"The third place," just like in the old television show Cheers, is a place where everybody knows your name. It’s not home—where they have to take you in. It’s not work (or school), where we spend many hours, but don’t necessarily find emotional sustenance. It’s that other place—where you feel comfortable, at ease and welcome. That’s the third place.

For me, that place is Baker’s Table in Santa Ynez. There, since 2012, proprietor Amy Dixon has created a warm environment for eating, grabbing a cup of good coffee and, likely or not, finding a familiar face for a quick hello and smile or maybe even a longer conversation when you pull up a chair and share some delicious food with a friend.

I’m angry. Greta Thunberg angry. You know Greta Thunberg: the 17-year-old Swedish climate activist who stares down world leaders with her unflinching child’s gaze and says, “We are in the middle of a mass extinction, and all you can talk about is money and fairy tales of economic growth. How dare you!”

I am no 17-year-old, but I feel similar to Greta. Leaders, from the top down, are playing with human life for economic gain.

If you haven’t seen the front page of this past Sunday’s New York Times, I encourage you to look at it. On it, are the names of 1,000 of the nearly 100,000 who have perished in the United States from coronavirus. Column after column of names are printed and beside each name, a short sentence that says something that makes that name a person—someone who mattered.

For some, there is more time now. For others, maybe not more time, but more anxiety — worrying about our individual and collective fates.

In a very unscientific survey conducted of Santa Ynez Valley residents, I asked people of varied ages, backgrounds and tastes these questions: How are you handling this? What books are you turning to? Which podcasts are you listening to? What shows are you watching?

We are, every one of us, grieving the loss of our former lives — the touch of loved ones we are separated from, the casual lunches at Baker’s Table with girlfriends, the events eagerly looked forward to that are now canceled.