The Washington Post - 21.03.2020

KLMNO

Style

SATURDAy, MARCH 21 , 2020. SECTION C EZ RE

USA Swimming calls for Tokyo Olympics to be postponed. Sports, C8-10

Through the ages and across cultures,

spring has been a metaphor for life and its

renewal. All the vital forces of the universe

are captured in a single blushing cherry

blossom. Whether we ever stop to ponder

this or merely find casual delight in the

trees now erupting into bloom, or the fields

of daffodils dancing at their feet, we see the

vernal world as being reborn and fresh.

except nature’s party this year seems just

plain wrong. A saucer magnolia abloom is

as off as someone whistling at a funeral.

W here is the gloom of november when you need it?

The equinox was Thursday, but spring has been

around a while. March has brought a growing season

that is unusually early and spectacular in its broad and

unfrosted display, at least in the Mid-Atlantic. Didn’t the

flowers get the coronavirus memo?

In normal times, the eruption of life we call spring is

not just a natural phenomenon but a call to people to

leave their winter caves and come together to celebrate

Spring’s eternal hope

Adrian

Higgins

GARDENING

the floral renaissance. In Washington, that’s the

communal worship of the cherry blossom followed in

other communities in the United states and, especially,

in europe with folk festivals and maypole dancing.

The shared celebration, integral to our collective joy of

being alive, has been turned on its head by our abrupt

sequestration. What will the Tidal Basin hold this year now

that Cherry Blossom Festival events have been canceled?

Will the hordes still flock to the Yo shino blossoms or will a

diminished crowd find elbow room? Will there be just a

few souls dealing with a dystopian emptiness amid the

countless blossoms? everything about this crisis is new to

the generations born after World War II.

spring has arrived, the days are lengthening, the air is

warming, and we have been ordered back into the caves.

It’s dark and bloomless in there, with only our rolls of

toilet paper to hug. Meanwhile, Flora dances with the

windblown petals, blithe to our worries and privations.

Does a falling tree make a sound in an empty forest,

does spring burst forth without us? oh yeah. The green

see sprIng on c2

As global citizens

h unker down in their

h omes, the world’s flora

i s awakening, even if

we’re not there to see it

JOHN MCDONNELL/THE WASHINGTON POST

Victoria stevenson, who works for

d.c. public schools, sketches

cherry blossoms at the Tidal Basin.

BY PAUL FARHI

The White House beat is one of

the most prominent assignments

in journalism, a nd one o f the most

prestigious.

These days, it may be the most

anxiety-provoking one, too.

Despite a new round of health

precautions imposed on Monday,

reporters working at the White

House are operating in one of the

few workplaces in America at

which dozens of people remain in

proximity and within a confined

space — conditions ripe for

spreading the coronavirus.

The reporters acknowledge

that they are at risk for becoming

sick and spreading it to family

members. But say they want to

keep at it because the story is too

important to abandon.

For the past few days, entering

the complex has been “like trying

see reporTers on c4

‘Strange’

and ‘eerie’

time for

reporters

dering how to protect their loved

ones. These decisions carry par-

ticular urgency when it comes to

interactions between grandchil-

dren — who appear less likely to

experience serious cases of covid-

19, but can still transmit the virus

that causes the disease — and

grandparents, many of whom are

among those most at risk of suf-

fering potentially severe compli-

cations. Against the backdrop of a

crashing stock market and emp-

tying grocery store shelves, there

are other, intangible losses being

calculated by parents: should a

long-anticipated visit be post-

poned? A family vacation can-

celed? What to do about upended

daily routines, the loss of help

with child care, the sudden ab-

sence of grandparents whom chil-

dren have come to depend on?

nevaeh and her grandmother

are very close, Robinson says, but

her daughter understands the

need to stay away for now. “she is

bummed that she can’t see her

grandmother, but she gets it, and

we’ve talked about ways we can

try to work with this,” Robinson

see grandparenTs on c4

BY CAITLIN GIBSON

every afternoon for the past

few months, Jill Robinson’s 10-

year-old daughter, nevaeh, would

leash the family dog and head out

to pick up her 81-year-old grand-

mother’s mail from a bank of

mailboxes at the top of a nearby

hill. nevaeh would bring the mail

to her grandmother’s h ouse, just a

block away from where Robinson

and her family live in el Granada,

Calif., and the two would visit for

a little while, sharing a chat and a

cookie before nevaeh headed

home.

But last week, as the escalating

threat of the coronavirus pan-

demic continued to reverberate

across the country, that simple

and cherished daily routine came

to an abrupt halt.

“now I get the mail, wearing

gloves and a mask, and I bring it

to my mom and leave it on her

front porch,” says Robinson, 52,

who also explained to her daugh-

ter that she could no longer spend

hours with her grandmother ev-

ery weekend. The decision was

made swiftly, as the severity of the

cles, and trying to figure out:

What’s the right thing to do?”

The gravity of our new reality is

setting in, and Americans are

beginning to grasp the sacrifices

required to slow the spread of the

virus, which has left f amilies won-

pandemic came into sharper fo-

cus: “over the weekend, it feels

like the message really coalesced

clearly into ‘everyone needs to

stay put.’ And for a few nights, I

could not sleep,” R obinson says. “I

kept waking up, and reading arti-

Keeping social distance from Nana

Many families are curtailing visits to try to keep grandparents safe during the coronavirus outbreak

MATT MCCLAIN/THE WASHINGTON POST

stuart Wexler of alexandria, with his wife, alison, and their son,

dashiell, 10, recently canceled a trip to Florida to see stuart’s

mother because of fears of the coronavirus.

BY SINDYA N. BHANOO

our children are home. Their
routines have been upended,
their extracurricular activities
canceled. They are not playing
with their friends.
As adults work to control the
spread of the deadly coronavirus,
our nation’s youngest residents
are home from school, and it is not
a vacation. All public schools have
closed or are scheduled to close in
45 states. At least 114,000 public
and private schools are closed,
and at least 52 million American
children are at h ome. This disrup-
tion, and the fear and anxiety t hat
adults are experiencing right now,
has an effect on kids, even those
too young to fully comprehend
the situation.
“It’s critical for parents to un-
derstand that they are the prima-
ry mediators for how their chil-
see cHIldren on c2

Parenting

during an

evolving

event