Pollen and COVID, 2020
This time of year in Japan, the sugi (Japanese cedar) spew yellow pollen all over the balcony doors of our house.
All over the car and windows. All over any clothing hanging out to dry.
For some reason, my allergies stubbornly resisted this season. Until this past week. Then I enjoyed the new spring temperatures with two days of non-stop sneezing fits, followed by a day of throaty, mucusy coughs and stuffy nose honks.
Not ideal during a Coronavirus pandemic that has everyone in the world terrified of anybody within earshot. Even I, myself, couldn’t help a momentary feeling of panic. What if…I…??
But it’s just hay fever. Nothing more. But I’m of course I can’t get a test. Not in Japan, where five-sixths of the test kits available simply aren’t used (for fear of driving up the number of the infected, thus damping Tokyo Olympic chances and damaging the poor PM’s ego).
Should I self-isolate? What if I (and my wife, and kids, and all our friends, neighbors, and colleagues) already were infected and didn’t even know it? (Many people show mild or no symptoms, especially if they’ve been inoculated against seasonal flu already.)
What if it’s too late, we’ve already recovered, and the whole thing is just an overblown cold virus?
Or what if it’s just starting and the worst is yet to come?
With so many unknowns, it’s hard not to feel a real sense of fear, and dread. The world turned upside-down, our “leaders” selling us out while they run off to safe houses as the system they undermined collapses under its own weight.
Maybe it’s the beginning of a new Gilded Age. A new Roaring Twenties of wealth, prosperity, and debauchery.
Only we know what followed that.
It’s been three weeks since two doctors cut open my left shoulder and removed a 2cm-square benign tumor that looked like a tiny bluemonc. The same day my elementary-age daughters had to stay home because their school year abruptly came to an end, with little advance warning thanks to terrified, clueless politicians.
Were they all needless deaths after all?
In only three weeks, it has all been changed. From now and in times to be, wherever a mask is worn.
Changed, changed utterly.
A terrible beauty may have been born…
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Same here but it hasn't started yet, today was about the finest day with the bluest skies for March I can remember in years,
Yeah, the weather here in Nara has been great, almost perfect spring weather. Except for all the golden dust all over the place. I seem to have gotten used to it again after two-three days of filling the garbage with used tissues...
I hear you, so far so good in these parts, and seems like you all are coping with this pandemic in good form. I for one don't leave the house without a mask, the other day I went to the military base Camp Casey, and other than the folks taking your temperature check at the main gate, I was the only one wearing a mask, as soon as you leave post everyone else is wearing one. Hope you and your family stay safe, and ride this thing out.
Thanks, you, too. The Japanese government’s head-in-the-sand reaction has been frustrating. But we’re managing. My wife and I are both educators and writers, so when the kids had to stay at home we worked out a study/play/family time schedule that all of us could cope with. Luckily we live near a mountain and have fresh clean air, hiking, all sorts of outdoor stuff we can do. The country ran out of masks several weeks ago during the TP buying frenzy, but we’ll manage somehow.
We live on the very edge of the city we're at, so there are some good hilly woodland trails 10 minutes walk from our home. I've been pretty much staying in but have been getting out for some short fresh air walks a few times a week. The only time I come close to people is getting to the trail head and back once on the trail somedays I don't see anyone. Mask have been rationed here for a bout a week or two now, on the day one can go you pick up two and thats it next the next week. We're getting doing a lot of good reading, watching old movies, and some youtube NBA Finals from yesteryear.
