What genre are we living in? It occurred to me this week that I’m simultaneously living in two–science fiction outside my four walls and middle-grade fiction inside those four walls. Outside is an uncontrollable enemy threatening our very existence. Inside is a family huddled around a metaphorical fireplace.

Of course, I asterisk my thoughts to acknowledge that I am incredibly lucky, with minimal personal hardship–so far–imposed by the horrid COVID-19 pandemic. My day-to-day feels very much like Little House on the Prairie, without the prairie. What I read on Twitter feels very much like Station Eleven. But this gives me pause.

Last year I read Prairie Fires, Caroline Fraser’s excellent biography of the author of the Little House series, Laura Ingalls Wilder. It’s excellent and won the Pulitzer Prize in 2018. From Ingalls Wilder’s biography, it’s clear Little House on the Prairie and the full series was completely based on the experiences she had as a child, growing up in the midwest.

The books are completely charming, and while they touch on difficult events for the whole family, what stays with the reader is the warmth and simplicity of pioneer life. Of course, this is all very appropriate for a middle-grade reader. But I was struck that the actual events in Ingalls Wilder’s life were actually quite horrific. As a writer, she took some brutal experiences and repackaged them with fondness.

I don’t know what to make of this, as I reflect on what’s going on at my house right now. I suppose I am just grateful that my own Little House is not a romanticized version of events. We’re three people who are enjoying being together, have an abundance of food and Netflix, and can even take walks in the beautiful spring weather (albeit six feet apart).

Could all this change instantly? Absolutely. The science-fiction-ish diabolical antagonist–who in this case seems to be Mother Nature, creator of Coronavirus–could at any moment draw me into a plot twist. I or someone close to me could become sick, we could lose our savings, or we could be unable to acquire the very basics of what we need, such as food.

So I suppose my only option is to appreciate what I have today, including the very real sweetness of it, and the fact there’s not yet a need to romanticize it. And if the plot takes a turn for the worse, I may need to retell my own story, as Ingalls Wilder did, casting it into a gentler genre for the journey forward.