Diary 23
Friday, April 10th
Staying in this strange space of social distancing and isolation causes me to notice certain things. The post office now, at last, has installed perspex barriers between the counter clerk and the public. My friend behind the counter looks relieved rather than deeply worried, but it’s not as if he’s happy. By rights he should have had that screen years ago, to help protect him from all the previous flu epidemics.
Of the local shops one now has an interesting and ingenious wood tray on wheels arrangement. One approaches the cash, stands behind the new wood barrier, places one’s groceries on a wood tray that is then rolled towards the cash desk. The owner then rings up the purchases, bags them, and rolls them back to you, six feet away. No one is allowed to enter the shop without a mask. The staff all have masks and gloves. Everyone seems confident and relaxed. My wife admired this, and said she felt the place was safer than most other places she’d shopped. It gave her confidence that the owners had thought about what to do and taken action.
Meanwhile I was in another shop buying milk and the owner there stood behind an unprotected till; he wore neither mask nor gloves. I did not feel reassured. It seems to me that more and more the business of feeling safe, or safe-ish, is essential if we’re to keep our spirits up, if we’re to feel that we can beat this. In fact, any time we do something to push back against this virus we are sending ourselves a positive message, and that can only be good. I felt rather pleased I was wearing my home-made mask. Just because there aren’t any commercial ones available doesn’t mean I’m helpless. Morale matters, and helplessness erodes it.
And then it began to rain, then to sleet, and finally a bit of snow and hail descended. As I gazed out at this a huge boom announced the failure of our neighborhood’s electrical system. Well, we can always light the gas stove with a match and use it as heat tonight….
The solution was to get creative with dinner. My wife is very good at this because we both realize how important it is to try to eat well, as healthily as we can, and have food that is interesting. At this time I cannot imagine anything more depressing than a shabby meal of pre-packaged junk. I imagine that the panic buying I saw earlier this month will have resulted in quite a lot of that, if my brief survey of my fellow-shoppers’ overloaded shopping carts was in any way representative. If we can, we must try to be good to ourselves. We do not have to think that we have to sit in a bunker, drinking tinned water and eating Army-ration beans.
On a different note, I’ve come to the end of Middlemarch, which was so utterly enjoyable that I had to ration myself for fear of racing to the end. Reading, when there’s no pressure, is a delicious luxury. I’d almost forgotten how much.
Then the electricity came back on.
