CHICAGO _ A big orange umbrella was fluttering outside the Peet's coffeehouse on North Avenue on Wednesday, like a giant hand waving hello. It caught my eye as I drove past, and glancing over I spotted a familiar face.
"Anthony!" I called.
Anthony Redmond is a security guard at North & Sheffield Commons but he's also the social heart of the strip mall, always quick with a greeting, a smile and a story for regular customers and strangers alike. Over many years, we've talked, often at length, several times a week.
But the mall has been as barren as a tundra since the pandemic hit, the parking lot empty, most of the store windows covered by boards. Peet's reopened recently for contactless pickup at the door but a coffeehouse without seats is like coffee without beans, so I hadn't stopped by, which meant I hadn't seen Anthony.
"You think we're ready for everything to open up?" he said almost as soon as I steered my car into the lot.
I rolled my eyes.
"Me neither," he said. "Why can't people wait?"
"Because people are fundamentally impatient?" I said.
With a short, rueful laugh, he said, "Impatient to die."
I'll get back to Anthony, but first, a few thoughts about patience.
Patience, as defined by one dictionary, is "the capacity to accept or tolerate delay, trouble, or suffering without getting angry or upset."
Often referred to as a virtue, patience is also a skill. You learn it by doing, and modern life has eroded our need to do it. We live in a 24/7 world of instant this and on-demand that, of fast, faster, now. Even the word "patience" sounds old-fashioned, like the name of a meek character in a Victorian novel.
But then came a pandemic, and patience was back in vogue.
We've needed patience as we wait for our jobs to return, or return to normal. As we wait to go back to the movie theater, the beach, the bar, to a restaurant or to school. As we wait to see the people we love or simply enjoy.
All that waiting is a struggle. But many of us do it with the conviction that patience is an investment. We tolerate "delay, trouble, or suffering" now for the payoff of a better future, one in which more people stay healthy and alive.
So far, patience has paid off. A hundred thousand people in this country are dead from a virus most of us hadn't heard of not so long ago. Without our collective patience, that terrible number, and all the wreckage that comes with it, would be far greater.
But now here we are in Illinois, in the last week of May, poised for Friday's phase three of the reopening. That means restaurants, retailers and other enterprises can cautiously get back to business, with modified practices.
Chicago, however, is waiting until June 3 for even a partial loosening of the rules, meaning more patience is required, which brings me back to Anthony. The delay is fine by him.
"I know everybody's hurting, but don't be in a rush," he said. "My life is worth more than a party or sand on my feet."
Anthony has continued to work three days a week patrolling the empty strip mall (he noted that his boss has been paying him for five) and he's glad for the work. But the solitude has been hard.
"I barely saw a roach come past," he said.
He grew so bored that he spent hours cultivating his skill at kicking a rock aimed at a crack in the sidewalk near Peet's. His shoes are scuffed from the practice.
Being home _ on one of the safer blocks in the West Side neighborhood of Lawndale _ has required patience, too. To fill the time, he's been tending his two puppies. He often takes care of his grandson. He regularly goes upstairs to check on his 84-year-old mother, always careful to keep a good distance and often smelling of Pine-Sol from his relentless cleaning.
"I can't sit down," he said. He even washed the walls.
On the day we talked, the boards came off the windows of the Pottery Barnand the West Elm at North & Sheffield Commons. People straggled past to peer hopefully into the windows. Anthony will be glad to have some customers around, but he's hoping that everyone continues to do all the right things _ keep social distance, wash their hands, wear a mask _ so that all this sacrifice doesn't wind up wasted.
I asked him if he had any further words for those eager to gather in crowds.
"Yes," he said. "Stay home. Read a book. Learn to do something. Play checkers. FaceTime." He laughed. "Wipe your walls."
In short, stay patient. It's exciting to think of life opening up again, but the virus is still stalking us. For now, patience is the only escape route.
