Grounded

I am glad that I have taken the time to build a little nest for myself and my family. There are lots of books and movies and plenty of music to wile away the hours and days and weeks ahead. Stay home? I do that all the time.
Of course, now that someone is telling me to do just that, I can't help but feel that I am missing something.
Am I?
When I look out the window, I see a few brave souls making their way this way and that. I see cars on the street. But not many.
I keep saying that this reminds me of September 11, but there was some smug safety in being located on the west coast when all that horribleness was happening back east.
That's not the case right now. The virus is everywhere. As viruses are. What continues to astound me and apparently most everyone else is the way it continues to spread.
And now I find myself remembering that tent where I read Michael Crichton's The Andromeda Strain. I snuggled into my sleeping bag and read by flashlight. About this disease that came to earth via satellite. About the scientists who worked for Project Wildfire. The ones searching for a cure before time ran out and the whole mess had to be destroyed by an atomic bomb. No cure, no nothing. Stop the thing dead in its tracks.
Before it spread to the rest of the world.
Where would we drop the bomb now? What is our Fail Safe? Social distancing?
Shelter in place?
Stay home.
When I was a kid, my parents never grounded me. This was partly because I was a pretty decent child who tended not to need that kind of intervention. It was also because they knew that I would be just as happy to be locked away in my room with my books and stereo and toys. Add a TV to that recipe and I could hold out for days. Weeks. Months?
Sooner or later, however, even I get tired of my own rut. I look to go out if only to have the chance to return. Because that's the trick, after all: Having someplace to be able to come home to.