Quarantine - Day 35

Ella up a tree

Warm and bright, a cloudless and confident day brought people outside from every direction with dogs and kids and bikes, skateboards, razor scooters, and jogging shoes. Everyone acting with a practiced distance. Cars got washed. People found excuses to do chores outside. Those with seeds planted them. Frisbees flew. I washed both vehicles and vacuumed the carpets while Joni Mitchell sang about the white lines of the freeway. The girls and I got out for a walk and everyone got outta our way. Ella and Laura walked along the riverbank avoiding the geese as well as the people. Tomorrow it turns colder again, but the sunshine feels good on my winter white arms.

Later, Abi roasted a chicken and we gathered at the table to check in with how as a small, legal gathering we are faring. We are still at the moment holding together quite well. The confinement has not been too confining. We seem to be keeping each other company fairly well. We haven’t driven each other to madness quite yet, although my jokes can wear thin, Ella does long monologues that fade into one another until bed, Abi sometimes isolates herself without even knowing she is isolating herself, and Laura at times just wants to be left alone with a scary movie, and some good cheese and crackers.

The President of The United States wants to raise insurrection against governors in battleground states and urges people to protest against guidelines his administration just put forth. Normally, in a national emergency someone trying to foment insurrection might attract the attention of an Attorney General. The US AG meanwhile stares soullessly at the situation without any thought except making sure the president is reelected. It seems this administration simply wants the power for the sake of holding it. There’s really no agenda beyond not losing. The pandemic is bad because it makes the administration look bad. It is not bad because it has prematurely ended 40,565 lives. Lives aren’t power. Power is divorced from them.

This national emergency has not brought people together. We are still in our separate camps even as we are in the same boat. We share no common destiny. As soon as we are released back into what little remains of our daily lives, our essential distrust of each other will still be there. Each contempt is matched with an opposing contempt, and we will not be stronger as a nation from this time. The fears that have been continually stoked for so long a time have taken root. We are a house divided and the walls are falling in slow motion.