First, start with your hands.

They’re right in front of you, following you everywhere you go. They’re touching everything! They could be the reason this is happening. Wash them. Twenty seconds or more. Sing the alphabet song. Sanitize. Wash again. And again.

Don’t touch doorknobs, don’t touch buttons. Don’t touch your face. Whatever you do, don’t touch each other!

Stand six feet apart. Draw a mental six foot radius around yourself like yellow police tape. That is your safe zone. What’s inside? Clean everything inside with your hands. Wear gloves. Clean again. Clean the gloves.

Wash your hands again. Twenty seconds or more. Try the Star Trek intro this time: space, the final frontier. Six feet of space. Turn off the water with your elbow. Sanitize.

Have you cleaned that black rectangle in your hands? Clean it. It’s only six inches of your six feet, but there’s a universe inside of it. Are the beings inside drawing their safe zones? Are they wide enough? Remind them to wash their hands, their universes inside your universe inside your hands.

Wash again. Twenty seconds or more. See if you can remember the preamble to the constitution: a more perfect union, domestic tranquility. Sanitize.

You can let pets inside your safe zone. Hold out your clean hands, and they will come to you. Feel their warmth, their little noggins yearning for your touch. Your hands can do this. Pull them close, cry on the couch.

Your hands are so hard against their soft fur. See how dry and red they’ve become in mere days, wrinkles forming like desert valleys stretching over centuries. They look like your mother’s hands, methodically knitting Christmas gifts in July, knowing the gatherings will come. Eventually.

Wash again. Twenty seconds or more. Sing “as long as I know how to love, I know I’ll be alive.” You’ve got all your life to live. Moisturize.

The beings in your rectangle universe are clamoring for attention again. They’re scared. They’re restless. Some of them are sick, some are dying. Hold them close in your clean hands. Sing to them. Find new ways to whisper encouragement to them as they fall asleep, greet them as they wake. Click with the fingers of your hands on this flat void. You are each other’s sun and moon in these six inch universes. Keep the light on.

Wash again. Twenty seconds or more. Try to remember the parody version of Bohemian Rhapsody you just read in that meme. Is this the real life? Clean the light switch while you’re here.

You can touch your face if you’re washing it. Feel the contours you used to cover with makeup, back when you used to go out, when people saw you. Trace the length of your nose with a soapy finger – the sloping sides, the curve of the nostrils. Your ancestors made that nose. Imagine them breathing through you: in, out, in, out. It was safe for them to breathe.

Cover your nose now and go outside. You can do this. Take your dog, wear gloves, go for a walk. Your six foot circle follows you like a delicate bubble you need to blow again and again. You’re a child now with a plastic wand in your hands. See it make tiny rainbows in the sunlight. See your bubble pop and splash on the sidewalk, beside the emerging crocuses. Blow it again.

Look around. The other children are doing the same thing. Wave at them from inside your bubble, far away. Exchange brave smiles under your masks. Remember how you always wanted to make bubbles inside of bubbles. You’ve finally done it, and so have they.

Go home and wash again. Twenty seconds or more. It’s ok if you’re too tired to be creative – just sing “Happy Birthday” this time.

Something in you is being born, though still in the dark. Your clean hands have been digging deep, planting seeds. Your rectangle universe is expanding. With every new and terrifying statistic, there is a new virtual dance party, someone reading aloud, someone offering a hand. Turn the soil with your hands. There is always a new normal.

Wash again. Twenty seconds or more. Pledge allegiance to this life, this liberty, this pursuit of happiness.

Close your eyes and put your clean hand on your heart. Breathe in, breathe out. Feel your heartbeat slowing, your rhythm steadying. It is gently rocking the cradle holding us all.

Start with your hands. Twenty seconds or more.