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.