The view from the epicenter, or "So long world, hello coronavirus!"

Here we are, at the epicenter, sort of, of the coronavirus in New York. We live in Westchester County, about 30 miles north of New York City, and just a few miles from New Rochelle.

The coronavirus epidemic/pandemic started out gentle enough--at the end of February we learned that a man in New Rochelle had come down with it, and his synagogue was closed.

Then that man's friends have kids who attend the Westchester Torah Academy, which meets in our shul, so the shul was closed. That closure began on March 4 and was to last for 48 hours.

That got moved to March 17, and now the synagogue is closed until March 26.

So that's the synagogue.

Then there's my church. Sunday, March 8 we "passed the peace" by sort of waving at each other. What to do--do we still have services "in person?"

I am currently the Moderator of the Hudson River Presbytery, and a member of the Council of that Presbytery. The Council had an emergency meeting on Thursday, March 12 where we discussed the situation and recommended that all 70+ churches in the Presbytery consider holding services using technology.

A few days later the Archdiocese of New York canceled Mass for the ten counties that make up the archdiocese, and then the counties of Dutchess and Westchester declared "states of emergency."

So in the past not quite two weeks life has gone from normal to decidedly "not normal."

And we had some indications that life was moving in that direction.

• We went to Whole Foods to buy chicken early in March, only to discover that the only chicken available were legs and thighs. Hmm, that was interesting.

• DeCicco's had plenty of chicken, so we had our usual Friday night Shabbat chicken.

• We both started feeling like maybe we shouldn't go to the gym, so we haven't been going.

• We went back to Whole Foods last week and couldn't get pasta, pasta sauce, any frozen fruits or vegetables, and everyone looked like they had just seen a ghost.

At that point, I think Anne sort of panicked and I started to think I was in a very bad science fiction movie.

Speaking of which, we watched the film Contagion which is a perfect movie to watch during a pandemic--it helps put things in perspective.

So here we are, two 72-year-old women, in the vulnerable age group (although we are both very healthy, with no "underlying medical conditions." but still we are old).

And now it gets serious.

• Our long-planned trip to Santa Fe to take an art journaling class with Jane La Fazio offered through the Madeline Island School of the Arts is now in jeopardy--we're just waiting to hear that it's been canceled. We are not getting on a plane right now, thank you very much!

• Our second night Passover seder is also up in the air--do we really want to be passing food around?

• We haven't really left the house since some time last week. I "attended" church by watching services on Facebook Live (not really"attending" but at least I felt like I was sort of there).

• We listened to Friday night services from our synagogue (while we began our Shabbat dinner).

• Our local supermarket is reserving 8 AM to 8:30 AM for older shoppers and those with compromised immune systems. We'll probably take advantage of that tomorrow morning.

I've stocked up on mysteries from the library, which is a good thing because the library just announced that there will be no more inter- or intra- library loans.

And so friends, the pandemic begins!

May we all be well and wash our hands.