This personal essay is part of the Mass Observation: COVID-19 Collective, or #MOC19. Join in.
In the quiet of my home, I feel safe and protected. I read books, do jigsaw puzzles, cook new recipes, write short stories, clear drawers, plant seedlings and stream movies. It's outside my home, in the public spaces where coronavirus thrives, anxiety takes over.
- In a grocery store, a woman crowds me on the checkout line. My breath shortens, my stomach turns, my heart rate climbs. I want to slap her, this selfish woman breaching the CDC’s six-foot distance.
- At a local meeting, a woman lets loose a phlegmy cough just behind my head, a catapult of germs. I whip around, snarl at her, grab my coat and take off. No more face-to-face meetings for me, thank you.
- A colleague, parroting Trump’s misinformation, insists the coronavirus is nothing worse than flu and challenges a group of us to meet face to face because she knows we all are careful about our hygiene. I move her from my list of smart friends to my list of not-so-smarts.
- I fill with rage at party-going students flouting pandemic restrictions on beaches in Florida and California, safe in their bubble of delusion. How quickly will they bring coronavirus to family and friends? And they will, you know ... then they’ll grow up to ignore vaccines.
In quarantine, some people relentlessly refresh their iPads, social media and browsers to learn the latest news about the coronavirus pandemic, reminding me, at 65, I am among the most vulnerable to coronavirus. (How did that happen?) Others hunt for hysterical memes, animal videos, silly movies and high-school musical performances on YouTube. I am squarely in the first camp. Bleak scenarios fill my mind: Coronavirus will be nature’s payback for large-scale climate destruction. Bankruptcies, suicides and murders will spike. Trump’s hubris and incompetence will destroy our country.
Certainly I see the bright spots, the moments of brilliance and kindness. Selfless doctors, nurses and first responders caring for others at the cost of being isolated from their families. Millions of teachers pivoting within days from class-bound lesson plans to virtual learning. Helpers emerging through flyers and Facebook to shop, run errands and tutor children. State and municipal leaders showing up as leaders, filling the federal leadership void.
We each deal with the situation differently. I go anxious. I burrow in my house and halt human contact. I cancel hair appointments, I use FaceTime to speak to my five-year-old grandniece, and I postpone an eagerly awaited trip to visit my son in his new home in North Carolina.
Outside my house, in my car, I roll through ghost towns. Roads nearly empty, sidewalks bare, parking lots unoccupied, stores rationing shoppers. I vow to stay in the house until restrictions lift. And they will lift. Months from now I will meet friends for lunch, travel to Charlotte to see my son, return to my slate of classes, slip again into Broadway seats, hand-pick flowers and shrubs for the community garden, wander the beaches and bask in the joy of life. For now, give me my space, safe in my cocoon, keeping my distance, confident the human spirit, my human spirit will rebound.
