Journal of the Plague Year

So much occurred during this Plague Year when actually nothing happened. I should have been a better record keeper—but I had no idea that it would all last so long. I imagined that Daniel Defoe had kept a regular account of that tragic year when the bubonic plague struck London, but I learned, in fact, that the Journal of the Plague Year was not written during the 1665 outbreak when Defoe was only five years old but had been penned (literally) many years later and just before its publication in 1722. I think to have kept a record might have been an excellent project for me during this time, but alas, like so many excellent projects I have considered ex post facto, this one never got underway. So I’m writing my journal of the plague year now though it is not ended and has extended beyond a year. And having now received the second dose of the Moderna vaccine and received permission by the CDC to even organize dinner parties with other seniors who have been fully vaccinated, now and thinking that the severe isolation that I have experienced might be coming to a slow conclusion, I would like to consider what happened when, to quote Chief Plenty Coups of the Crow nation, that after this, nothing happened. 
     Maybe I’ll begin with what seemed to be a somewhat quiet and even inauspicious beginning. In late January or early February, the alarm began to sound that something was in the air and people were advised to wash their hands frequently and for 20 seconds whenever they came in from out there, in order to to kill whatever virus may have settled on them. We were also advised to use hand sanitizers. But soon these preventative lotions very soon came to short supply. I remember sometime in early February, 2020 standing naked in the gym locker and talking casually with a man whom I knew to be a pharmacist in a local hospital. I wondered to him if his pharmacy had been cleared of the sanitizers and he laughed and then acknowledged that a new supply was not even forthcoming He admitted to what was becoming common knowledge: the demand for the item was enormous and that the prices would rise even as the supply dwindled. Pacé Smith and Marx. And then, indeed, the supply actually disappeared and a container of sanitizer of whatever size became as valuable as prime real estate.
     Instructions on how to mix a sanitizer in the home appeared and I remember walking with Madeleine through the health care section of Whole Foods looking for the required substances but being informed that they were sold out of all the items and probably wouldn’t be receiving any more for several weeks. Pharmacy shelves were also clean of the necessary ingredients as well as the pre-mixed product. The next option for protection against the virus was plastic gloves; we purchased a large box of them which we slipped on whenever we went out and even when we stayed in and had to put out the trash or bring in the morning newspaper, got the mail or received packages mostly from the now essential Amazon.com. When we did venture out into the Senior Citizen Hour at the local supermarket, a supply of plastic gloves in S-M-L and XL sizes were offered de rigeur, and from their own coveted supplies newly hired store workers sanitized the shopping carts. Sterility was at a premium. Wall hand sanitizers began to appear in the aisles and at the cash registers and the entry and exit doors. When we got home and if we were fortunate to have even a small supply of sanitizer we wiped down our items and the packagings. And then we washed our hands for twenty seconds and tried to keep our touching anything to an antiseptic minimum.
     And so, I think that one consequence of the pandemic was the transformation of everything in the world into strains of toxicity. Nothing could anymore be safely touched without first donning protective gloves and without a necessary supply of sanitizer. Even our physical bodies were dangerous, and the cautions not to touch our eyes, our face, or mouth appeared everywhere. The physical world, always a bit precarious, had now become quite deadly. No hugs and kisses. No hands shaken. Social distancing of six feet maintained between individuals. The virus was everywhere, and even each of us could be the deadly carrier.