Everyday Life in Middletown
Directive 2: Everyday Quarantine (Diarist A02, April 10, 2020)
Daily life has certainly been rearranged pretty dramatically. For me, it’s been annoying and a little unnerving, but not terribly unpleasant. In that sense we—me, my wife, B., and our two adult daughters, M. and S., both in their early twenties—are lucky. We have a large house and steady income so we can weather this storm pretty comfortably. I can work from home reasonably well. We’re well aware that many others don’t have the same good fortune, and I can’t begin to understand how terrifying this experience must be for them.
The social isolation/quarantine, which is now finishing its fourth week for us, has occurred in two stages. For the first couple of weeks, we were all sick, probably from the Coronavirus. More recently, we’ve been feeling fine and I’ve settled into an odd, irritating but not terribly difficult routine. There’s still worry, both over the health of ourselves, our friends and family, and our neighbors.
We think we each had mild infections from the Cornavirus but we don’t know for sure because we never got sick enough to get tested. Tests remain scarce around here. The reason we think so is that M. was traveling in Europe, including Spain, early in March, before the Coronavirus was known to have spread much. Of course, it now looks like it had been spreading invisibly all over Europe. She came home and returned to college in New England. She felt fine and never got sick. But she did notice a loss of taste and smell for a few days. Only later did we learn that this is a fairly common symptom of a Coronavirus infection. Her school was shut down a week after she returned and B. picked her up and probably picked up her infection in the process. She also retrieved S. from New York City because she had been laid off from both of her jobs, one in theater production and one as a restaurant server. They all arrived back home in mid-March. A few days later, B. started coughing and had a bit of a fever. I began feeling poorly a few days after that, mostly strong headaches, perhaps a little fever for one or two nights. S. had symptoms similar to mine. We were all very tired. For the most part we recovered quickly, thankfully, although B.’s cough and lack of energy lingered for more than two weeks.
As we each got sick in turn, we were worried. At first, B. stayed alone in our room and we delivered food and drink wearing gloves and left it at the door. She coughed a lot for several days and noticed some tightness in her chest. We debated when we would need to call the doctor. Her worst days were over the weekend and we agreed to call the doctor on Monday if she didn’t improve. Instead, she felt slightly better on Monday, and improved a bit more each day. On the Sunday night of the same weekend, I woke up in the wee hours sweating and with a pounding headache. I felt poorly for the next few days, especially in the latter part of each day. I’d feel stronger after sleeping but would fade in the afternoon. I didn’t get much work done. Fortunately, I felt pretty well recovered after about 4 or 5 days, although it took me another week to feel fully energetic. I thought I was well enough for a run on the following Saturday, but even a shortish one was a slog and I felt totally spent for the rest of the day—I thought wrong. S. had a similar experience to mine, around the same timetable, although her energy was not as sapped. B. has recovered more slowly in terms of energy and had a lingering cough but she feels okay now.
When B. and then the rest of us first felt ill, we were all on edge. The unease got worse if I spent any time watching the news, browsing Twitter, or reading newspapers (online), watching numbers go up as so many of our leaders stumbled around. Although I knew the odds of a severe illness or death were small, you couldn’t help but worry. That fear brought home to me how easily a normal, comfortable life can be uprooted and how fragile our whole society is. That’s all a bit cliched, I know, but that feeling was definitely lurking behind the more immediate worries running through my mind.
After a few days, the disquiet eased, although we heard and read about people who thought they were on the mend only to get sharply worse. That had me counting the days out from first feeling ill. Once we all got past seven days and felt mostly fine, I figured we were okay. Of course, we don’t know for sure that we had it, so this could all have been worry for nothing. And the larger experience is still unsettling, particularly given the horrific national leadership we’re watching (more on that below). Muncie was already in tough shape before all of this hit. If we don’t have a massive effort to support places like this one and relieve the suffering the crisis creates, then the damage to people around here will be huge. I hope I can get a blood test soon to determine if I’m immune to Covid-19 soon so I can leave the house and help out in the hospital or at a food bank.
Probably the worst thing during the week that we were feeling low was that M. turned 21 in the middle of it. It was not exactly the 21st birthday she imagined. We got some takeout from her favorite Mexican place, a friend dropped off some tequila so she could have a couple of margaritas (she was feeling fine), and we did a Zoom online happy hour with family. It was nice but she definitely got shortchanged. I didn’t have much to offer to the festivities since I was still feeling pretty sick at the time. We’ll make it up to her later!
Now that I’m feeling better, I’ve settled into a new routine. It’s not bad, just a bit weird. I tend to sleep a little later, until around 7:30, unless I have something scheduled early, which has not been often. I get up, have some tea and then breakfast, reading or watching a little news as I do. Then I head up to a room over our garage where I work, which has mostly involved writing and helping keep a handful of projects moving forward. I’m also doing a little planning for next year, but that is limited by our lack of any real sense of what kind of world we will be living in a few months from now. I break for lunch and exercise early in the afternoon. Exercise can be a walk (especially while still feeling weak from being ill) or a bike ride. I was running as well once I felt better, but I’ve (re)developed a sore foot so biking and walking are the options for now. After that, I shower and make some lunch. While eating, I browse online sources for the latest news. I get back to my garage space and work again until 5 or so. Then I aim to do some household chores—clean up, plumbing repair, or, in decent weather, yardwork. (I mowed the lawn for the first time this year yesterday.) Around 6 or 7, p.m. I have a beer. (Happily, we have a brewery that delivers here in town.) A few times I’ve joined with a some friends/family online for a long-distance happy hour. Evening involves some reading or watching a little TV (but not the news). I’ve never been a binger when it comes to TV shows, but I’ve gotten into a few series over the past few weeks. I go to bed around midnight, with lights out after some reading.
A few things stand out amid the abnormality:
First, we’ve had an unexpected family reunion, with both grown daughters re-inhabiting their childhood bedrooms. That’s been a bonus of sorts, having only recently gotten used to being empty-nesters. It’s great to have them close in this difficult time, and I’m glad we can help them through this. Of course, having all kinds of other things in the refrigerator, slower internet, and busy household spaces has created some friction. But on the whole, it’s been a good experience and I’m grateful for having the time with them. I do worry about how this will wear over an extended period of time. We’re probably only at the beginning of this.
Second, I think our President, along with a few other politicians, have made this a much more difficult, unsettling experience than it already was. I don’t just mean that he failed to adequately prepare the nation for this challenge, although it is certainly the case that he did fail in that regard. His obvious narcissism, his corruption, and the long-term effort that he and his allies have been engaged in to weaken government and divide people, has made this a more difficult and unsettling experience. B. reports that she is losing sleep because she frets about what the President says and does, and the problems that he’s creating. I’m certainly ill at ease, and at times enraged, about that. I’m not worried about my personal good fortune; we will survive just fine, I expect. I’m mostly worried about poorer people, of which there are many in this community, and those not in a position to withstand the difficulties created by the social distancing policies, either because of the job they have or their financial position. I have a hard time seeing the country come out of this without a lot of damage, and much of it could have been avoided had we had better, more honest leadership. It’s also clear that he is seeking to undermine whatever democracy we have left in the interest of enriching and empowering himself and a few others. Because of all this, and the anxiety and anger it prompts, B. and I have made a point of rationing our news intake. I try to look at Twitter only at appointed times (breakfast and lunch mainly for me), and not watching too much TV news. We can’t even go near the President’s daily briefings. (We’re ordinarily news junkies.) Hopefully we will be able help change all this come the next election.
Third, I also see a lot of kindness, leadership, and sacrifice as well. I try to focus on those things, and hopefully I can provide some of it myself. So far I’ve been able to donate money, but soon I hope we can get out and provide hands-on help. On the whole, I think there’s a lot more of the good stuff going on around us. We don’t see it if we spend too much time watching TV or scanning Twitter. To the extent we can recover from this, it will be because of these kinds of behaviors.
Fourth, I miss sports, but only a little. I’ve found myself watching replays of old games now and then and reading about simulations of the NCAA basketball tournament. I even watched a bass fishing show the other night—a first. I’ve listened to a few podcasts about sports, although they are stretching to find something interesting to say. Hopefully I can use some of the time I’ve spent following sports in the past to do productive things at home or for work. We’ll see….