Life in the Time of Corona Virus, 4.11.20

This post was published in the Wilson Times April 21, 2020

I wore a mask over my nose and mouth this morning, the same mask I wore to the grocery store earlier in the week to protect me from the Corona virus. Today the mask protects my sinuses from the pollen. I was outside to shovel five big piles of raked and swept pollen into a compost bin, to be buried in the landfill.

String-like tassels from three big oaks and comma-shaped pods from a half-dozen pines blanket the lawn and asphalt driveway.

The trees’ reproductive dust fell like snowflakes, soft and weightless. The wind picked up, and it was snowing pollen horizontally, coating cars, streets and outdoor furniture. The trees’ determination to survive coats my sinuses and my skin.

It took some time to get accustomed to the mask over my face, but medical professionals recommended them for everyone, so I complied in the hope that I might not be infected or might avoid infecting others. Wearing the mask for more than a few minutes tugs at my ears and requires me to remove the mask to wipe my nose, which drains each pollen season.

My wife made my mask from scraps of cloth left from all the years she sewed clothes for our children and gifts for others. She put the mask together quickly from instructions in a newspaper. The rumble of her sewing machine resonated through the house for the first time in months as she worked. Newspapers, which provided the concept and the pattern, and home sewing machines are both becoming rare. What will we do at the next pandemic?

For four weeks, the grocery store has had no facial tissues or toilet paper. Hoarding and panic buying are to blame, we’re told, but that doesn’t fill the paper products shelf. I recall during my newspaper days someone telling me that newsprint was just one step above toilet paper. Maybe we’ll be forced to upgrade to newsprint. Until the papers we subscribe to quit print publication altogether, I guess we’ll have a sufficient supply of a necessary product, despite hoarders.

We order takeout from our favorite local restaurants in the hope that they will survive the stay-at-home orders that have emptied their dining rooms.

We have developed the habit of avoiding close encounters with other people so the virus won’t spread. We are staying home for the same reason. We don’t want to be responsible for illness or death of others.

We have canceled two trips we had planned for this year. This was to be the year we would really take advantage of our free time as retirees. We would travel to places we’d never seen. We’d cross an ocean for the first time. But an invisible disrupter forced a revision in our plans. Our planned trips amount to nothing compared to the potential hazards if we are not vigilant in avoiding other people and washing our hands repeatedly.

I like being home, a comfortable, quiet and familiar space. Rules of fashion don’t apply here. I can wear the same jeans all week, and no one notices. But personal hygiene rules our lives. I have washed my hands so many times my skin is dry and flaking. Kitchen counters are cleaner than ever.

But the virus can strike anyone, and it’s especially dangerous for older people (like us). A cousin’s friend far away wrote a gut-wrenching account of watching her husband die from COVID-19. Because of the virus, she was not allowed into his hospital room to say goodbye, to hold his hand, to give him a last kiss, to share tearful farewells.

The thought of dying alone in some hospital isolation ward without any family members in the room, then forgoing any funeral or memorial that might attract more than 10 people provides the motivation for me to observe social distancing, wash my hands frequently, stay home, and wear a face mask when I leave the house.

A pandemic has the power to change society, culture and civilization. Already, pundits are predicting changes in retail, governance, travel, Internet use, shopping, civic clubs, religious observances, funerals, sports event, family reunions and so on.

While everyday life continues, the virus lurks unseen, waiting for an opening and shading our every thought. Songwriter John Prine died from COVID-19 last week, leaving these timely words from my favorite of his songs, “Hello in There”: “But old people just grow lonesome, waiting for someone to say, ‘Hello in there.’”