Being single in plague times
“I’m on my way over with a bottle.”
It was early in the pandemic, there was no vaccination yet, and there was no reliable medical information because we had a president who was without a moral compass, common sense or intellectual substance.
We were a country in vivid fear, and we were scrambling to extract as much truth as possible from the news. Did we really have to wash our groceries? I did not. Did we need to wear latex gloves to Stop and Shop? I did. Did we need to wipe down every surface in our home with bleach wipes? I tried. Did we really need to show up at the CVS at 7 a.m. to make sure we had toilet paper and paper towels? I did, once.
My neighbor was also alone. His family was in Europe and unable to get home. We developed a routine to keep depression at bay. He would bring over a bottle, and I would make a fire. Some nights we said nothing at all. But the shared desperation was of enormous comfort.
I had a paranoid thought that authorities would see the fire and make him retreat to his lonely house. I imagined a lot during those early days. In “The Plague,” Camus writes, “There have been as many plagues as wars in history; yet always plagues and wars take people by surprise.”
I worked far longer hours than I ever had in preplague times. I felt useful, but the pleasant schedule of pre-plague work habits devolved. There was no more morning rush to walk the dog, shower, read the paper, drive to work, greet my colleagues, make lunch plans, and drive home at the end of the day. Rather, I skipped the shower, put on the same sweatpants and ratty sweater I’d been wearing for a week, and went down to a dining room table that once hosted lively dinner parties and now hosted piles of paper, unwashed glasses, used tissues, unread magazines and unpaid bills.
My life was disintegrating into three raggedy areas: my increasingly sloppy surroundings (why bother?); my work, now comprised of endless virtual meetings for which I would reluctantly wash my hair and dress the top half of my body; and a space of deep longing. At midpoint, I realized that I had not touched another human in seven months.
We were all terrified of one another because there was a very real possibility of killing each other. We kept our 6-foot distances, we wore masks, we overwashed our hands, we tried not to touch our faces, we followed the rules as though they would save us. But every morning brought more pictures of the dead in refrigerated makeshift morgues all over the world. Some of them must have been following those same rules. I was surprised every day at the enormity of it all.
I listened to colleagues and friends complain about spouses and children at home. I was embarrassingly resentful that they had those irritations. I wanted such an ordinary life so badly.
Then, around month 15, when we were tempted to believe ordinary was returning, we began to be with each other. We hugged and laughed and took off our masks. Teeth and lips returned as elements to faces.
But then Delta scared us back in. And now there is another variant, and there will be another. Again from “The Plague”: “The truth is that nothing is less sensational than pestilence, and by reason of their very duration, great misfortunes are monotonous.”
We have normalized the monotony of fear. We normalize it so we can survive. War and plague have shadowed humanity, but how soon does the shadow pass? When it does, will we remember how to be witty again? Do table manners and personal hygiene return instinctively? Will we be able to again speak of ideas instead of case numbers and vaccination anger?
Normal things did continue to happen. I lost my sweet 14-year-old dog at the end of nine boiling days without electricity and got another who tests my patience and my confidence daily. The garden bloomed, and too many tomatoes were planted. Birthdays happened, but no weddings.
For all the loneliness, I am left with an astonishing feeling of gratitude.
For the neighbors who brought fresh scones and cookies and soups to each other’s porches.
For the husband who built an outdoor shower so when his wife came home from the hospital, she had a way of scrubbing off the pain of watching the sick die.
For the friend who brought me fresh farm milk and vegetables in the very scary beginning.
For my hairdresser and friend of decades, who brought me hair dye and instructions because I was beginning to feel ugly.
For the friend who gave me a television and a password so I would not be ignorant of the common language of obsessive entertainment. (I had no TV and no interest in TV before the pandemic.)
I hold dear the friends who made my birthday special with music in the street, and I cherish the thoughtfulness of a friend who took me to New York to see a play. Masked and gloved, we saw one of the last performances before the lockdown.
My grandsons told me to turn on the computer and just be with them on Christmas Day, and they were right to do so. My far-away grown kids worried but didn’t let on. My far-away friends tried to stay in touch, but my response to sadness has always been retreat.
The sadness has retreated and transformed into a white-hot faith in the goodness of humans, in kindness and in connection.
I am getting on a plane in a few weeks to fly far too many hours. But at the end of that flight, my fully vaccinated family will hold me tight, and we will read “The Night Before Christmas” on the night before Christmas, as we always do, and we will eat fish chowder and open too many gifts and play board games and tell stories and welcome a stranger or two, as we always do. We will do what we have always done, and we will make it normal for as long as we can.