DISPATCHES FROM LOCKDOWN #1

Dr. Common Good

Amorphous day-night fog of time, life in a furnished box. Yet I know my blessings. I can do some of my work at home, and meet with other human beings through the screen. Otherwise, it is manufactured schedules, simulacra of sequence. Ah, I must do this, and then that. Each day when I am not outside for scheduled exercise, I still have to go outside, as a reminder that it is indeed a day. I take a walk around the neighborhood, on one of a growing repertoire of walk-circuits. And when I do, I notice new details, or have new questions. That old Saturn sedan, always parked a couple of blocks away, faded bronze paint, wheel covers slightly rusted. Does it run? I wonder where they get parts for it. Huh, never noticed the addition they put on that old brick house. Really makes it bigger than one would think. On the other side of the street, a mom, with a small, blond-haired girl, probably about two or three years old. The mom waits patiently while the girl, wearing a puffy sky-blue jacket, idly kicks her feet in a small puddle. Kids always like puddles, it’s a virtual law of nature. I stay more than the required six feet away, the mom smiles wanly. Passing by another house, a woman sits cross-legged on the floor just inside her glass storm-door, letting the sun shine on her as she reads, protected from the outside world. A few blocks further and up around a short incline, there is a thicket of trees and bramble on one side of the street. Irish-green spring grass is beginning to emerge in patches. In my line of sight, a muddy pondlet, crisscrossed by soggy branches. I turn left at the next block. The street is slightly marred by a haphazard line of drill-holes and paint lines, markings for some planned repair. Why on this street? I can think of many streets far more in need of repair.

Many other streets far more in need of repair. So, who’s in charge of that? Is there some sort of plan? A metaphor, methinks, for the broader condition of things in pandemia.