Water water everywhere. . . . Corona Chronicle, Part 1

After the initial shock, terror, and growing, mind numbing fright of a 21st century "plague" called "Coronavirus" (soon to be renamed "Covid-19", so much more high tech sounding!), we tried to adjust, right? Even if it meant totally isolating, we would "win this war!" 

That's what they told us on TV.

In the beginning there emerged a kind of bright side. Finally, finally, the chance to get things done at home, things you had long put aside. Esprit d' corps of the mind and task tackling, so to speak. Yippee!- lots  of free time too, no pressure to run out, meditation time, perhaps an entire spiritual reset!!! Time with the family, the kids! With your partner or roommate! Or luscious time alone to read, relax, do exactly what you wish! No rush hour! Three, lazy cups of decaf in the morning. . . .

True, it was not exactly a vacation, but if we didn't succumb to this new germ on the block and managed to survive, why not make the best of it?? When was the last time you actually didn't have to worry about deadlines and doing anything, going anywhere, or taking care of  of stuff??

My first impulse toward adjusting, or figuring out what to engage in besides meditation all day, was to tackle the closets! The first "lock down" would last only a few weeks they said, perfect timing to throw away all the junk that had been accumulating on dusty, overloaded shelves for years, ditch clothes you had not worn since the twentieth century; in essence, a perfect moment in which to order a messy existence.

By the time the government extended the period of our stay home "order" to months, not weeks, not only had the closets not been touched (it was as if there were no closets, they didn't exist, and therefore they contained nothing, nothing whatsoever), slowly it became increasingly hard even to prepare a meal or keep a room vaguely in some sort of livable order.

Like many of you, I soon realized it takes all day to forage for stuff online, like food, masks, gloves, wipes, toilet paper, or worse, to furtively try to leave the house "all suited up" in protective gear, for a clandestine trip to the store; only to get there and stand in a huge, snaking  line six feet away from every other human being while a handful of paper towel and toothpaste seeking souls were admitted to this supply speakeasy two at a time. This event required time, lots of it!

I stopped reading everything but the crawl beneath the screen of the news channels.

When finally you were admitted to the magic cornucopia you once naively regarded simply as a "pharmacy," or you scored a "spot" at three in the morning on one of the overloaded, online grocery websites, or actually made it into a market live, yet another time consuming activity ensued: trying to fill the larder with tasteless non-perishables, which caused you to  wind up with half a dozen, humongous jars of tomato sauce and little else because the market shelves suddenly were empty, bare. 

Frozen, mushy berries had become a hot, black market item, along with spaghetti and eggs, and you don't even like eggs and they never last in your dying fridge anyway (more about that later!), but you would grab at least two or three dozen when you could find them, even though you hated them. You know, just to be safe.

And in truth, how in the hell would you have gotten all that planned cleaning, straightening and reordering done anyway in the mere space of twelve or so hours each day, since your day did not actually start until till almost noon now; if you weren't teaching your kids and everyone else's online, or otherwise "working from home," you were binging on Brit detective stories until the wee hours. Accchhh, those addictive little thrillers,  so clever!!! So well written!!! So beautifully done and impossible not to watch, the mysteries and soaps you now had come to love and in fact rely on,  and the safety of knowing they could be watched over & over & over again if need be, into a kind of endless, TV miniseries eternity . . . .  

Although you had wisely resisted for years, you immediately signed up for a free Netflix trial, even though you knew you would go through the "library" in less than a week but that they would hound you with emails forever. All that other stuff you did before, like running around doing things, working, playing, being outside, seeing friends and family, going to movies, studying, shopping, traveling, living? A complete waste of time. Why did you never realize how comforting and easy and fulfilling it could be to do absolutely nothing but watch TV, often not even bothering getting dressed? Silly you.

Eventually, reality did step into this mythic screen time existence and it all became rather like scream time, no longer nirvana but nerve shattering. . . .

(Part Two next week! Catch it if you have time. . . .)