Isolating

[Above photo: The Namib desert at Sosussvlei. Relentless in its beauty, like Helen of Troy.]

5 April 2020

I wonder if one way I am dealing with my anxiety about the pandemic is through derealization, a kind of dissociative response. When I see the numbers on CNN or BBC and hear Andrew Cuomo begging for medical help from other states and the federal government, it seems far away and troubling but at a distance. Part of that is from my isolation, 9 stories above street level with views over Yangon in all directions. My contacts with the outside world are: WhatsApp, email, texting, and Zoom, all distanced, once-removed relationships, although I take the garbage to the bin on the corner, 75 steps away, once a week.  When teaching I feel flat, like the late-night comedians who are now operating from their homes. I often enjoy John Oliver or Trevor Noah or Seth Meyers. Stephen Colbert not so much anymore. But without their audiences, their narcissistic requirement for admiration and applause seems more evident and they seem sadder to me because of it. Like some of the air let out of a taut balloon.

Another student and her husband dropped by today, bemasked, to leave 5 bags of groceries. I now have enough toilet paper to serve a village during a cholera epidemic. It’s funny, some of the “staples” are things I’ll never need or use. It is incredibly kind and generous of them to do this for me, unsolicited. I don’t think I express a sense of helplessness, but maybe it is generic here with the male of the species.  Or the generosity with the female.

I know woman can give birth (genius, I am) and are better physiologically in space but I hadn’t realized that their two X chromosomes give them a significant immunological advantage re. infections. And put them at more risk for autoimmune disorders.

I dreamed last night that I was on a beautiful, well-organized farm in Australia, sited in very hilly red-earth country.  On the side of the road was a body swathed in a green tarp or blanket. It was my friend from Seneca, Stuart Brotman, who died at 40yo of a ruptured Berry aneurysm (in the ED of the hospital where his father was the CEO).  Stuart was brilliant, conflicted, full of energy and love, and remarkably intuitive in relationships. He and I, among other exploits, started a wilderness program, taking selected kids from our Oak Grove residential program on backpacking overnight trips. We did two trips in the Point Reyes area and we had a fabulous time. From the first one we learned to select only same-sex kids for each trip. There were no near-babies but there was much less tension for each group. We learned to have a check-list of what to bring. The latter came up while we all ate spaghetti with our hands out of a big pot, Stuart having forgotten the utensils and plates. His genius was to make every experience fun, and it always was. Back to the dream.

Stuart could move his head and left arm a little but all was withered. It was his father’s farm and he loved the outdoors so they’d put him there during the day to observe and breathe the fresh air. I was overjoyed to see him again. Why had there been a funeral for him? Oh, they weren’t sure and wanted to be prepared. As I was talking and listening to him he rolled over the steep edge of the road and fell 75 feet to the slope below. I rushed down to him as an ambulance pulled up. I tried to help but the driver had his procedures and I felt useless. The driver kept dragging his feet, talking on his cell phone, etc. as if Stuart was worthless. I felt frightened and frustrated and angry and all sorts of things.

The stimulus for the dream was my conference call two days ago with Marie, Sarah Wiebe, Karlyn, and Rianna Bensing to Kimally whose 53^rd birthday it was. We recounted stories of Stuart, whom we all loved, and Marie said how she has followed Liz, Stuart’s wife, and Abby, his now 18yo daughter, on Facebook, noting what a great job she felt Liz had done as a widowed mom.

I associated to why Stuart always kept his wife, daughter, and the wealthy side of his family out of our view—I don’t recall every meeting Liz or Abby. I only met his parents at the funeral. He was somehow ashamed of us—or them?   It must have been complicated for Stuart. I have, in my storage locker in Maine, some photos of Stuart that I shall get to Liz at some time, for Abby. The unsettled nature of my longing for Stuart and his sudden death reminds me of my brother’s, Roger (Stewart), sudden death and how I wish he’d survived to see his children’s successes and to be with his wife. Then I circle back to the corona virus and am aware I want to spend time with my daughter, Ariane, and, if ever possible, my son, Nate. I’m not ready for my sudden death, but then no one is.

We had another, expanded, virtual cocktail party Friday night. It now is a regular occurrence. Attending were Kelly, me, Irene, Jose, and Clem. Irene is not interested in poker but the other 4 of us are plotting a virtual poker game. Using Bitcoin? I don’t think the cryptocurrencies have denominations small enough to accommodate us. We’ll likely keep a running tally and pay up when curfew is lifted. The party was lively and both Clem and I laughed so hard we fell over on our respective couches. Admittedly, I drank half a bottle of Chateau Margot du Poissant en Grand Cruz ($11) or whatever and since I don’t drink the rest of the week it goes a long way. Kelly, having watched a couple of documentaries about the meat industry and how superathletes improve performance on plant-based diets, has virtuously undertaken the same during our isolation. Clem talked about the joys of home schooling driving her to risk her life by exiting to her office, leaving the wee ‘uns with their father. Irene had calming, yoga-like advice for us and Jose updated us on his current job-hunt status. He has the job but they won’t quite commit to him because this corona-time is affecting their funding and they may need to restructure.

I feel so for the poor and those watching their businesses collapse and vanish. It isn’t beyond question that one of my banks will fail, DT will use this as an opportunity to exit from Social Security, or my annuity fund may go belly-up. I’ll figure out what to do. I’ll have to get my medical license re-activated, I guess. Imagine, at 80yo. Well, that doesn’t really worry me.

What REALLY worries me is that DT is packing everything and everyone around him—-Senate, Supreme Court, Intelligence Director, Attorney General, Justice Department, etc.—with cronies and toadies so, together with Fox Far-Right Opinion (it is surely not News, as in dispassionate, non-partisan, fact-based journalism), he may lie his way into another 4 years. After which time his dictatorial hold on the country will be even firmer. He is like a perverse Rumplestiltskin, attempting to spin the coronavirus tragedy and his mismanagement of it into electoral gold.

We are too frail of mind, too easily mob-swayed and deceived. Better we were more instinctually-bound. Eat, fight, breed, die. Tooth and beak and claw.  Forget Bach and the Beatles, Tagore and Shakespeare, Nelson Mandela and the Reverend Martin Luther King, Jr. The price of creativity is too high if totalitarianism wins.  But then, we can always find comradeship in the fighting opposition.