 Afraid. Angry. Confused. Worried. Stressed.
In a matter of days our lives have been turned upside down. Our towns have been made into ghost towns. Booming new businesses and growing establishments have shut their doors. They are waiting at home with bills to pay and no answers. No answers for months. Our health is at risk, even the health of young, healthy people. Our lives are at risk, just as much as our livelihood and yet we are social creatures. We need each other to survive, but we are all assumed contagious. And so we should be. I might try to drive an hour and meet up with my 70 year-old mother for a walk in which we stay 6 feet apart. I guess we’ll do air hugs. At least I’ll get to look in her eyes. We’ve been having technological difficulties with voice chat. I can’t even help her with her phone. Otherwise, we are staying home, missing our friends, watching the charts and the news with wide eyes. I admit I’m frightened. I have to be here for my kids. I need my husband and partner. We are 36 and 41 respectively. It looks like about 1 of 8 people in our age group who get sick with COVID-19 will need to be hospitalized. Men are twice as likely to die per results in China and Italy. I should be citing news sources. I could, but go look it up yourself. Our local hospital has 52 beds. The rest of this is speculation: I don’t know how many of those are ICU beds. Maybe 10? I don’t know how many ventilators that equates to. I’m wagering less than 52. It looks like less than 52 people in our county of Amador (pop. 38,626) can get sick at the same time. (If anyone can get me these exact numbers at Sutter Amador, I'll write an update.) In Italy they are preparing plans to decide who gets a ventilator. They are doing that in California too, but no one is talking about it, yet. And so, daily life goes on. It’s looking quite different for most people. For us, it looks a lot the same, but without visits from our friends and family. My husband is working from home. We have enough food for month. After that we will move on to Nutella, condensed milk, and Skippy. I'm sure the kids wont mind, but they might balk at the quinoa. (Realistically, we will probably brave a runner to the store before dipping into our fallout food, but who knows. If people don't stay home, this will look like fallout in a matter of weeks/months.) Right now, my kids are watching an Episode of Dora the Explorer and then we will go outside to play in the last of the snow. So far, there has already been a physical fight over stuffed animals. Yesterday, someone got bit. I might have yelled, but maybe that was the day before. I’m sure I wore earplugs for a time. Jesse and I are getting along well today, playing on the same team, but he’s been outside working most the morning. That’s all for now, but I’d like to ponder the future of this blog. I believe it will wander, but I’ll try to post often, for my own record, for my contribution to art and the future. Maybe I'll work in some interviews with our public, our elders, my friends. Maybe I’ll share my latest bread baking fail, or something cute my kids did. Or maybe I’ll just continue to jabber without citing sources. Lots of people don’t believe in sources right now anyways. On that note, most of the blabbing I’ve done here is referenced from the updates the San Francisco Chronicle is providing here. All the best, Kelly
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