Pandemic Diary
I am in social isolation at my parents’ house. Like many New Yorkers, in the days leading up to the city’s total lockdown, I felt the mounting anxiety everywhere I went: in the uneasy faces of my 11th-graders as they informed me that a missing classmate was in the hospital. In the surging lines of agitated grocery shoppers at my local Trader Joe’s. And in the despair weighing down my roommate’s voice each night, as he announced another lost gig or canceled social plan.
On March 18th, I wandered through my normally busy neighborhood, looking in shock at all the locked up stores and restaurants. I sat on a bench in the near-empty park to call my dad, and as the phone rang, I looked at everything around me: the sky, the trees, the crumbling angel that overlooks a water fountain. My stomach sank because I knew that I might not get to look at these things in the same way again.
I bought a plane ticket that night for $100, and I flew the next day on a flight that had less than ten passengers. I did not wear a mask, but in the airport bathroom before getting into my mom’s car (yes, my mom picked me up because she is a saint) I scrubbed my hands furiously. I hated everything about the situation, and I felt guilty for taking the risk of exposing my parents to the virus. My dad had heart surgery only a few months ago, and my mom is getting older and tinier, too. They were relieved to have me with them, though. And so we settled into a strange and careful quarantine.
A few days in, I found out that it would not be possible for me to contact the group of high school students I’d left behind. The last time I saw them, the school had instructed me to send kids home with slapdash homework packets and frantic instructions about where to meet online. But plans had changed. I was gutted to lose the job—for financial reasons, of course, but also emotional. I liked the students and I cared about them. I’d found a lot of strength in working with them these past few months.
I was in so much grief, and so disoriented, I did not even shower for the first seven days of quarantine. For the first week, each morning, I woke up in a panic and immediately burst into tears. Watching the news, I wondered if I’d made a mistake leaving New York. I ached for my usual long walks around the city, and I worried that my houseplants would dry up without me. Every friend I spoke to who was still in the city told me I made the right decision, but still. I wondered if I’d made a mistake choosing to self-isolate in the house that I grew up in—a house that has ghosts I’ve been running from for years.
It’s lonely here in the desert. I was lonely growing up, and now I am lonely again. Some people think of the southwest as an oasis: big skies, big visions—an ideal place to build your artistic or intellectual outpost. That was what it was for my parents when they moved here—my dad teaching computer science at the University of New Mexico, and my mom working as an engineer at Sandia Labs. But I was lonely as a child, and this old house still feels that way to me, as I wander from room to room. I have never gotten over that.
The bedroom that once belonged to my brother is quiet and empty. There are shoe boxes full of old family photos on the shelves. His awkward teenage years. His restaurant years. His funeral. Those silences. My parents recently had the walls of his bedroom painted freshly white—and sunlight pours in through the blinds. It’s peaceful, and the room no longer feels like his. Even though it has only been a year since he died.
Quarantine: day 14, 15, 16… I have not spent such a long amount of time in this house since I was probably 18 years old. But I’ve adjusted to the rhythms and the chores more easily than you might expect. This house has grown too big for my parents to manage by themselves. There are closets that need to be sorted through, and plants in the garden that need tending. Cooking, cleaning, organizing. We all butt heads sometimes, but, slowly and quietly, I have resumed these duties. I am a dutiful child, now. At last. I am less reluctant to help my parents now than I have been before.
Looking at the news, and being bombarded by words like: “Social distancing, self-isolation, quarantine”—all of it. I am aware of how my situation is both safer than a lot of people’s, and still not very happy. I do not have a boyfriend with me, for one thing. That means no sex, no shared secrets, and no cuddles. I am hurting for the lack of that. I hurt, but I am trying to find peace with it. I am only me. I am squinting toward the horizon. But all I see is distance.
I feel strong, though. My body is strong and healthy. I go for hikes and jogs every day into the foothills of the mountains. I feel the hot spring sun on my back, and I push the sweat off my forehead, climbing rocks and desert trails—startling a rabbit here and there. Maybe the solitude and loneliness that was my childhood, as the child of two hermits and socially awkward academics—maybe this is a kind of solitude that I can make peace with, now. Now that I am older.
My mom and I sewed masks together. We found the pattern online, and we banged her old sewing machine into working order again. When I put mine on now, to pick up groceries or to fill the car with gas, I sometimes catch my reflection in the rearview mirror and see how easily I have adjusted to outlaw life. I was built for the apocalypse. I have always been a loner. I am a long-distance runner. I have it in me to endure all of this.
How do I spend my time? I have been reading, and writing, just a little. I listen to records, and I practice music. I do aerobics videos. I attend AA meetings online. Sobriety has been helpful for making sense of this pandemic. Sobriety has been necessary, in fact. I could not imagine not having my sobriety right now.
I have not been smoking cigarettes. I have been reading tarot.
Spiritually, I know what is keeping me strong, and I know what is important. I know what is not important anymore. Maybe some good will come of this, after all.
I am grateful for that.