As languages go, I don’t mind the language of numbers. I do, however, think we’ve fetishized numbers as some sort of be-all and end-all that is dangerously illusory. Despite the universal historical practice of myriad forms of numerology, numbers a.k.a. data, aren’t the bottom line. The numbers for coronavirus have been startlingly bleak, haven’t they? So imagine my delight when a member of my household read that “113,000 people have recovered from COVID-19.”
Read MoreThe idea came to me from within, but then I saw this headline in The New York Times, and that gelled it. “Storm Expected to Bring Snow to the Northeast on Monday” Of course it is. It’s March, ducklings. We who live in the Northeast know that on any given day it can snow, rain, sleet, hail, or beam sunshine with added lilac crocuses for good measure. My hanging Mary Engelbreit calendar for this particular March, that is, March 2020, bears two words: “Brace Yourself!” The lovely Mary has drawn two people flying a kite. We are bracing ourselves for something different from kite-flying these days.
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