in the silent musings of a patisserie shuttered during the initial hours of lockdown, one might disaffirm the grim directive of isolation, choosing instead to launch from the outset a meditation on the resilience of the human spirit. it is within the warmth of an oven that bread rises, akin to the human heart that swells with hope, even as the streets lie empty. the directive of our current circumstance is not a cage, but rather a cocoon, from which we are poised to emerge, transformed.