So I have been isolating. This is day six. Some folks at work still think I’m overreacting as they go to work each day in a job that puts them in direct contact with the public for 9-12 hours a day.
Because I now fancy myself a blogger, I am keeping the news rolling on the TV with an occasional break to watch a movie. I think it’s important for these musings of mine to reflect the best information that is out there so they don’t descend into new versions of “Road Warrior” nor become oblivious, vapid entertainments that pretend it isn’t happening at all.
It’s happening, and I’m hiding.
It’s interesting spending a week with your inner self, a guest that is often not invited over in our day to day lives.Too much competes for attention on a typical day. Bills, work, relationships, clubs, car maintenance, schedules, annoyances (a big time waste), a million things that crowd out reflection and intentional growth.
Living alone means isolation is exactly that. The only thing that really forces any action is a grumbling tummy, and I have found that if you get past the initial hunger pains it passes. I have discovered a laziness in me that can even overcome the need for sustenance. I have actually lost weight due to inertia.
That inertia actually overcame me yesterday as I had a very low day. I didn’t feel well, I think an inner ear infection was messing with my balance a bit, or the wine did it. Might have been the wine as I’m doing a bit better today. But yesterday I became almost catatonic. Movement of any kind seemed to have no purpose, so I didn’t.
I couldn’t even write to you.
That has been the most constructive thing I have done during this period, and I couldn’t even do that. How selfish of me. There are tens of people who regularly read these observations! How will they complete their day without my contribution to their understanding of the days goings on? I must persevere! Cue Celine Dion!
Well, at this early stage in my new endeavor maybe it isn’t that important to the country’s recovery, but I think it is that important to mine. It is something I am still responsible for, something this virus can’t take from me, can’t impact unless I allow it to.
Yesterday I lost that struggle. It overwhelmed me and I was paralyzed.
Cue Taylor Swift! Shake it off!
New day. Still taking a break from my amateur analysis of the dire nature of what has befallen us all. The growth curve continues at a pace that has already been firmly established. Nothing has changed. No overarching national strategy is in place.
So I’m hiding. When it first started I went to a hobby shop (never Hobby Lobby. Yes, I’m one of those) and bought a model rocket starter kit. This was a hobby of mine at about 12 years old and involved so many stages (no pun intended) to the entire experience. Selection of a model, of how powerfully you would launch it, the construction of the paper and balsa missile, the event of going to a field large enough to launch it, only to find out there is no field that is actually large enough to launch it if the goal is the eventual recovery of the model after flight. Watching the labor of love disappear over a stand of trees, never to be seen again. The elation of flight, the lighter load packed into the car.
Repeat.
That sounded fun. A diversion for not much cost.
I have not yet opened the box.
Since I seem incapable of resisting the lure of the couch, I have come up with a different strategy to cut down the total number of movies I watch. All movies that get cued up must exceed three hours. This will result, on average, in a reduction by approximately 33% of the total number of movies watched. The plus side is I will be watching some incredible films. Once Upon A Time In America, Spartacus, The Irishman, Malcolm X, Schindler’s List, Cleopatra, Long Days Journey Into Night, Lawrence of Arabia, Altman’s ironically titled Short Cuts, The Right Stuff and so many more.
The excuse of “I just don’t have the time” seems to pale right now.
One brief commentary on the state of the state. If things aren’t too bad where you are, stay home anyway. The whole point, the only purpose of isolation is to keep the explosion of the disease manageable to prevent a total breakdown of the capacity of our hospital system to cope with the demand. That’s the point. If it is slow in coming to your community, keep it that way. Shutter in. This is not a “what if…” moment. It is real, it is here, it will come to your town.
No one is immune, which is part of what makes this completely different. You are in a new world. As a nation we react to dire circumstances pretty well (with notable exceptions of Katrina and Puerto Rico), but making wise long range choices have been challenging to us repeatedly. We resemble the Titanic, a goliath with immense capabilities and tragic flaws, one being a great difficulty in changing course when the need arises. Whether it was the civil rights of women or people of color, the ending of damaging, useless wars, the reversal of consolidation of the economy into fewer and fewer hands, all of these things took decades to achieve to the tepid level that they have been, the latter having not been addressed yet at all.
The analogy becomes apt. Will we be the Titanic, crashing into a hazard because we couldn’t slow our speed? That fateful night of 1912 the eyes in the crow’s nest were not aided by binoculars. We don’t have that challenge. The binoculars were there in our case. The President chose not to use them. Can we now slow our speed enough to avoid disaster? Will we?
That’s up to us.
I’m slowing down, three hours at a time.