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shadowkatThe hardest part of this - is that I'm alone. In a huge city. Surrounded by strangers. Watching what I knew was going to happen...slowly play out in front of me. Knowing that there is nothing I can do to stop it, change it, or affect it outside of what I've been doing all along.
It's a particular type of hell...that every once and a while threatens to engulf me - like today for instance.
The sun is out. The sky is blue. The trees are green fading slowly into yellow and red and orange. And I'm tired of walking to a cemetery or around it, doing the human obstacle and vehicle course. Although I did do it on the way to the Flatbush Coop. It has an outside line and a checkout line. I need to go on weekdays, I think. Saturdays are a bad time. Also why do people bring baby carriages into grocery stores? Or insist on doing it together?
During a pandemic?
Garden on the way to the co-op.
The signs on the way out or rather on the doors leading into the apartment building posted by the supers:
1. The following apartments required additional electrical work after the building inspector's visit, and we did it - and he's inspecting again on this date. (Not mine thankfully).
2. Con Ed is working outside on Thursday, and the electricity for the entire building will be turned off all day on that day or another day, or not the whole day - or this may change. [ They apparently don't know. I've no idea what to do with this information. Do I go into the office on Thursday, turn Thursday and Friday into vacation days, switch my personal day from Friday to Thursday..or just declare technical difficulties?).
3. You must wear a mask upon entering this building, social distance in all public areas and sanitize. (This was finally put on the front door.) It explains why I'm now seeing the super and other maskless wonders from said apartment complex wearing masks or wearing them around their chins and pulling them up. The maskless couple with the baby, finally put on bandanas and lifts those.
So progress? Also the personal trainers who'd been maskless and sitting out in front of the building drinking and playing backgammon in the spring, have disappeared completely. I used to see them walking their dogs, now, I don't see them at all.
I keep noticing the changes however minor.
There's a clock in the garden that is in turn in front of a school.
I feel like time is slipping through my fingers. And there's nothing I can do. It's like watching a tsunami coming for everyone and you can't stop it.
You know it's coming. You know you need to get out of the way, but you're frozen. There's no exit ramp. And you just have to let the waves wash over you and hope you survive the experience, somehow.
I wonder sometimes if this is easier for people with family close by or with them. Maybe maybe not. Hard to know. My biggest challenges this year have been emotional and mental ones - my fear, my envy, and my anger.
It's hard to watch Gabe galavant around Arcadia National Park in Maine. Or my neice jump in and out of rivers and waterfalls - although I'm so happy that she is. It's hard to watch friends and couples walk around the cemetery, when I'm alone. And there doesn't appear to be an end to that any time soon.
I don't know if people are still reading these dispatches...dispatches from Brooklyn, NY during a pandemic, where no one seems to know what they are doing...exactly. I feel as if I'm whinging, sometimes raging into the abyss. On FB, a friend stated that she was going to the forest to scream, and wanted to know if anyone wanted to join her. I think I posted that it was kind of hard to do in Greenwood Cemetery or Prospect Park, but I was there in spirit.
I'm fine. Yet not. I'm immune compromised - although I don't feel immune compromised. Obsese. Diabetic. High blood pressure. Ceiliac. I told my mother we had to accept the fact that we were and act accordingly. My brother, ironically, is the least compromised, and possibly the best off and safest. His life is relatively normal. He gardens, works on his house, takes his kid to visit friends, and social distances with close friends who visit his barn and camp out in it. And they come. They do. It's crazy.
Life makes no sense to me. Sometimes.
It's a particular type of hell...that every once and a while threatens to engulf me - like today for instance.
The sun is out. The sky is blue. The trees are green fading slowly into yellow and red and orange. And I'm tired of walking to a cemetery or around it, doing the human obstacle and vehicle course. Although I did do it on the way to the Flatbush Coop. It has an outside line and a checkout line. I need to go on weekdays, I think. Saturdays are a bad time. Also why do people bring baby carriages into grocery stores? Or insist on doing it together?
During a pandemic?
Garden on the way to the co-op.
The signs on the way out or rather on the doors leading into the apartment building posted by the supers:
1. The following apartments required additional electrical work after the building inspector's visit, and we did it - and he's inspecting again on this date. (Not mine thankfully).
2. Con Ed is working outside on Thursday, and the electricity for the entire building will be turned off all day on that day or another day, or not the whole day - or this may change. [ They apparently don't know. I've no idea what to do with this information. Do I go into the office on Thursday, turn Thursday and Friday into vacation days, switch my personal day from Friday to Thursday..or just declare technical difficulties?).
3. You must wear a mask upon entering this building, social distance in all public areas and sanitize. (This was finally put on the front door.) It explains why I'm now seeing the super and other maskless wonders from said apartment complex wearing masks or wearing them around their chins and pulling them up. The maskless couple with the baby, finally put on bandanas and lifts those.
So progress? Also the personal trainers who'd been maskless and sitting out in front of the building drinking and playing backgammon in the spring, have disappeared completely. I used to see them walking their dogs, now, I don't see them at all.
I keep noticing the changes however minor.
There's a clock in the garden that is in turn in front of a school.
I feel like time is slipping through my fingers. And there's nothing I can do. It's like watching a tsunami coming for everyone and you can't stop it.
You know it's coming. You know you need to get out of the way, but you're frozen. There's no exit ramp. And you just have to let the waves wash over you and hope you survive the experience, somehow.
I wonder sometimes if this is easier for people with family close by or with them. Maybe maybe not. Hard to know. My biggest challenges this year have been emotional and mental ones - my fear, my envy, and my anger.
It's hard to watch Gabe galavant around Arcadia National Park in Maine. Or my neice jump in and out of rivers and waterfalls - although I'm so happy that she is. It's hard to watch friends and couples walk around the cemetery, when I'm alone. And there doesn't appear to be an end to that any time soon.
I don't know if people are still reading these dispatches...dispatches from Brooklyn, NY during a pandemic, where no one seems to know what they are doing...exactly. I feel as if I'm whinging, sometimes raging into the abyss. On FB, a friend stated that she was going to the forest to scream, and wanted to know if anyone wanted to join her. I think I posted that it was kind of hard to do in Greenwood Cemetery or Prospect Park, but I was there in spirit.
I'm fine. Yet not. I'm immune compromised - although I don't feel immune compromised. Obsese. Diabetic. High blood pressure. Ceiliac. I told my mother we had to accept the fact that we were and act accordingly. My brother, ironically, is the least compromised, and possibly the best off and safest. His life is relatively normal. He gardens, works on his house, takes his kid to visit friends, and social distances with close friends who visit his barn and camp out in it. And they come. They do. It's crazy.
Life makes no sense to me. Sometimes.
no subject
Date: 2020-10-04 01:25 am (UTC)Given what you and your city have been through, I have been wondering if there is an aspect of post-traumatic stress happening to New Yorkers? It is a problem for a lot of healthcare workers--I wonder if it's the same for the public in general. If so, New York is not alone. The mental health of Americans has tanked.
Your brother's situation seems pretty unique. Would you want to move up there if there was a place for you to stay? Or maybe after you retire?
Living with my son and taking care of my husband, I have good days and bad days, like you, like most people. Some days don't feel real. Like, how can this shit be happening? I want to speak to the head writer! This script needs edits... in fact, it needs a major rewrite.
Some days I don't want to get out of bed--but somehow I do.
no subject
Date: 2020-10-04 02:30 am (UTC)Given what you and your city have been through, I have been wondering if there is an aspect of post-traumatic stress happening to New Yorkers? It is a problem for a lot of healthcare workers--I wonder if it's the same for the public in general. If so, New York is not alone. The mental health of Americans has tanked.
Possibly - it's hard to know considering the pandemic is still going on...I mean it's not like 9/11 or Superstorm Sandy, which were over pretty quickly and we were all dealing with the aftermath. No, we're still in the midst of this - and every time things look like they are getting better - they get worse. I think people feel kind of beaten down by the constant barrage of bad news. As if it is endless. Some are dealing with it by throwing caution to the winds, others in stages, inviting friends who've been tested over, doing things in stages of safety. Others staying hunkered down until it is over.
The biggest problem is knowing what to believe or what to do. The information is contradictory. And it feels a lot like I'm stuck inside a very boring psychological horror film, which is seemingly endless and really needs better writers.
I want out.
Some days don't feel real. Like, how can this shit be happening? I want to speak to the head writer! This script needs edits... in fact, it needs a major rewrite.
Exactly.
Some days like today for example feel surreal. Like this weird normal, if you ignore the masks and the social distancing guidelines - it's not different at all.
I'm glad your son is living with you and able to help out in some way.
Would you want to move up there if there was a place for you to stay? Or maybe after you retire?
I don't know. Maybe. Right now? Yes. But I also realize that...he's remote, in the country and ...well, I freaked when I saw a mouse run across my apartment floor. He has mice brought to him in bed by his cats.
Anyhow, I think you're right - we're all traumatized. My doctor looked traumatized as did the nursing staff last week. And people I've seen here and there do as well. So too are some of my co-workers - who are also taking a 10% reduction in pay - to stay safe.
no subject
Date: 2020-10-04 08:03 am (UTC)Yes, we just have to let the waves wash over us and take what comes. I do just about all I easily can, I wear my masks, we split up our shopping (e.g., I might go into one store while my wife goes into a nearby one) to keep numbers down, etc. Someday we'll find out if all that worked and deal with it accordingly but, if not well, at least we know we tried.
One person I know well in Brooklyn I worry less about: their household already tested positive by PCR and recovered so I like to think that at least they're good until a vaccine comes. I like to find whichever silver linings I can!