Notes from The Pandemic
January 10, 2021
My friend Claire Cabot is writing a book about peoples’ experience during the pandemic. I wrote some of these pieces for her and some for me.
January 5, 2021
Covid continues to makes its way through communities in and around San Diego. The infectious war machine is indiscriminate in whom it selects. More people I know are being hit with the disease. I feel like a short timer in a war. Will I make it home before I catch a round or step on an I.E.D.? We are all treading carefully as we await the arrival of the vaccines. Though there is a Federal Disaster program (FEMA), Washington has washed its hands of helping in the distribution of vaccines. “Leave it up to the states”, is a sad abdication of responsibility.
January 6, 2021
The pandemic continues to stealthily invade Southern California and beyond. I live in a friendly place, and people are used to hugging, fist bumping, and shaking hands. No more. We all have a certain built in hypervigilance channel that helps us become alert to threat and danger. Well, multiply that by 10! Everyone is a potential carrier, so the new normal is to try to be friendly but distant. Shoppers scatter from each other, golfers ride in separate carts, and neighborhoods are quiet because everyone is locked down.
Where are the children? I don’t see them playing outdoors much, and the schools are empty. Certainly, childhood should be about curious exploration. I can remember roaming for miles with my friends in the country as a young boy. Now it’s the internet for kids in my suburban/urban area.
The GOP senators will be posturing and saying grand words today in Washington. The election is over, but simply, they can’t accept defeat. It is not complicated. Time, energy and money is being spent on a futile effort. It all is surreal since the pandemic rages on while Cruz and others indulge themselves. It is as if my neighbor’s house is on fire, and I sit watching the Super Bowl
January 7, 2021
While the Capitol was being stormed, the hospitals were in a state of crisis. Instead of urging right wingers to be his army, it would have been nice if Trump had been exercising some leadership with the pandemic. He says it is the states’ responsibility to disperse the vaccine, but I noted that he had no trouble sending federal police to Portland, even though the mayor didn’t ask for or want them there. Basically, he washed his hands of the pandemic long ago. He has no interest in the work of it.
I have had four friends now who have contracted Covid19. It feels as if the virus is getting closer every day, though that is an irrational thought. Like most people I am sure, I monitor how I feel on an ongoing basis. With the years I have and a health issue, in a one on one contest, the virus would win.