My friend Mary is experiencing some challenges working from home:

“I am ok! Working from home should be nice, but I feel weirdly like I never stop working and yet don’t get anything done. I don’t know how it’s possible, but it’s like Coronavirus mania has broken my brain. I keep worrying about what I’ve forgotten. Also I live in a construction zone, and sometimes the noise is tiring. I never thought about it until I stopped leaving my house.”

I’m having trouble with focus too! True confession: I haven’t opened one book in the Time of Corona. I’ve got plenty eyeballing me, along with the closets I haven’t cleaned looking at me balefully. “We aren’t meant to live this way, but here we are,” Mary says.

Today, Mary thinks about the classic A Bargain for Frances – and about a big choice she made right before the virus upended our lives.

From Mary:

It turns out Frances is a badger. I learned this when I consulted Wikipedia after rereading Russell Hoban’s children’s book, A Bargain for Frances.

I first read the Frances books as a child and don’t remember wondering if she was a badger, a hedgehog, or a skunk at that time. I only recently felt the need to figure out what, exactly, Frances was, when I checked this childhood favorite out of the library.  

According to Wikipedia, Frances is a badger.

I reread the Frances book because I recently bought a new home. More specifically, a home with a dining room.  

I have never had a dining room.  

I figured I would just use it as a home gym, but my real estate agents said, “Oh, no, Mary. It’s so beautiful. You have to use it as a dining room. Even if you never invite anyone over for dinner.” 

 It’s uncanny, really, how well these women came to know me as they helped me sell one home and buy another. Have I mentioned how good I am at social distancing? 

At first I left the dining room empty. More specifically, empty except for Mavis’s scratching post. 

 It took me a long time to feel comfortable moving in the first place. I was comfortable in my small home. Comfortable in my small life. My friend Betsy asked me a few years ago if I ever thought about moving. I told her that I had considered it and that I was planning to do it when I was in my fifties. Curiosity sparked, Betsy wanted to know: What else are you waiting until your fifties to do?!?

Um, everything? The truth is that I often live as though disaster is just around the corner. My house was small because my life was small. I’m not saying I predicted the coronavirus. I’m just saying my metaphorical face mask has always been snugly pulled behind my ears.

Somehow I managed to muster up my courage, sell my home, and buy a new one. Soon I had a big empty dining room, and I was thinking of decorating it. Face mask or no, I barely recognized myself. Wouldn’t it be more on brand for me to slow walk this thing and just leave the dining room empty for another year?

Or seven?  

Betsy didn’t think so. Betsy suggested that Ballard Designs has lots of wonderful dining room choices. Betsy doesn’t live a small life. Betsy is, at best, an enabler, and, at worst, a paver of the road to hell with good intentions.  

Which brings me back to Frances. A Bargain for Frances is a tale of toxic friendship between two young badgers who enjoy play dates, tea parties, and Machiavelli-style psychological warfare. Frances wants a blue china tea set, and she described it with such rapturous delight that my kindergarten self really wanted one of those tea sets, too. Her frenemy Thelma tries to convince her to give up on her dream and be satisfied with a cheaper red plastic version instead. Thelma, we soon learn, is awash in ulterior motives. The mean girl hijinks escalate until only Frances’s baby sister Gloria speaks with a voice of reason. Maybe they are honey badgers? 

I don’t know. Wikipedia was unclear on this point.

I figured it would be OK to check out the Ballard Designs website. I didn’t have to order anything. I could just get a sense of what I might buy when I finally furnished the dining room in the early 2030s. Or so.

As it turns out Ballard Designs has such an enticing array of upholstery selections that it helps to develop a color theme to narrow down your choices. Maybe it always helps to have a theme?  

I don’t know. Up until a few weeks ago the only theme I had was mid-century Cat Lady, hold the gluten.

I had a hard time deciding on my theme until I remembered how much I loved Frances and her blue tea set. This helped me choose Charlotte Blue fabric for my metaphorical chairs.  

I bet you can guess what happened next.

The chairs don’t look exactly like Frances’s tea set. Maybe they are just Frances Tea Set-Adjacent. In either case, as of a few weeks ago, I took off my metaphorical face mask long enough to outfit my dining room.  

And then the whole world fell apart.

This is the part where I should tie all these disparate themes together – Badgers, Dining Rooms, Tea Sets, Coronavirus, Apocalypse, What Color Is Your Metaphorical Face Mask. But it seems a little early for that. It seems like we’re going to live in this period of uncertainty for a while. I think we’ll see some creativity, ingenuity, and some of the best of humanity as we continue this fight. I suspect the numbers we all follow will climb higher than any of us can bear. We have prayed for Jennifer in the last few weeks while her daughter and husband were sick. We worry this is not enough. How could it ever be enough? But God hears our prayers and meets us in the frailty we are only just starting to recognize. 

And somehow this is enough.

Keep watch, dear Lord, with those who work, or watch, or weep this night, and give your angels charge over those who sleep.  Tend the sick, Lord Christ; give rest to the weary, bless the dying, soothe the suffering, pity the afflicted, shield the joyous; and all for your love’s sake.  Amen. – The Book of Common Prayer

 

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