REFLECTIONS IN A PANDEMIC by Willa Thorpe

Reflections in a Pandemic Story by Willa Thorpe, photos by Kirksey Smith

Only now have I begun to realize how little of me my house contains. Watching the container of ketchup drain, I contemplate which among my things are homemade, which will last my lifetime, and which will be trash tomorrow. If I went to town but once a year, would the ketchup be the first thing to run out? Or would I savor it knowing it was finite? My husband and I measure wealth in skills acquired. Once ashamed of my generalist tendencies, the older I grow, the more comfort I feel with our skills. When we are homebound on the ranch, I take pleasure in the simplicity of choices. When we don’t have ketchup, we don’t make hot dogs for the kids. What we cannot make, or do not want to make, we do without. When we do go to town it feels celebratory, a chance to wear sandals.

The closest town to us, Tucumcari, is about 45 miles due east on I-40. Its once bustling life along Route 66 is now remembered one weekend each May. “Route 66 Days” commemorates the town’s heritage as more than a gas station pit stop for cross-country travelers. If you drove the main drag, you could gather a diversity of ketchup packets from fast food chains. By far the most profitable businesses are the feed store and the one sit-down diner with a three-foot salad bar. If your curiosity pulled you further into town, you would find very few thriving businesses beyond what is essential. There are more available buildings and store fronts than operating stores, more homes than people that need them. The emptiness has been boarded up, leaving behind the skeleton of a more prosperous time. In March of this year, the U.S. realized the severity of the COVID-19 pandemic. The governor of New Mexico decided to close all “nonessential businesses.” And suddenly, the national cityscape shifted. After sending home countless workers and boarding up miles of strip malls, the average U.S. city began to look a lot like our town in the country. We all got a firsthand feel of rural America: of what it’s like to walk out your door every day and see life unoccupied, to wonder which one of our favorite places will make it. We sat by, watching our consumer culture vaporize. As if a sign appeared that read: “Welcome to rural America, where this has been happening for decades.” 12

Over the last few months I have felt a myriad of emotions about the current situation. I’ve felt an equal amount of guilt and relief. My family not only has 25 square miles of rangeland in which to roam, but we also seem to thrive in isolation. Whether it’s due to years of practice or a personality trait, I have always been more comfortable in a sparse environment. We have found that friends and family members, not cut out for our lifestyle, are suddenly envious. The pandemic asked everyone to isolate. For us that meant not hosting our usual branding, where we get to do more than just doctor calves; annual events on the ranch are the times we rekindle relationships, show off new skills, and swap stories of the past year. Helping your neighbor is as much about survival as it is a way of life. The pandemic has inserted wariness into what once was a lifeline. places will “make it.” I have watched the pandemic rip through cities and states and further diminish the vibrancy of our nation. I have pored over countless articles, trying to stay up to date on the unfathomable number of lives lost, the heroic acts of all essential workers, and those suffering economic fallout. I feel an incredible amount of privilege to say that my daily life, the life of my family, the life of my town, has largely and luckily gone unaffected by COVID-19. (I suppose I might change my mind when it’s time to sell our calves.) I would like to say that COVID-19 is the only thing keeping me up at night. But what equally haunts me is the constant question: “Will we get any rain?” We’re heading into our third year of sub-average rainfall. After last year’s destocking, we thought we would be in the clear, that 2020 would be a year of relief. What truly scares me are headlines like “Mega Drought,” “Rapid Species Extinction,” and “Warmest Year on Record” — headlines going largely unread due to the current crisis. We were all caught off guard by COVID-19, and it has turned the world upside down, but what about climate change? We have been and are now continually warned about the devastation our changing climate will have on humanity and the natural world. Yet, alarmingly, we seem to be as ill-prepared and unwilling to listen as ever. COVID-19 can slow down the supply of ketchup, but climate change could take it away. Our homes are filled with the work of many hands and materials from many landscapes around the world. This pandemic has highlighted how finite the lives of our loved ones truly are. And the next one? Will it highlight how finite humanity and the planet are as we know them? My hope is that the silver lining to the pandemic will be that we have learned something. That

After sending home countless workers and boarding up miles of strip malls, the average U.S. city began to look a lot like our town in the country. We all got a firsthand feel of rural America: of what it’s like to walk out your door every day and see life unoccupied, to wonder which one of our favorite

we will listen to the experts. That we will protect the most vulnerable. That we will take actions to secure a different future.

By now you are probably thinking I should learn to make my own ketchup. And I could. But I actually think the point is I am not supposed to. I am supposed to live a life understanding things are limited. To not take more than my share and to make sure there are enough resources left over to regenerate. I should also learn to reciprocate and be thankful for people who do things I cannot or do not want to do. Resilience is only achievable by acknowledging reliance. We need to treat all hands and lands with the tenderness of our own homes.

fPhotos are in and around Tucumcari, New Mexico, for a 4H photography project by Kirksey Smith.