COVID chronicle – Two

Our lockdown began the day after we arrived home from Mexico. 

I, along with every other employee at my company, could no longer go to the workplace. My Homer Simpson daydreams had become reality! Lady E. and M’s Bart Simpson-like head trips materialized when schools shut…indefinitely! America was going batshit crazy. The Long Wait began. 

To be fair, there was near-terror that March-April. The psychological immunity many people felt had evaporated. The DMZ between major population centers and the few infection hotspots in the U.S. was no more. Folks withdrew into their homes and stockpiled whatever supplies they deemed necessary for their lifestyle. The authorities implored citizens to stay indoors and avoid contact with others unless absolutely necessary. In response, people went shopping online and in-person. Some were protected by masks and gloves. Others shielded themselves with defiant “Don’t Tread On Me” T-shirts. 

We had enough toilet paper. Instead, I hoarded Starbucks Dark Roast ice coffee, my fuel of choice for the home office. I went alone to the supermarket for basic foodstuffs. Once there, I witnessed the most un-American scene I had ever encountered: empty store shelves. 

The Rising Family® kept indoors for several days, relying on Nickelodeon and Disney to keep the kids sedated. We adults sipped news reports, and scoured local Facebook groups and Nextdoor social media apps to divine what was happening around us. 

After less than a week of staying in the house our lockdown ended. We needed to get out, and began departing on night drives in our trusty Rogue SUV to marvel at the quiet downtown and gawk at the lack of any social normal activity. We rolled down the car windows along country roads in the crisp March evenings. That air became an elixir of stress relief and a tranquilizer.

Work@Home
I started my new work routine headquartered in our spare room. I soon rearranged the space for better optics and audio, i.e. nesting. 

Using Zoom for serial remote e-meetings with my coworkers brought back dim childhood memories of the Hollywood Squares C-list celebrity game show circa the late 1970s. 

The more I worked from home, the more I grew to miss the 30-minute drive into the office, with the better angels of NPR reporting the day’s morning news bulletins on the car radio. I had cherished my alone time during the evening trips homeward when I would I flip between classic rock and podcasts of my choice. I missed these commuting rituals!

After some time passed working at home I came to feel that no coping mechanisms were enough. For me, online happy hours, side-chats, and Skype calls simply could not recreate an atmosphere for ideal collaboration, teamwork and friendship among coworkers. We all did – are doing— our best. But true social interaction can’t be replicated online. An emoticon does not -- will never – be the same as a knowing wink of disdain, or a raised eyebrow signaling “is he/she for real?”, or a telling nod that telegraphed support from a colleague.

Like people googling themselves during the early days of that search engine, I daresay many people fiddled endlessly with their Zoom settings to find the most flattering lighting. I am sure many have learned to shut off the microphone when slipping away for quick “bio break” executed within earshot of the computer speakers or smartphone during yet-another sonorous conference call. New digital skills have emerged.  

I have always favored strict division between my work and my private life--Facebook kudos excepted. COVID-19 obliterated that. I am still utterly grateful to be working when millions of others aren't as fortunate.

COVID chronicle - One

For several months I’ve had a mild case of COVID-19 passivity, a form of mental inertia. My challenge has been to try and chronicle my family’s experience for this blog. Meanwhile, over one million people have died, nearly 50 million are infected, and the world is still reeling? That chilling reality aside, my indifference to writing about COVID-19 delayed placing my fingers on the keyboard. Now, my plan is to recount the pandemic’s effect on the Rising Family™ in a series of posts with equal measures of sincerity and whimsy. Only now do I have the juice and mindset to organize this.

I first encountered the “novel coronavirus” due to work. In late December, I started to get media inquiries at the office about reports of a new virus in Wuhan, China. They asked how it was affecting my employer’s global supply chain. I’d grimace, respond, and move on to the next issue of the day. Something unfortunate was happening again somewhere else in the world, we all thought. I could easily predict the stories based on hypotheticals and fear. Shamefully, my main worry was to not have our Christmas vacation in Florida interrupted by work. 

The progression of the virus over the following weeks ratcheted up collective anxiety, but it still felt unconnected to our lives in Tennessee. In retrospect, the confusion of January and February was the stupor before the storm. Soon, there was a unmistakable sense that something truly awful was underway—this was not just another super flu. My colleagues and I were exchanging wry GIFs to keep things light. 

I posted a sarcastic hand washing reminder on my office glass partition featuring Rare Earth’s 1971 hit “I just want to celebrate (another day of livin’)” and Rage Against The Machine.

The first trauma of 2020 began for me with a tornado that ripped through the Nashville area on the night of March 2-3 and killed five people. That tornado wreaked more damage and death than the city had seen in a long time. At work, we dealt with its impact on our local operations. A few days afterward, many of us volunteered at a local food bank to pack meals for people who had lost their homes or otherwise needed help. Here was Mother Nature foreshadowing what was to come.

The rapid spread of the virus dominated the news: mushrooming infection hot spots in certain places in China and Europe; governmental paralysis over what to do about it; conspiracy theorists concocting incoherent, knee-jerk rejection of the facts Mostly, I remember an atmosphere of incredulity and inaction. I thought of the SARS outbreaks that had been successfully contained in 2003. The conjecture at the watercooler and the kids’ school continued, especially online.

Read the label carefully

Naomi and I debated whether we should go on our spring break trip to Mexico amid all the uncertainty and talk of impending calamity. Ultimately, our wanderlust overcame any unease. We rolled the dice and, all told, we had a wonderful vacation. But as the second week of March began, anxious looks and nervous chatter among the guests at our hotel mounted, even in paradise. Repeated emails from our airline about return flight changes signaled government plans. Immigration uncertainties, looming border shutdowns, and aircraft availability became very real question marks. At the Cancun airport departure point the collective tension among the passengers and airport staff was palpable. Everyone, us included, kept a wary distance. Yet our flight back to Nashville was perfect and we arrived home without incident.

This set the stage for the next phase: lockdown.