Agoriphobia and Claustrophobia

My agoraphobia has been challenged of late by the experience of claustrophobia. This is the end of week 7 of the shut-in and the walls of the apartment feel like they are tightening about a center. Floor space seems at a premium even as the clutter on it bespeaks a certain lethargy to pick anything up. It becomes more difficult to maintain a discipline of cleanliness and self-care, but the effort is important. All about the house are disinfectant wipes and hand sanitizers. Left-over meals do pile up in the freezer alongside too many loaves of bread and tins of muffins and scones, but cooking and baking are activities that fill the time. I have considered offering curb-side pick-up for baked goods. I am becoming a very capable and too frequent amateur baker. I have managed to draw the line (thus far) at cookies, pies and cakes, but my dear friend has delivered a crumb cake that I have not managed to eschew. Indeed, I have chewed it all up.
     Of course, I could use a haircut, but I appreciate the absurdity of the idea that it might be safe to enter a hair salon. I see that protesters in Michigan entered the State capitol carrying weapons and Trump doesn’t speak a word against what he refers to as ‘good people.’ It was similar (or exactly the same) language that he used to refer to the Nazis and white supremacists in Charlottesville. The President is the most dangerous person today in the United States. Every day his incompetence is on vivid display and every day his base applauds his misdeeds. Hillary made a great many mistakes and ran a terrible campaign, but about Trump’s base she was not wrong: they are deplorables! Not for their social class but for their blinding stupidity. Their willingness to accept his lies even in the face of clear evidence that he is lying. Their inability to think beyond their personal predilections and personal needs: like getting a haircut! I hope their children get some benefit from their lack of discernment, but I have my doubts. I do wonder whether a haircut in the midst of plague should really be a priority. Do those protesters in Michigan think to wash their hands after handling their weapons? I do notice that none wear masks or latex gloves.
     Walking once or twice a day tracked by the Health Data application on my iPhone. Interesting that  I walk the same routes daily and daily a different distance gets recorded. My hypos become exacerbated by the shut-in, but fortunately I am surrounded by those who indulge and even comfort me in my anxieties. In the meantime, we watch movies: Dean, Puzzle, Bringing Up Baby, My Man Godfrey, Blow the Man Down, and search for new series to occupy our early evenings. Playing borad games: Blokus (for two), Paradux, Mancala, Parchesi. Still to relearn: Backgammon and RummiQ. Reading novels with enthusiasm, more and less: New Grub Street, by George Gissing; Don Quixote (ploddingly); The Murmur of Bees (arrived today); periodicals: The New York Review of Books and London Review of Books. Scanning the New York Times with despair mostly.
     So the agoraphobia has gone into hibernation and the claustrophobia with my sourdough starter rises. In the chapter “Where I Lived and What I Lived For” Thoreau writes, “A man is rich in proportion to the number of things which he can afford to let alone.” During this time of shuttered doors and social distancing, if we have been paying attention, we have been learning what may be essential and what is no longer so for our lives. We have been learning what we really do need and of what can we let go. In this form of exile there is freedom. There remains in my home much clutter, and I am learning what I don’t really need anyway.