t take that trip down memory lane, no worries, what’s gotten us this far wasn’t that movie, it was our friends and family, and our dear mothers, too.

And though Demi Moore made being tired look glamorous, in real life, it can get ugly. We start to get an attitude. You know the way the jokes have changed to reflect this, “When this is over with, I’m going to go back to social distancing on my own terms.” We laugh when other people say it. I’m speaking from experience here; I’m probably laughing the loudest.

But luckily, Alex didn’t fall down this trap. No matter what, he remains kind. Before kids, Alex always saved the last piece for me. Now the kids get the last of everything, so I don’t know if that would still translate. But since the coronavirus started, he spearheaded a type of community outreach program. Who do we need to call? Whenever a name comes to mind, he’s the first one on it.

He also posts a video of my youngest playing a piano piece every day of quarantine (except weekends), and he has stuck with it. They’ve lifted a lot of spirits in the process, including their own.

And then there’s me; when we were first married, I would just eat the last piece, no questions asked. And as far as those videos, I can’t keep up; I have a lot of them cued up because I never accepted the tag request.

For all the great things Alex is doing, I’ve been pulling away. I don’t know how he keeps it up, quite frankly, or why I’ve been withdrawing (isn’t there enough social distancing anyway?). But my big attitude started kicking in. If I cursed, it would fit in nicely here, but sometimes we just want to be a big xxx.

But I kept up the blog posts because that’s where I have to keep up my appearances. If I didn’t post that week’s muse, the coronavirus would have won.

Plus, how could I let down my dear friends and family, and my fellow musers? You have given me such unbelievable love, support, and joy. How could I be so ungrateful? Even before the coronavirus, you’ve been amazing, you’ve encouraged me to write, you’ve shared incredible insights, which have sparked full muses of your own, you’ve been there every step of the way. I am honored and humbled (oh, there’s that word again from last week) to be of service in the one way that I can.

We have brought joy to one another, and I would have easily thrown it away.

I was scared. People were beginning to think of me as a beacon of hope, while there are real problems in the world. Do I bury my head in the sand or in the clouds? It’s exponentially easier for a virus to spread fear, just do the numbers, than it is for me to spread hope. But then I remembered this story.

When the girls were little, we took a detour on our walk down a path that led to the banks of the Schuylkill River in Fairmount Park. There was a tiny ledge that seemed to separate the flow of the river, so the water dammed up on one side and made a little waterfall on the other. There was a sign that read, “DANGER: NO SWIMMING” only to our horror, we saw a boy under the waterfall a boy trying to stay afloat. The boy would flail his arms and go under and come back up again. The father was standing on the ledge, hollering at him to get out. The times the boy had his voice again, he’d yell, “I can’t. I’m trying.”

Talk about fear paralysis. What could we possibly do? There was no one around to help. We saw the outcome flash before our eyes: the son would drown while the father screamed helplessly at his son.

A stupor came over me, but I said to Alex, “You have to do something.” But Alex was in that daze of helplessness, too, while we watched the man jump in after his son. He was drowning, too.

At that moment, a man appeared, sprinting to the rescue. He passed us and yelled at Alex, “help me.”

Alex followed the stranger blindly, having no idea what they were going to do. The man ran up to a huge tree limb that had fallen by the edge. It was so heavy the two of them needed to tow it.

Alex and that brave stranger re-directed the branches into the water within reach of the man and the boy. The stranger yelled, “Grab on.”

Alex and that stranger pulled that drowning man and his son out of that mini-vortex to safety. That’s when I realized I could breathe again; that man made a bad situation good again.

I didn’t think it’s no big deal; he only saved two people. What a hero! He saved two people. He exemplified love and compassion–what we honor our mothers for on Mother’s Day, and yes, he was a man.

I always need to remember that story. If we get dragged into the horrors of what’s going on thinking we can save the day without knowing what we are doing, we’ll drown. Let’s not lose our heads to negativity; let’s use them and figure out what we can do to be the hero; however small, spreading love and joy will lift us all to greater heights.

Luckily that man and his son had that heroic stranger to pull them through just like I’ve had my husband, my girls, my family and you to pull me to the other side.

Just think, it’s all in time for Mother’s Day. It’s this Sunday, let’s approach it with joy in our hearts.

So I get this text from Kelly Severns Curtis and darn if my community theater friend isn’t a web designer. All she wanted to do was fix my URL’s because they were too long. But it was like hitting the jackpot, it’s like I rubbed a lamp and a genie was there to update my homemade blog. I was a kid in a blog candy store.

She got to work behind-the-scenes, all the places you don’t go but will now make for a much better, less frustrating experience. It might look the same as before, but trust me, it is so much better.

And speaking of better, I knew better than to let the coronavirus beat us, mothers, out for Mother’s Day. I almost let it win. It’s just that easy. So let’s be strong. Let’s know that we have each other’s backs and not take this so seriously. Let’s have fun again, not as a badass, okay, I said it, but in a big ass kind of way.

That reminds me of our wine days, and we stumbled upon the “Big Ass Cab.” It was fun and mysterious and anti-establishment, about the time of Sideways (again, if you didn’t see the movie, no worries, it’s irrelevant). Nobody knew who made it or where they bought the overflow of wine from, but they slapped that label on it, it was cheap and delicious and fun. Who knows what became of it, but we have these bottles that I made into candles. Maybe it’s here to remind us not to let our “big ass” tendencies take over and give the coronavirus the edge.

It’s Mother’s Day on Sunday, and what matters more than anything is to spread the love we have in our hearts to our fellow friends and family and strangers, too. Bring on the hugs, virtually. Let’s make them every bit as big and bold and lingering as a California wine. And prepare for the day we can finally embrace one another again in person because when that day comes, I’ve got a whole lot of hugging to do.