A guy and a girl are walking on train tracks toward a nature preserve. The guy is dragging his feet because the preserve is closed. He’s worried they’ll get in trouble, but the girl says Come on, come on, it’ll be great. He grumbles but he keeps going. She’s his girlfriend; what else can he do

When they get into the nature preserve, they find a dead body. 

After a short argument, they end up calling the police—but that’s not the interesting part of this story. 

The interesting part comes after the police let them leave the scene, when the guy turns to the girl and says, for the first time, I love you. 

That’s a quick & clumsy summary of a cool story written by one of my creative writing students last month. The story has stuck in my mind and I thought of it again today as I considered how to move my teaching online because Coronavirus. 

As I imagined, too, what my creative writing students might be thinking right about now: How can you expect us to write during a time like this, Furuness? 

In the story at the top of this letter, the girl is the force of yes. The guy is the force of no. 

In the preserve, they encounter death, the ultimate force of no. In a move that seems to surprise both characters, the guy responds with the ultimate force of yes: love. 

Why bother writing in the midst of a pandemic? Why create anything at all during this scaryweird time? 

Not as an escape (or at least, not just as an escape). Art is a way to transcend shitty circumstances.

Art is rebellion, too, the big fuck you to death. You may beat me in the end, pal, but I’m going to get in a few good shots first.  

In a time of fear and isolation–the clamor of no–art is a clear bright chorus of yes, and yes, and yes again. 

This week I’m going to say yes, and I hope you do, too.