I wanted to share a small way my wife has comforted me over the last week.

I’ve been waking up with a pretty good load of anxiety. Sometimes it’s tied to a specific fear, since my mind loves to spin out scenarios. Sometimes it’s just a physical manifestation of the stress we are all under, like someone is sitting on my chest, or maybe squeezing my heart.

It started in earnest just over a week ago. I sat on my couch the night of Wednesday, March 11. I watched the president give a widely panned speech from the Oval Office that had to be corrected afterward on numerous counts. I read on Twitter that Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson had tested positive. And then I saw the clip of the Oklahoma City Thunder game against the Utah Jazz being cancelled moments before it was set to tip off, and soon learned that one of the players on the Jazz had tested positive.

We kept our kids home from school the next morning. Those first few days I woke up, went downstairs, let the dog out of his crate with shaking hands, took him outside, fed him, and sat there watching him eat in our kitchen, feeling like I wanted to melt into the floor.

A few days ago, Ali got up and came downstairs while I was sitting there, and asked me if I wanted to play cards. So we played gin rummy for 45 minutes or so. Later in the day, we were talking about my anxiety and she looked at me and said she would come down every morning and play cards with me if I wanted. I said yes, I did, and I said thank you, and I grabbed her hand.

We’ve played three straight days now. Yesterday I couldn’t drink the coffee Ali had made because my stomach was so much in knots. This morning I woke up with the same sense of strain, but as my mind fixated on the cards in front of me, and I took my first sips of coffee with determination, I loosened up. We played for a while today, and we laughed when I went from up 50 points to down 65, and I took normal breaths.

So … love those around you.

(By the way, Ali has won two rounds, and I’ve won one.)

David Brooks said it well in his column today:

“Have you noticed that music and art are already filling the emotional gaps left by the absence of direct human contact?”

The other night I turned on a recording of Bruce Springsteen’s 2009 concert in London’s Hyde Park. You can watch it here.

It will stand out to you if you watch it, no doubt, how large the crowd is, and how close together they are.

Springsteen’s manic energy, also, reached through the screen and grabbed me.

As I watched, I thought about how much I will cherish days in the future when, God willing, we can once again sit under the great sky on a summer day or night and watch our favorite bands perform.

And when that day comes, I will think back to sitting in my living room, watching that concert, wishing for that day.

Let me know what you’re listening to or watching that’s giving you comfort. Or even better, what are you creating?