Tag: coronavirus

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Personal

The Best and Worst of One Year of Quarantine

One year ago today, I was on my way back from picking up a used Toyota Corolla, fiddling with the radio, and I heard the news that the governor had declared a 2-week shelter in place.

Twenty minutes later I was standing in line at a local grocery store with a bandana on my face, a healthy supply of toilet paper, and the feeling that this would all blow over soon.

One year later, I sat down to think about the best and worst things about the past year in trying to continue living normally during a global health crisis.

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Personal

How it’s going…

It feels like the last thing that happened was the election, followed by the massive rejection of the election results, followed by Christmas, New Year’s, and an frenzied assault on the Capitol.

Oh, and despite all our efforts to be safe when going out, we managed to catch COVID.

Continue reading “How it’s going…”
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Micro

Zoom.

You know, I think people are clinging to the idea that they can simply continue to work and block out all the shit that’s swirling around us daily. I think they want to forget about the pandemic, the systematic racial violence, the people who can’t go to work because they had to close or their job simply doesn’t exist anymore.

I see it on their faces during teleconferences. Tiny, grainy portraits that glitch out every few minutes and are back again, a four-by-three stack of rectangles filled with forced laughter and thinly-veiled fear.

It had been a hunch for years, now, but for the first time in my adult life, I know beyond a shadow of a doubt that nobody, nobody, knows that the fuck to do about this, and we are all simply along for the ride.

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Micro

‘I Wish I Could Do Something For You,’ My Doctor Said

This sounds horrendous. You really don’t want to get it. Wear your masks. Keep each other safe. Don’t be so eager to get back to big crowds…

I am one of the lucky ones. I never needed a ventilator. I survived. But 27 days later, I still have lingering pneumonia. I use two inhalers, twice a day. I can’t walk more than a few blocks without stopping. I want Americans to understand that this virus is making otherwise young, healthy people very, very sick. I want them to know, this is no flu.

Mara Gay, writing for the New York Times
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Personal

That Discomfort You’re Feeling Is Grief

“There is a storm coming. There’s something bad out there. With a virus, this kind of grief is so confusing for people. Our primitive mind knows something bad is happening, but you can’t see it. This breaks our sense of safety. We’re feeling that loss of safety. I don’t think we’ve collectively lost our sense of general safety like this. Individually or as smaller groups, people have felt this. But all together, this is new. We are grieving on a micro and a macro level.”

— Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, That Discomfort You’re Feeling Is Grief