Coronablog Four: the Unexpected

and my recovery from the burnout has picked up its pace, and a friend of mine who has seen some shit, and a lot of it, said that this kind of thing happens to civilian populations in wartime, so there you go. That’s what we are right now, a civilian population in wartime, unable to control the greater forces threatening us and in immediate need of finding our own inner resources and building upon them. The cessation of certain uncertain deep internal conflicts is something to do with the “all in it together” character to it all, much the same as people will pull together in a disaster, working with each other to save total strangers and even personal enemies, or the way the first sunny day or delicate snowfall of the year sets everyone smiling at everyone, seeking connection.

     There’s a lot of disconnect going around right now, a lot of confusion, and that’s OK. I mean, it sucks, but it’s OK if you don’t understand something or are afraid of something. Just do the right thing when it happens, and that right thing is “learn”. It’s important to control where to inform yourself; for example, I get my numbers from my government’s ministry of health instead of the Weekly AntiVaxx Rant or whatever, and I trust that they are relatively accurate, but I’m fully aware that they’re also only a reflection of one thing: positive tests and hospital admissions. The actual numbers must be very much higher; does this bother me? Of course it does, but by staying informed about how this virus works and so on, I can plan effective behaviors. At the moment that means hunkering down in my house and garden and letting my heart free-bleed for those trapped in dingy apartments or with abusive partners or parents, those with inadequate heat or ventilation, those (like my father) who have literally no choice about where to be or what to do about any of it. But, well, that’s OK. It’s OK for me to feel bad about that, so I can let go of that terrible little voice we ll have that keeps telling us we should be handling things better, should be keeping it more together. No. We should each be handling things – really concentrating on handling things – to the best of our ability, not the best of that dude over there’s ability or the best of whatever ability so-and-so says you should have. No, the best of your ability, and mine, and those people too. We’re not all the same, and now that we have to act as one, in concert, our very individuality is what’s going to save us.

     Some things have struck me about managing a situation like this that I never would have thought of before, and I say this as someone who has worked jobs which required rudimentary environment suits. There are moments of oh shit like when I came in from one of my rare trips out and immediately reacted to a message I saw on my PC screen from a family member I’d been concerned about, by clicking on it to read that she is indeed all right. Then I went to the kitchen and washed my hands for 20 seconds, dried them thoroughly, and sat down at my computer – immediately grasping the same mouse I had just used before washing my hands.

     I could freak out about that. I could be angry at myself, and go into a spiral of guilt and self-blame at endangering my family. But no. We’re dealing with an unprecedented situation and we must each feel our own way through. Do I remember to wipe down the outside of the shopping bag before setting it down on my table? Not always. But I also choose not to strip and wash all my clothes every time I’ve been out the front door, so I’m already cherry-picking. And that’s where we need to get a sense of perspective about this: we are not trying to ensure that nobody else, ever, gets this disease. That’s fantasyland talk. We are only trying to control its passage through our phenotype well enough to emerge relatively whole from the other side and, again, this is just the beginning. Look to yourselves. Does your neighbor go out in a mask every day? That’s OK. Do you choose instead to go without because you feel that’s better for your own health? Good. That’s OK too. If we, each and every one of us, do our best, that’s going to be good enough.
     Some of the surprises are whimsical even as they are deeply sobering. A few days ago I was looking out into the garden and a bunch of soap bubbles appeared. I thought, “Lovely! That’s a good way for kids to keep themselves entertained while stuck at home!” but then, as the bubbles drifted into the garden of my 90+-year-old-neighbor, my entire mindset changed in an instant and I saw them, suddenly, as tiny, floating human breath bombs. Thus ensued a slightly infuriating chapter during which, on a couple of parenting sites, I brought it up and was alternately excoriated for “not understanding what soap is” (how that person thought the thin wall of soap was going to totally sterilize the volume of air within it in only a few seconds is beyond me and, upon cross-examination, also him – but he did say in closing, inexplicably, that now that I brought it up, if I don’t wipe myself down with denatured alcohol twice a day I’m a hypocrite; I’m still working on parsing that one), praised for thinking of something like that, told to calm down about it even though I hadn’t expressed any particular level of concern, and so on. Eventually I just called the Health Ministry’s hotline to ask their opinion about it, and after the nice young man on the other end reassured me that the children themselves were unlikely to be in danger (I knew that), told me that I probably shouldn’t go out and tell them to stop (hadn’t occurred to me), and said that I shouldn’t call the police even if there were more than two of them (they were in their own backyard somewhere…), he finally heard the question I was actually asking and said that he would place it in the ”low risk” category unless one burst right in someone’s face or, he said, on glass. Interesting.

     Another thing I hadn’t expected is the no-win situation surrounding respirators. I have learned that the main manufacturer of the ones we use here is in the United States, and, should the administration over there ever make any moves about getting its act together, could be commandeered for US needs, leaving us over here without our respirator manufacturer. Here’s hoping the Independent 3-D Printing Brigade moves on things in time (have you read Neal Stephenson’s “Kiosk”, by the way? Fantastic take on one potential future of 3-D printing).

     The ongoing actions of the less-civically-minded also continue to stagger me. Just like racism, senseless violence, and so on, I do not understand the mindset of your basic thug type. Don’t believe this is really happening? Fine, live your life, whatever, but why, WHY, would you go out of your way to try to ruin someone else’s experience? We have people here spitting at bus drivers, who are already risking their own lives to take people from point A to point D. There are people sabotaging ambulances, destroying or contaminating medical equipment; I understand there’s even a burgeoning social media “prank” situation involving deliberately contaminating produce. I know this will be seen as a tad harsh, but if I had my way (and most of my potentially nonexistent readers will now suddenly be very glad I don’t) this kind of thing should be met with a shoot-on-sight policy. I mean, talk about culls, am I right? Well, you probably think I’m not. Whatever.