In March or April I learned of friends -- generally those with children -- who were temporarily leaving New York City to stay with relatives in other places. Now I'm hearing of more of them who have turned their moves permanent, or plan to. I understand. I'll miss you.

One person I know, seeing the news about the pandemic coming, moved back home to Japan, deciding and executing that move within something like a week. She was right.

Go. Take care of yourself. It makes sense. Once it's more possible to see friends in person again, I'll miss our lunches and breakfasts and co-working days. But you are reacting to forces bigger than us and I get it.

I've gotten this little shock a few times now, but I haven't yet gotten the bigger one, that someone I personally know has died of COVID-19. I know enough people that it feels fairly inevitable that it will happen, or that it's already happened. I feel some urge to steel myself but I figure that's a pretty vague and unproductive kind of vector to operate on; I'm just trying to keep up with stuff, keep my various plates spinning and keep my varied balls in the air, and get enough ahead of my commitments that I can take a day debilitated by grief if and when it comes. But there is this tinny foreboding, like a small constant noise from just the other side of one of my walls that I can hear if I let myself concentrate on it.

Are you experiencing this pre-grief too? It's not just me, I think.