Well, I guess it’s time to start talking about the current situation. Historians are stressing the importance of diary-keeping right now and this blog is kinda like that.
I think we’ve reached a point at which every single human being on the planet is in some way, however peripherally, affected by the pathogen currently rampaging through our species. I myself am in danger although not particularly frightened; nonetheless the trip I just made to try to secure toilet paper, the ludicrous symbol of these times, got my palms sweating in the kind of reaction my body would usually have reserved for inching across a turbulent river on a fallen log or some such actually tense situation. These are strange times indeed.
I’ve been through a few epi/pandemics (Beijing Flu, Swine Flu, Bird Flu, SARS, and so on) so when this one got rolling, although I took it seriously enough, I honestly didn’t think it would get this far. Because usually, they don’t. I’m not saying that, apparently like many people, I expected it not to get to this point: any one of them could, at any time. And where we are with this one as I write these words… the future is anyone’s guess. It could die off, mutate to something more benign, mutate to something far worse. We might be facing a nigh-on apocalyptic scenario because of the too-little, too-late efforts of the major nations of the world, mine among them. Or it could all disappear with a fizzle.
So why am I not, as I put it, particularly frightened? Because, simply, that would be counter-productive. Panic, even when based on statistical likelihoods, is never a good option. So no, I’m not pacing around in a sweat, heart pounding over my elderly relatives, thinking about how much I love my kid, mind fluttering like a butterfly in a jar. I am scared though. Do not get me wrong. I am deeply scared in that slow, visceral, alert way of potentially imminent war, nuclear posturing, periods of heightened terrorist activity, freeway travel in Southern California. I’ve spent quite a lot of my life this kind of scared, because I’m not an idiot (and grew up in California), so I concentrate on riding it, not the other way around. Fear isn’t a thing, an atmosphere, a box. No matter how much it may seem to be a terrible force gripping you into its miasma of confusion, it is not a thing, and it is not from outside of you. Fear is a current. A state. A way of feeling. You can’t just tromp it down, you can’t just tell it to go away, but you can ride it. You can rise above it and look at it and see where it’s taking you and step back, step out, use the map instead of the territory. Is it terrifying that my kid, my husband, my father could get this disease, and, passing through the statistical field to its finer points, die? Like, in the next few weeks? Yes. Can I, should, I, turn my mind away from this, assuage my seething nervous system by calling these things unimportant, by focusing on things like entertainment and gardening instead? Absolutely not (but don't stop gardening and being entertained: we need distraction more than ever right now!). That would both poison me and prevent me from taking any wise action.
The only way – the only way – for me to stay calm is to acknowledge what makes me afraid, evaluate the immediacy of the threat, and use my time wisely. Is this a fight-or-flight situation? No. No, it is not. So what do I need with all this loose adrenaline? Decades of continual mindfulness, decades of personal experiences that combine absolute horror with no immediate, combatable threat (standing by a ventilator for days, weak from childbirth, after my newborn’s lung collapsed, long-distance vigils for dying dear ones on other continents, mental health crises of those dearest to me, overseeing the emergency response to a colleague’s heart attack, and so on) help me now. The line one walks in times like these must needs be a narrowing one, a careful one, an informed one, one of alertness and studied right action, but there’s no reason it has to be a crooked or an obscured path. Stay calm. Stay vigilant. Take every single opportunity you can to take a mental step back, let your mind go soft, let it order things for you in its own natural way - you don’t have to ride your every thought like some kind of micromanaging avenging angel. Give yourself some space to be calm.
So here we are on Day One of my coronablog. I don’t know if I’ll be doing daily updates per sé but I’ll keep you folks posted. Let’s start with a simple assessment of the situation here at home zero, a sizable almost-coastal city in the Netherlands, right now.
As of this morning, there are 2,994 people in this country confirmed to have the virus, ten of them in the town where I live. Like most of the world, we are not testing vigorously enough, our test protocols are weak, so the actual number is probably far higher. We are under partial lockdown. The schools are closed but the response has been terrific: my teen is right now teleconferencing with the entire class for a science lesson. Supermarkets have plastic shields between personnel and clients, nursing homes are closed, all theaters and sporting events are shut tight. Restaurants, coffeeshops, and so on can remain open for delivery and pick-up only and there are strict protocols for the handover. It is no longer possible to approach the bus drivers, so if you haven’t kept your transport card well loaded, you’re SOL and will have to walk. Almost all flights have been canceled, we are not open for non-Europen visitation, and the trains are nearly at a standstill. Air quality is WAY up.
As far as I know none of the three of us are infected. I expect we all will be. None of us are in a particularly high risk group, but I’m in more danger than the other two. In the early 1990’s I was one of the first people in California to get the Beijing Flu. The scarring it left on my lungs has left me with no significant impairment but when I get sick, it does tend to go straight for my upper airways, and last year I was diagnosed with light asthma. My doctor has told me to stay in, which has unfortunately now twice not been possible – because of the stupid toilet paper hoarders. Everyone needs an outlet for anger when the world’s gone crazy and right now, that’s one of mine. Most of my country has been pretty good about this but the area where I live has lost its everloving mind.
My husband has a health problem which, while not making him more vulnerable to pathogens, makes it impossible for him to be at the shops before afternoon, so if we want toilet paper I have to go out early for it. I did so a few days ago, and did not succumb to the twitching panic which for some reason has fixated on this household good as some kind of inoculation, buying thus only one pack of six rolls, assuming the stores would be better stocked as people started listening to the admonitions to stop fucking doing that. But no. When yesterday we again were unable to obtain any, nor bread nor flour, it became clear I’d have to go again this morning. We broke down and ordered 40 rolls yesterday but they won’t even be available for pickup until Wednesday, five days from now. And what did I find when I got to the store? All the toilet paper had been unpacked and re-bagged individually, so instead of the single pack of six to ten I had hoped for, I returned home with two rolls, the limit per person. Let’s hope we can get through until Wednesday on these; I’m supposed to stay indoors or in the back garden. It should be OK; we have some Kleenex too.
Everyone is supposed to stay indoors, of course, and this grants me opportunity for something to feel fury about: the number of people blithely acting like this isn’t really happening. I see radical examples, like that starlet moron who bragged online about going to crowded restaurants on purpose because “I’ll do what I want”, like some pouty teenager sneaking out to steal cigarettes because it’s all so “unfair”, but even more than that I see idiots here on my own turf, all around me. I get it that some people think this is like the runs when traveling: just get it over with. It isn’t; if you act like that, if you bring that upon us, the hospitals will no longer be overwhelmed, they’ll be as good as nonexistent, and magnitudes more people will die than would otherwise have to. I know there are conspiracy theorists who think this isn’t even happening in the first place at all and, well, I guess these folks’ heads are so far up their own asses they’ll just go right on endangering everyone else and violently doubling-down in the face of reason, like anti-vaxxers.
The ones getting my goat the hardest are these blasé, who-cares regular folks. The “I don’t think it’s all that bad so why should I let myself be inconvenienced by all these rules?” people. Here’s what my family and I have observed in only the past couple of days: people who refuse to respect distance at the supermarket, crowding their way against people in line or barging into their personal space at the milk fridges. People who jog in groups, almost touching. Gangs of feckless teens roaring into each others faces, cuffing each other on the head, sharing cigarettes. I watched an elderly woman force cash into a cashier’s hand and then, upon receiving coins in change, do her very best to grab the cashier’s hand while she tried to drop the coins into her palm, all the while leaning with her other palm on the communal counter and bending forward into the cashier’s very breath (only the major chains have the plexiglass shields). And one of my neighbors would be cruising for a bruising if the point wasn’t to keep off each other: three days ago and again today I watched her corner the manager of the little market, walking into his space as he backpedaled until he hit merchandise and had to stop, her talking animatedly, occasionally poking him in the chest as she leaned in to jabber straight up at his face about how she thinks all these regulations are an invasion of her rights and everybody’s upset about nothing anyway. Seriously, if I were him I’d have clocked her with a six-pack or a melon or big bag of rice by now and told her to get the hell out of my store.
Luckily, we’re in no more or less financial danger than we already were (I’m a civil servant with a protected, if entirely minimal, salary and I’ve been on sick leave for a year and a half as it is; that scenario’s not changing anytime soon). My heart goes out to those millions not so fortunate, facing deep uncertainty about the future right now. Likewise I want to give a shout out to all of those whose life is based on performance and crowds: I know what a rough time this is, how scary it all is. Keep working, keep making that art; the time will come when you can again share it with your peeps, and new workarounds are being innovated every day. We need you right now, please don't lose heart.
Let’s also not forget we’re surrounded by heroes, and the ones whose heroism often goes most unremarked are shining beacons for us at the moment. Medical personnel, sanitary and infrastructure workers, supermarket cashiers, pharmacists, social workers, entertainers, bus drivers, teachers, police; there are so many. A lot of these folks are still on the front lines because they can’t afford to stop working; they deserve your sympathy, understanding, and above all courtesy for being trapped there, exposed. Many others could step back though and still haven’t – and it’s not just the medical folks I mean, here, nor the cops nor the food producers. I mean the guy who sold you cigarettes yesterday and the woman you bought milk from. These folks aren’t in there working because authorizing gas-pump usages for truckers or stocking shelves is what fulfills them the way writing or sculpting does me, they are there for you. For me. For all of us. They are there to keep society functioning. So whatever you do, wherever you go, in these times, be kind.
These are dichotomous times, times of disconnect, a time to build bridges and create networks to keep it together. I’m seeing a huge upsurge in positive messaging, in community spirit, a massive coming together even as two older relatives of mine are isolated literally in the wilderness, camping and avoiding population centers like something out of any number of novels and movies. Keep it up, people; let’s be there for each other especially now that we can’t do that in person.
I guess that’s about all I have to say today, but I want you to stay safe. Follow the protocols, protect your elderly and immunocompromised, reassure your children, check on your neighbors. We’re gonna get through this; let’s do it with a little common sense and basic human decency.
Peace out.
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