Journal of the Plague Year 9

 It is mid-May in the year 2021 and outside there is a great deal of noise. I hear the volumes of sound that come from the lawn mowers and blowers and weed-wackers that blast through the windows and doors. I am reminded of Thoreau’s notice of the Fitchburg Railroad. In the Walden chapter “Sounds,” Thoreau writes, “The whistle of the locomotive penetrates my woods summer and winter, sounding like the scream of a hawk sailing over some farmer’s yard, informing me that many restless city merchants are arriving within the circle of the town, or adventurous country traders from the other side.” Perhaps he is referring to the shrill of the train whistle, or perhaps to the screeching noise of the train braking on a stretch of the track. The sound invaded his quiet. Today the snarls of the contemporary gardening engines that manicure lawns might be employed on Nature but they actually have no other connection to it and do tend to drown out at least the songs of the birds. Actually, the mowers, etc. consume fossil fuels and pollute the air which then smells from gasoline vapors. 

     But ironically, I think I miss the quiet that I experienced when the lock down occurred in March 2020.  On March 13 Minnesota Governor Walz had declared a State of Emergency and urged that all events with 250 or more attendees be cancelled or postponed. My last social engagement took place on Friday, March 14. On March 15 schools were ordered closed for two weeks, and a day later Walz ordered the closing of public places: restaurants, bars, coffee shops, gyms theaters, breweries, ski resorts and other public places. Finally, the order to stay-at-home was issued for March 29. Still permitted to remain open were the supermarkets, the drug and (thankfully) liquor stores. At the latter only curbside pick-up was available. As long as we maintained social distancing and wore masks, exercising in the outdoors continued to be allowed.
     But the streets for the most part went silent and eerily empty. Ford Parkway, a walking quarter-mile from my residence, a thoroughfare that was usually traffic-heavy was suddenly almost empty of cars, trucks, most public transportation vehicles and pedestrians, except, for the latter, of course, those out for solitary or socially distanced and masked walks or runs. The air traffic had been for the most part grounded: air travel had been reduced 87% domestically and 95% internationally. There was on the ground and in the air almost no noise and almost no activity. I had been cautioned not to touch the walk button at the crosswalks without gloves of which I owned a large box, or at least the prophylactic of a disinfectant wipe which I tried to carry with me where e’er I went, but really there was no cause to wait for the light to change because no vehicle except a few empty public buses traversed the road in either direction. Pedestrians were scarce, save for a few children and adolescents on their bicycles or congregating in small groups stood at what appeared to me to be in too close proximity. The retailers were closed, except for the pharmacy, the supermarkets, and the liquor stores (thank goodness!), and even the latter offered curbside pick-up, but I chose to travel to the markets only at the hour designated for the elderly.
     One characteristic of the pandemic that I experienced was the aura of silence—and I enjoyed it. In the silence I could hear again. In Journal of the Plague Year DeFoe described the sound of those dying in London, 1665: he wished that he could “repeat the very Sound of those Groans, and of those exclamations that I heard from some poor dying Creatures, when in the Hight of their Agonies and Distress; and that I could make him that read this hear, as I imagine I now hear them, for the Sound seems still to Ring in my Ears.” Today our dying has been done in isolation and has added to the silence. Though I savored the quiet of the pandemic, the sounds of the silence of our dying during the pandemic was not comforting.
     As I write the sound of the planes split the air and the cars speed by on the road before my home. The mowers and blowers growl menacingly. The pandemic is receding and the noise returning.