The Middletown Press (Middletown, CT)
Fears and faith in the time of coronavirus
Does this happen to you, too? Every time I go into the grocery store, suddenly my nose gets itchy.
Don’t touch your face, don’t touch your face, don’t touch your face — I keep telling myself. It’s all I can think about. Even navigating past the empty shelves that once were filled with toilet paper and paper towels, I’m still obsessing about the itch.
But is there a tiny deadly microbe on the handle of the shopping cart? Who can tell. The grocery store no longer has a sanitizer station at the entry (probably ran out), I sure don’t have any, and plastic gloves are nowhere to be found.
So much about daily life has changed in just a few weeks.
I can relate to New York Times columnist Bret Stephens’ response to columnist Gail Collins’ “how are you doing” in a backand-forth Tuesday called the “The Conversation.”
“Physically, I’m fine,” Stephens wrote, “Emotionally? A bit on edge. Mentally? Slightly off-kilter. Politically? Filled with ominous foreboding.”
Truth be told (and it should), I haven’t been to the grocery store in the past few days. Not anywhere in a car. I’ll tell you why.
Last week in response to my column, “Readers share tips for coping in the time of coronavirus,” Carol Mahoney of Newtown emailed that reading my columns make her “feel like I’m hearing from a friend.”
I like that, “hearing from a friend.” So if I’m going to write about life today, I need to also share the personal — the reason for not going out in the car.
The call came Tuesday evening, just as I was finishing my Opinion pages for two of the next day’s papers.
“Mom, I think I have the virus,” Sarah said calmly. Sarah lives in a Brooklyn apartment with her 18month-old son, Gabriel. She is a social worker for public schools in Manhattan. Like any mother, I panicked. How do you feel? Are you getting tested? What does your doctor say? How is Gabe — should we come get him? “No, mom.”
Fortunately, Sarah’s case appears mild. A cough and loss of the sense of smell — even for her baby’s diapers — is the worst of it. She is self-quarantining to avoid spreading the virus, as is her sister Rebecca who lives nearby and has spent time with them. Rebecca, an ad executive at a Manhattan advertising agency, has been working from home, as are so many. I’m relieved she doesn’t have to go on the subway.
The three of them were here in Bethel the weekend before last — at my insistence. It was just before New York City schools were closed and NYC became a coronavirus epicenter. This Sunday will be the end of the 14-day incubation time from their visit, so to be responsible I am staying put until then even though I feel fine.
Even if you don’t have symptoms, you could be a carrier, the medical experts say.
What has helped my husband Jim and I cope is technology. For Christmas Sarah had given us a portal that somehow through Facebook enables us to call and facetime each other on a screen the size of an iPad. You can see much of a room, as though you are there. She can tell me she is OK, but with this we can see that she is. And we can read to Gabe through an interactive Storytime feature. Our daily calls include multiple readings of “Five Little Monkeys” — he squeals with delight when the monkeys jump off the bed.
How are you coping now, going into the third week of the unknown?
Carol Mahoney described a routine with multiple benefits. “My neighbor / good friend walk each day — definitely apart from each other — and decided to try and stay motivated by doing one project in our homes and then reporting on it when we walk in the afternoon,” she emailed. “It helps us keep on track and gives us something to look forward to during these trying times.”
It helps to stay connected with each other. Calls, emails and texts from farflung family members and friends mean so much, similar to the feeling after 9/11.
It nurtures the spirit to connect with nature. The goldfinches returned to the thistle feeder this week, their feathers turning from winter drab to yellow as bright as sunshine.
Jeffrey R. Heyel of Danbury, an employment attorney and professor at the University of New Haven, said his firm is open, and practicing social distancing by conducting meetings via Zoom or teleconferences where possible. College classes have moved online for the rest of the semester. This is the new normal.
He noted that a “crisis tends to bring out the best and worst in humanity.”
So true. We see business people and those at home use their time and materials to make face masks for hospitals and nursing homes. On the other side, we hear of the hoarders who leave no hand sanitizers for others. The latest: Connecticut Attorney General William Tong warned Thursday afternoon of a scam that tells users to go to a fake Census website in order to receive their stimulus check from the government. It didn’t take long, did it?
On the “best” side of humanity, here’s something incredibly meaningful Greg Holmes of Norwalk did. We had corresponded last year about an issue of racism where we saw the situation differently, but on this we’re in total agreement. Greg is in the property management business, from Greenwich to Westport.
“In light of this crisis, I recently convinced a group of investors with one of our larger properties in Norwalk, which houses mostly lower-income families, to discount April rent charges across the board for all tenants, by 50 percent,” he emailed. “It’s just a one-time effort for now, as a way to hopefully help them through this difficult time.”
The gesture affects 135 tenants and their families. Can you imagine the cumulative effect if other landlords did the same? This is helping people struggling through this health and economic crisis right where they need it.
Let’s focus on the positive and think about what we can do.
“While it will take a village to defeat COVID-19,” Jeffrey wrote, “the Dalai Lama said it best… ‘If you think you are too small to make a difference, try sleeping with a mosquito.’”
Jacqueline Smith’s column appears Fridays in Hearst Connecticut daily newspapers. She is also the editorial page editor of The News-Times in Danbury and The Norwalk Hour. She enjoys hearing from readers. Email jsmith@hearstmediact.com. Follow her on Facebook and on Twitter: @JackyNT