– in which Dorn shares his deepest fears.
We got a hot tip from our neighbor, the one who knows everything and everybody about the neighborhood, that the covid has visited several families living six or seven houses further down our street.
I’ve known a few people who have had covid (including famous Immunata E— R—, whose bout with the disease left her unable to communicate, except in memes). Learning of someone’s illness would trigger my sympathy response and my anxiety response for their well-being (depending on the timing; most of them had the disease and recovered from it before I even heard about it).
But when I got this new knowledge of people just down the street with the disease, my overwhelming response was FEAR! They could infect ME! I mean, sure I like them fine, the few I know who have it (the grapevine had some gaps in its bulletin, such as most of the individual names), and I feel bad that they’re sick and all, but when danger strikes too close to home, some primal self-preservation instinct kicks in that tells you to RUN! HIDE! SAVE YOURSELF!
The fear that washed over me felt a bit like déjà vu, from back in March when covid was a huge, dangerous mystery, and all the precautions—the handwashing, the masks, the hoarding of toilet paper—were brand new and fraught with ominous meaning.
And now it was even worse. All year while we’ve been precautioning, we’ve been keenly aware that (a) the longer we did the Anti-Covid Rituals, the harder it would be to keep up this level of vigilance, and (b) Winter Is Coming, and with winter the virus will get a boost of new contagious energy. So there’s been a slow but steady uptick in dread throughout summer and fall, fighting a losing battle against the fatigue of being skeert all the time.
The dread struck me so forcefully because it was fully emotional, with no rational component. It’s like what I feel when I stand too close to a sheer vertical drop. No matter how safe I am, no matter how well my mind knows it would be impossible for me to fall, the sensation is gut-wrenching. When the virus is finally beaten down, we’re going on a road trip to the Grand Canyon, and we’re going to the “Skywalk”, a huge overlook structure made out of transparent glass, where you can not only look out, but look straight down into the chasm below.
(We don’t really have a plan to do that. I wrote that to see if just writing it down would raise my pulse and blood pressure. It did.)
Or it’s like that helpless fear that I get whenever there are hostile bombers flying overhead. This has never actually happened except in terrifying fever-dreams as a child, brought on, I think, by that 1939 anti-war cartoon, Peace on Earth. Given the date of the cartoon, it didn’t do much good at preventing war, but it sure made a big impression on me! It’s one of my most vivid fake childhood memories.
So anyway, now we were too scared to walk down our own street, so I asked Kathleen if she wanted to walk over in the park? Kathleen was vehement: “No!! It’s cold, I’m comfortable, I don’t want to take my slippers off and put on boots!”
Half an hour or so later, she asked me, “Aren’t you ready yet?” “For what?” “You said you wanted to go for a walk in the park!”
For a moment I was at a loss how to respond, because (a) I never said I wanted to walk, I just asked her if she wanted to, and (b) she distinctly and adamantly said no she didn’t.
I reasonably and calmly pointed this out, and she replied that of course she didn’t want to go walking in the park, she was quite comfortable where she was, and it was cold outside. But she recognized the value of a healthy brisk walk, so she would do it for the sake of her mental and physical well-being.
This was when I finally learned a valuable lesson in vocabulary, after only 41 years of married life: to Kathleen, the phrase “do you want to” means “are you feeling warm and fuzzy about the idea of”, and doesn’t in any way mean “do you intend to”. It was a real MAFMWAFV* moment for me!
Here’s another Kathleen story, maybe more to the point of this post.
Last week Kathleen was especially afraid of a box that was addressed to someone that I’ll call A—, a few houses down the street, but was mistakenly left by the UPS guy on our stoop. I treated it with the same care, and the same quarantine protocols, that we treat our own deliveries, but the fact that it was addressed to someone else made it seem (to Kathleen) especially dangerous. “Don’t touch it!”.
“Don’t be silly” I chaffed, and suited and gloved up and plopped the package on the stoop of their house, and left, no prob.
But she was right! As usual! Flash forward a week, to when we got the chilling news of the covid cases down the street. As I said, the news didn’t include the names of those sick, except for one: this self-same A—! What a narrow escape! I hope!!!
I’ll never doubt Kathleen again! I made a promise there and then that on my tombstone I will order the words inscribed “She was right after all. Here I lie, but I stand corrected.”
Thanks,
Dorn
11/16/2020
Such a funny epitaph