Since the beginning, the Coronavirus has seemed like a threat that’s over there.
It’s always seemed real—I’ve never doubted its seriousness—but at the same time as I watched it unfold in China, I also watched a comedienne I follow on Instagram traipse across Asia as if nothing dangerous was occurring. Sure, she and her travel partner wore masks and used sanitizer like next gen make-up, but they still frolicked with the joy of traveling through a foreign land. YOLO and all that. My wife is even a Flight Attendant with a major airline and right before taking a short term leave to wait out this crisis, she actually went to South Korea on one of her last trips, which felt a little like she was deliberately throwing herself directly into a fire the rest of the world was trying to put out. Despite our worst fears, her trip was pretty much like any other, only with masks and limited movement in the city once she landed. She mainly just went from her room to the roof top restaurant and back. Even now, I’ve only personally known one person who caught the virus and it was essentially like a case of the flu; fever, chills, aches and gone in about a week. Now, this isn’t to downplay Covid’s severity; it’s just to illustrate that it’s always been a bit at arm’s length for me and my family. Watching it unfold on the news, it’s like Outbreak and Contagion are unfolding before our eyes, but I look out my window and it’s like any other normal, sunny day. Our neighbors wave to us. The same cars head into the town square just down the block from us. It’s hard to mesh the very real dystopia occurring in almost every corner of the country with the Andy Griffith reality in front of me. Since early March, both of my son’s schools were shut down to flatten the curve, and we’ve done our best to stay in and socially distance with these two budding, rambunctious personalities under our roof. They’re four and six now. Both had birthdays since the pandemic’s beginning and thankfully, they didn’t really know the difference between this birthday and birthdays past even though they each wanted to go to (respectively) Chuck E. Cheese and an indoor trampoline park to celebrate. Each of those wishes being massive, indoor petri dishes, we declined. Through all of this, I’ve continued my writing regimen. My goal 1,000 to 2,000 words a day and I’ve mostly met that goal. I’ve completed one book, which should go out on submission soon, finished another, which still needs a massive edit, and have halfway drafted a third—all this with boys running around like dinos (today they’ve been a pair of stray dogs), swashbuckling through our living area and constantly needing stimulation. They've basically been on a five-month Summer break at this point, so as the school year has approached, I’ve been looking forward to kicking their tails back into the classroom so I can get some peace and quiet in the mornings. That was before the most recent rise in cases, doubling and tripling each day. Seeing those graphs continue their steep rise, it makes me want to scream that our government didn't do more to hasten the spread like virtually every other country in the world. I can't count the times I've wanted to cream that this could have all been done and over with by now. So, now, despite my frayed nerves of being locked with a pair of insane children who almost literally bounce off every wall in the house, my wife and I have decided to opt for the online, distance learning classes instead of risk their health in the petri dish classrooms. GOD HELP ME.
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AuthorI am a writer. I write. Archives
January 2021
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