A lone car was paused at the merge point where they should have been speeding up to join Interstate 95, in the tangle of Baltimore on-ramps just north of the tunnel. They had stopped because a pair of Canada geese were walking across the highway.
That was my first trip out of town during the pandemic, in April. I rented a car and drove north to help an elderly relative who was having a (non-covid) health crisis. Rest areas were closed or doing carryout only. Tollbooths were unstaffed. I used self-service gas pumps and plenty of hand sanitizer.
By my second trip in early June, the roads were much busier. Tollbooth attendants were coming back to work (wearing masks and rubber gloves). I wrote an angry letter to a rental car agency whose clerks had not been wearing masks or practicing social distancing.
Then I went back to sheltering-in-place. Sewing masks, cleaning house, practicing yoga. I wear a mask to the grocery store (fortunately, so does everyone else; in my neighborhood, the mandate is being enforced). I try not to go much of anywhere else -- a few little walks each week: to the park, to the neighborhood Little Free Libraries. A couple trips a month to coffee shops for the rare carry-out luxury. I carry my hand sanitizer. I step into the bike lane if there is someone coming the other way down the sidewalk.
But I've also visited my non-nesting partner more than once, and I've hugged my "quarantine bubble" friends. These are members of one small nearby household, also sheltering in place. I am their only in-person friend. After several coffee dates where we stood 6 feet apart in the park, we decided that we were comfortable with hugging hello and goodbye. We are practicing risk awareness, harm reduction -- kind of like we nonmonogamous folks do with sex.
The first time my friends hugged me, on a weekend when my nesting partner was away, I got a little choked up. It had been too long... and they are very good huggers.
This weekend, my nestmate is driving out of town to see his other partner again. I am planning one quarantine-bubble coffee date while he's away. After he gets home, I expect not to get close to anyone else for two weeks.
(Typical incubation: 5 days. 97% who are going to have symptoms will have them by 11-12 days, 99% by 14 days. But how many people have been exposed to the SARS-CoV-2 coronavirus, could infect others, and yet are asymptomatic? Waiting 14 days to see whether I have symptoms is still not risk-free.)
I haven't been in total isolation, but I had adjusted to shelter-in-place. Now that the District and states are trying out various levels of "phased reopening," I find myself feeling freshly stressed-out, anxious again, and newly resentful.
I check in with myself. Am I stuck in deep-introvert mode, or being (atypically) change-resistant? No. It's not that.
Shelter-in-place was intended to "flatten the curve" so that the need for hospital beds, ventilators, etc. would not outpace their availability. It was also a way to give our infrastructure enough time to set up other safeguards: Widespread or even universal testing. Contact tracing. Restructuring of businesses and public spaces so that ventilation systems are less hazardous and social distancing can be maintained.
Instead, we have "leadership" bloviating about slowing down testing, politicizing mask-wearing, deliberately destabilizing our safer choices. Anti-mask contingents have appeared, as if it is 1918 again. Just to infuriate the Left, they have even appropriated "My Body My Choice," as if wearing a cloth mask in a grocery store was tantamount to carrying a forced pregnancy. (Hon, it's not your body we're worried about, it's your breath!)
I don't want mask-wearing, handwashing, or social distancing to be "my choice," because then I continually have to defend my choice. I want socially agreed-upon guidelines, based on the best science.
Sane, functional leaders would bolster societal support for safety and prevention measures. They would give speeches that counter false rumors and pseudoscience, not promote them. I want WWII-style pep talks. It's hard, but it's worth it -- we are all pitching in to help each other! KEEP CALM AND MASK UP. We should be feeling reassurance and solidarity. Instead, we as individuals have to do our own epidemiological research reviews, draw and defend our own individual boundaries. And that is exhausting.
Some of my friends have been required to go back to office buildings with coworkers who are not wearing masks or practicing social distancing. Risk your job or risk your health! Even though we already know what precautions are effective against the SARS-CoV-2 virus, and what settings make an outbreak more likely.
I was in the middle of writing this, feeling anger and despair, and then I happened upon a lovely Twitter thread by author L.D. Lapinski:
"The year is 2035. Everyone who can works from home. All the now-empty office block buildings have been converted into urban farms and gardens. The verges beside the roads have remained unmown for years, and insects are flourishing.
"[I think the people who work on-site would work three days a week on rotating shifts for good wages and paid holidays and flexible full sick pay. Childcare would be available and affordable for anyone who required it]
"A kid on your street has just turned 18. They have their photo taken holding their first universal basic income cheque. They’re going to volunteer to join the Ocean clean-up crews out in the Pacific, though there’s not much left to be done, now.
"You go to the library, where they’re holding a talk on life in 2020. They talk about C19, and how it changed the world. How, in the face of a pandemic, the human race became kinder, more humble, and generous. You sit and you listen to the talk, and smile behind your cloth mask.
"The virus never went away, and young people struggle to understand old footage of crowds and concerts. But humans never stopped being together. They came together in different ways. They saw what was truly important, and they poured their hearts and funds into preserving it.
"You walk into the old city, and look up at the plants streaming down the skyscrapers like green waterfalls, listen to the buzz of insects flying up to visit the urban farms feeding the world. You feel the sun on your skin. You see someone you love. And they love you, too."
https://twitter.com/ldlapinski/status/1275343127226847232
Art, including science fiction, has always been a source of connection across distances. I just started reading A People's Future of the United States. And I am writing. While my partner is away, I'll be digging back into my manuscript-in-progress. I will savor the luxury of this uninterrupted time.
Please stay safe! Fight anxiety with knowledge; fight dread with art.
* * *
P.S. Another new link: the wonderful Captain Awkward answers a question about polyamory & also nicely wraps up some recent covid knowledge...
"We do actually know more about increased risk in prolonged exposure in indoor environments vs. comparatively lower risk in outdoor environments (especially with mask use and physical distancing) than we did at the start of this so we actually do have more information to calculate our own personal risk tolerance."
https://captainawkward.com/2020/06/24/1279-my-metamour-isnt-taking-social-distancing-precautions-and-my-partner-is-unfazed/
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