coronavirus

Pandemic Diary 17: So Near, yet so Far

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

A need to connect: Unsolicited wisdom from me and unsolicited poetry offered to me …

* * * *
I speak to or even see my friends each day thanks to technology both old (telephone) and new-ish (online video conference). Most of our conversations are about how much we do not like this or about what we are doing to occupy the time.

Since I am a disabled and retired person anyway, certain facts of my life remain unchanged in quarantine: the availability of time combined with its rapid disappearance each day. Others are new: I do not drive and I reside too far from the nearest anywhere to walk there (my town is mostly shut down now, anyway), so I have no command at all over travel. Mere weeks ago, I could reach out to a friend and ask if that friend planned to drive past my neighborhood and could I grab a ride to town. If not, I could reserve a cab. I could walk around town for however long I might want. That day will come again, but that loss of independence (when I think about it, like I am now) is one I feel acutely.

The acceptance of that loss has been a fairly straightforward one to make. My friends mostly live quite near, so the video conversations, while welcome, are a little surreal, that over-used word. Again, if I think of it, it is surreal, so I do not. I realized yesterday that other than my housemate/landlord (with whom I travel to the grocery store), I have not seen a person whom I know in person since this began weeks ago.
Read More

Pandemic Diary 16: A Bigger Picture

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

Rage is the most short-sighted emotion, but it is the one I have witnessed in my quarantined self more and more lately.

* * * *
Information provides something of a relief. Not the numbers, not the information about particulars—there are so many numbers right now, from the numbers of sick and the lists of the newly departed, both of which only do one thing: increase at a pace which itself shifts day-by-day, up and down, and that changing pace is its own number in which one can lose time in unproductive obsession—no, the one bit of information, the one number everyone wants to learn is: How many more tomorrows will resemble this collection of slow and anxious todays? We have had so many todays in a row, after all.

In much of the world, the long today of quarantine will last into May. Ireland’s government announced an extension of its nationwide coronavirus shutdown until May 5 last week. New York State announced its PAUSE extension until May 15 this morning.

There is some comfort in the thought that one knows how many more days this will continue.
Read More

Pandemic Diary 15: A Rainy Day

Posted on by Mark Aldrich

Quarantine considerations: Outdoors or in?

* * * *
A 1964 article in Nature with the euphonious title, “Nature of argillaceous odour,” gave the world the euphonious-sounding word, “petrichor.” In the article, two chemical researchers attempted to scientifically break down what it is we smell when we smell the world after a rain shower and to give the phenomenon a name.

The two authors coined the word, “petrichor,” which I have been mispronouncing in my head since I first encountered it in 2015, when an article on the Huffington Post started to make its social media rounds. It has a long “I,” so say it like this: “petra,” then “eye-core,” which is not how I hear it in my head, with a short “i.”
Read More