covid-19 diaries, 5

I wake up in a panic.

I feel sick. I wonder if I caught it. I try to remember the exact symptoms of covid-19, and try to self-diagnose whether I have them. Dry cough. Fever. Shortness of breath. I don’t think I feel those.

But I do feel that my eyes are itchy, my nose is runny. And then, it comes, crawls into my nose and demands I let it out.

I sneeze.

And I also breathe a bit of a sigh of relief, and remember: It’s allergy season.

Not everyone is so fortunate. And there’s no guarantee that I will not still catch it.

It’s a Thursday, and as is my current routine, I visit one of my local restaurants for take-out. But today, I notice something funny.

One of the restaurants next to my destination looks different. It’s empty. Really empty. Like, there’s no furniture. There’s no equipment.

And then I see it. The sign is gone. In its place, is the discoloration and dirt of the concrete behind where the sign used to be, still forming the restaurant’s name, even if the restaurant is no more.

Already there are casualties of our times. Already, there have been.

There are those on literal life support. There are those who are on figurative life support. In some ways the pandemic has caused both, and in some ways, it has ended both.

It’s easy to want to be upset. It’s hard—one of the hardest—to actually grieve the things we lose, things the world loses.

Every major company seems to be a positive voice in the world. Everyone’s a hero. You can be a hero. Salute the heroes.

I’m not entirely sure what’s going on within these marketing departments. I wonder how many of them see it as a chance to have their brand heard. How many of them want to kill two-birds by announcing any company policy changes while also advertising feel-good positivity. How many of them genuinely think they’re doing something good by being so, well, cheesy.

Because it does feel cheesy. It leaves a sour taste in my mouth. I can’t be alone in this.

But maybe I am.

This is one of the strange coincidences of the pandemic, for me. I am alone, in my parents’ house, without my parents here. I bet some people envy me. My life is quiet, serene. There are no children to bother me here.

But I’m also alone, and without my coffee shops, my gym, the ways I like to stand and soak in the social energy of others. I no longer have my usual way of feeling connected to people.

I treasure the conversations with friends I do have, the ones I love. My nephews have learned to video call me and it’s a highlight of my day.

“Hey look!” I say to them. “I’m walking down the stairs…”

They see my body sinking and sinking with each step I take. But they aren’t fooled.

They roll their eyes at me. “Nice try, Uncle Dan.”

But then they call me a few days later.

“Uncle Dan, look! I’m going down the stairs!” they laugh, mimicking my acting.

I don’t know if they think they’re making fun of me, or just making fun. But it warms my heart. Even now, we’re building new memories, making new jokes, and we even reminisce about the “old times.”

“Remember when you gave us a ride on the Gravitron?” they ask excitedly, referring to when I pick them up and spin around so it feels like the eponymous county fair ride.

They are at the age where they really remember other good times we had.

These are the details I try to notice.

Like the plane I see in the sky on one of my hikes. It’s been so long since I’ve seen a plane.

Like the hikes I go on, that are right outside my parents’ house, and I wish I had taken my mom on one of them. The sunsets here are breathtaking.

Like my mom herself.

For some reason, I haven’t gone to her grave in months. I don’t know what happened. Time just, got away from me.

So I go, and it’s the strangest experience.

It’s strange, because it feels so normal, like nothing else in the world has changed. It’s quiet, as it always is. It’s serene, as it always is. There are bees, buzzing around between all the different flowers on the ground, as they should.

It feels like there’s no pandemic here.

“But there is this virus thing going on,” I tell my mom.

I laugh, imagining her complaining that it sounds complicated, and that it’s a good thing that “God took her home,” as she would’ve said.

It’s strange. I miss her. But a separate feeling comes over me, and it makes me think, I won’t wait this long to come back here again.

Because when I’m here, I don’t feel alone.