Cold and blowing from the north. Twenty degrees in the lee. Dog poop frozen hard, nice to shovel up. I think the song birds have flown back deep into the woods because I haven’t seen them out in the open in a few days.
Over the weekend we planned to take cinnamon rolls around to friends and leave them on their steps. But then it turned out we had contact with a person who had had contact with a person who had just gotten back from a cruise and had not quarantined themselves. So we spent the afternoon cleaning all surfaces and clothes, and dog harnesses that person may have come in contact with… and of course I ate too many cinnamon rolls. Jeepers. Why don’t people just follow the rules. or at least tell us before they come by for a six feet apart dog walk.
We also had a Zoom conference with my four siblings which was more fun than I thought it would be. My sister in Seattle, Martha does not have a dog, and she is naturally quiet anyway so we didn’t hear much from her because there were a lot of people chasing their dogs around with computers yelling and trying to get them to do tricks which was kind of funny for a while. Then we promised not to talk about politics… a promise we immediately broke so our commuter was full of five squares of people yelling and complaining over the top of each other sounding like a video game on the fritz. We are an opinionated family. Then we all toasted to life by clinking our glasses against the computer camera which worked rather well. I was drinking ginger ale from a can which was not so classy but it was an hour earlier in Alaska which was how I defended myself. We plan to do it again next week.
The news makes it seem that some of the worst hit cities may be reaching the peak of their death rate. Is this how we define the light at the end of the tunnel now?
Alaska has a long history with epidemics. Small pox and diphtheria hit hard here before the Spanish flu. Entire villages were wiped out completely almost entire regions if I understand my history correctly. Small isolated communities have a special fear for these diseases for while it’s true we have a defense in the distance and isolation smallness and isolation makes us vulnerable when they finally do hit. Here in these places we have the traditional skepticism of the stranger. What might they be brining in? This comes from the days of the great sicknesses. The stranger could bring in something that was invisible and could cause a sickness that could carry away everyone… literally everyone in the village in the matter of weeks. Many old stories, many of the societal rules and clan structures came from this fear of the stranger.
Our little town of Sitka is about nine thousand people. We live on a big island but with no roads on or off. We live in relatively close quarters. Two grocery stores. One main street. one set of public schools. One main meeting hall in town. No one owns more than five or six acres of private land and most much less. Most people live on or near the water and measure their lots in square feet. We feel we are ready for the virus. The Governor has outlawed intrastate travel now, but he also cut ferry service down to about nothing. There are about 90 active cases in the state. None in Sitka. We have a regional hospital here, the public boarding school has been temporarily closed and there has been discussion of using the dorms for overflow beds if needed. We have a drive through testing center set up. Anyone flying home from outside now has to self quarantine for 14 days by law. Sheltering in place is also the law. All restaurants are delivery only. Bars are closed. Which is a big thing, my friend Brian heard that they were closing and he burned rubber down to the Pioneer bar to say goodbye to his social life for the duration. it was a genuinely sad affair. For many the bartenders at the P. bar are family. 9 thousand people. If one case comes and people are sloppy and just don’t care, or have the attitude that I have heard from some, “I’m going to be dead soon, I don’t care,” Or “Okay… I believe it’s real and al,l but I still think it’s being exaggerated by the people who hate Trump, so I’m going to live my life.” Or... the most frequent I’ve heard…. “It’s the flu. I don’t change my life for the flu.” If that prevails, one case becomes two, two, four, four eight sixteen… counting down to nine thousand. Then of course news gets out and people try to clamp down more on our freedom of movement and it’s harder and harder to leave town and fear kicks into panic thinking and panic thinking gets magical… like “God wants this to happen,” or “It’s like thinning out the herd,” So “I’m taking my boat to Seattle,” sounds like a good thing to do, then people jump on boats and boats sink and more crazy shit happens and airlines don’t want to fly people who might be carrying the virus to Seattle and people get a little crazier and well…
It’s bad. The little island town where it all seemed so good, Is crawling with crazy people with guns. I know, I’m not saying it’s going to happen. But I will say I’ve seen three guys openly carrying handguns in the grocery store in the last week and I haven’t seen that in times when it wasn’t hunting season before.
But you know me, I’m basically a Pollyanna, love will find a way kind of guy, and I honestly thinks that’s going to happen here too. I’ve seen crazy and they can have it. I can eat fish, pilot bread, doritos and top ramen and stay home until the people with the bull horns call me out of my hole in the ground, and when I come out, I’m going to plant a big old kiss on the first copper holding an AK-47 I see.
I recorded what I suppose is a lecture but is more of a meandering talk about that book, The Essential Haiku. Don’t be shocked when it ends abruptly at about 25 minutes. I was wrapping it up when a friend called who wanted to buy some flooring and it cut the recording. I haven’t learned to use Garage Band to edit recordings together and that is my pandemic project for this week.
What I would have said at the end of the recording is this: “I hope you are well, and if you aren’t well…. if you are sick, or worried about someone else… I hope you are with someone who can help you through it. Take good care of yourself, and stay well.
Dot was remarkably well behaved today so you don’t hear from her.
Freezing spray, north wind:
shivering in my pajamas
calling my dog home.
jhs
