My 365 Day Anniversary: March 10 2021

365 days ago I understood that I needed to shut my door against Covid-19. But first I had to make some stops. I went to Trader Joe’s and stocked up with multiples of everything that seemed crucial. I bought liquid dispenser soaps, bars of soap, shampoo, cleaning products, toilet paper, tissues, paper towels, hand cream, and food galore. I went to Walgreens and snagged medical gloves, Clorox spray, wipes, Vitamin C, and candy. At the bank, I got hundreds of dollars of cash, not the least $1 and $5 bills for tips I anticipated giving. I stopped by the post office and loaded up on local and overseas stamps, before gassing up the car, although I did not foresee that it would not be touched by human hands for the next 50 days.

I’m not sure how I knew so clearly what to get and what to do to prepare for a pandemic and to weather a shut-down, but I attribute my prescience to a life-long Holocaust mentality. I suspect that this is the result of a genetic propensity, in a metaphorical sense.

My mother had infinite cheap plastic handbags to match her every outfit. I went through them when she died. (I found over $700 hidden around her place among her things and I bet I missed plenty.) Each purse had a $5 bill, one of those fold-up plastic rainhats women of the 1950s depended on, a comb, and a disposable razor blade with which she scraped at the old-lady whiskers she grew. This is my heritage: a strong streak of just-in-case-ism.

I have squirrelled away $5 bills in the pocket of every coat and jacket I own – just in case. Likewise, I have food in every bag, in every room, and in the glove compartment of my car, just in case. I’ve been saving money all my life even when I scarcely made enough to live on – just in case things got worse. And “just in case” has come true for us all this year.

I live alone in an apartment that has one large room and then a little bedroom in which I can do nothing but sleep and dress. There’s not even a place for a chair. In short, I’m living and writing and eating and entertaining myself and reading and phoning and exercising and Zooming in this one room. But I’m lucky to have a fine view of a pond and a balcony on which to sit and watch the sunset, weather permitting.

After years of begging, I had succeeded a couple of months earlier in convincing my landlords to change my scuzzy wall-to-wall carpet to lovely new grey carpeting. I also found just the perfect credenza (a long sideboard) in February following a couple of years of searching. My friend Debi, who can do it all, came over and spent an entire day putting it together. I disposed of the heavy oak Art Deco pieces that came over to the States with me from London in 2000 – pieces that were too big for my one room. I hung the original collage paintings of Sandy Oppenheimer - a self-portrait and a portrait of Chadwick Boseman -- over my marble sculpture by Jaya Schuerch. In short, my home was much improved and comfy for settling in.

From the start, all the fatality stats were showing that hypertension was a top complicating and deadly factor when it came to Covid. My Dr and I had been struggling since the November before Covid to get a grip on my high and erratic blood pressure. I was determined to survive, that is, to avoid Covid, and I set myself restrictions far beyond those of many other friends. I was inside for the long haul.

In that first week or so I negotiated an arrangement with my bestie, Barry. He also lives alone. He is also a very cautious person. We decided to weather the lock-down together/apart, to speak daily, to provide support. Neither of us would see any other friends in person so that eventually we would actually meet safely. Barry was the first to buy good commercial masks, and he mailed them to me. But I was a bit stuck and could not go out – because of the elevator.

My building was built in the early 1970s and the single elevator – like the rest of building – has never been updated. Few workers today know anything about this elevator’s ancient technology and parts have long since ceased to be available. A maintenance company finds substitutions and comes to tinker whenever it gets stuck. Fifty apartments use this elevator and there is no obvious ventilation. I did not feel that I could use the elevator to go down to my mail (7 stories) or my car (8 stories). I was afraid it would be full of cooties and I’m sure I was right.

My mailman, always a sweetie, started bringing my mail up to the 7th floor and leaving it outside my door whenever my little mailbox became crowded. A young dance friend picked up my prescriptions from the pharmacy when they were refilled. A volunteer did my first shopping, arranged by a mutual aid group in my town, before I found an indie professional shopper, a single mother whom I tip 35% because she is doing something for me that I won’t do myself.

Laundry was the biggest problem. No way was I going into the shared laundry room – shabby enough in the best of times. My friend, Bren, came to visit by standing down in the parking lot as I leaned over the balcony. The distance is so far that we used our phones like walkie-talkies in order to hear each other. She insisted on taking my laundry. I stuffed everything into a big black plastic bag and heaved it over my balcony guard rail. It landed with a dramatic explosion that brought people running out of their homes up and down the block.

Bren and her friend took my car for a drive around the block at some point, but it was only on May 1st, 50 days after I had gone inside, that I got to experience the outside world via my phone. Barry came over to drive my car around. I wrapped the keys in a padded envelope which I put into another padded envelope that I tossed off my balcony. It fluttered down to him as gracefully as Pavlova’s arabesque. He got in my car and FaceTimed me. As he drove my car around my neighborhood and then further into my little town, he pointed his iPhone camera towards the road. I could see what he saw. I was visually riding shotgun. Flowers were blooming, bushes were verdant, there was a world out there. I sobbed – for all I had missed, for all who were dying, for all who were struggling. To celebrate my tour, I ordered some pasta from a local restaurant that not only came out and put it in the trunk – now known as curbside – but also donated a meal for a hungry local elder for every meal that was bought. Barry put the food in its bag inside the elevator and sent it up to me. It was the first food I would taste that I hadn’t cooked myself. I wrote my first pandemic blog.

Only on May 22, after 73 days inside, did Barry find face shields for sale online. With good masks and the protective shields, we felt sufficiently safe to go up and down the elevator. It meant meeting a human in person for the first time in over two months. It meant driving my car. I decided to “go away” and drove myself to the town where Barry lives and entered his apartment. I was inside other four walls and it was as exotic as my trips to Machu Picchu or Pusan.

Now we get together for 20 hours each week – from Friday dinner to Saturday lunch – and each Saturday, if it isn’t raining or snowing, we take walks in parks and woodlands and at lakes we never before knew existed. I’ll Google a nearby town – say Carlisle, near Concord – and inevitably there will be somewhere magic to visit and stroll. We have been amazed at how little we knew about nature spots right in our own towns and the surrounds.

Everyday I say to my bestie Sandy, who lives in Northern California, but with whom I talk daily: We are among the lucky ones. We have a roof, heat, the interwebz, food, safety, cars. We have art to work on with passion. I know I’ve had it significantly easier than most people: I’m retired so I did not lose my job or my income. I’ve lived alone since 1977, so nothing new there. I’m a writer and used to sitting at this desk many hours a day. And the biggest bonus: I’m going to get out of here in time to see the Spring this time.

My biggest complaint (to myself) is how busy I am. I have a minimum of four Zooms per day. Two are permanent weekday commitments. I have a Silent Zoom writing session each morning at 9:15 with my esteemed London writing buddy Liz: throughout this pandemic, it’s consistently been one of the most productive hours of my day; I have a Zoom workout with Barry at 11:00 or 11:30: I’m doing some Tae Kwon Do again to spice up the exercising. I teach writing every Wednesday for Rainbow Lifelong Learning Institute. And then I might have a board meeting or an LGBTQ elders get together or the job of running a panel for a huge online lesbian literary festival or a Zoom/phone call with Sue in London or Schweid in Barcelona or Jaya in Italy or Kaz in Bristol or Sarah in Dublin or Yael in Israel or Verandah in Vermont or Vicki in New York or Melsen in Hudson or or or.

Today marks a full year since I met any human other than Barry unmasked and undistanced. The only other four walls I’ve been inside have been those of doctors’ offices. I will be fully vaccinated on April 12th. I do not know what life will look like in a world with ever-evolving viral mutations.

But I do know that my first excursion will be to the Dollar Store. The next day I’ll go to the podiatrist. The day after that I’ll be off with Barry for two days to a hotel on the Cape. Two whole days seems bold enough for a first outing. I cannot yet see past that moment.

I should have posted this yesterday, but I seem to be running on "pandemic time."

Comments

[sandy]

WONDERFUL piece of writing. So much thoughtfulness contained in 4 walls! Thank you, and love you, my friend.

[SHIRLEY CLIFT]

Sue when you mentioned Tae Kwon Do tears came to my eyes. I had been very close to it while reading your update anyway and that put me over the top. That is where I met you long ago when you were my talented, articulate, super tough (!!) but very fair teacher here in San Francisco. I still admire you now as much as I did then. How you got through this past year, in your little place way up there, alone but with help from incredible friends, and can turn the smallest task into a special adventure for the rest of us (I can actually see your bundle of laundry sailing down to a dramatic landing) is mind blowing. Please keep writing this story, especially now, as I, and many others, need it, to make it through these last laps. Thank you from your loving friend in SF!

[Marj]

Happy anniversary. I am so glad you have a Barry and a balcony. I live with Ma and we have a garden and a conservatory. Without egress, I think we would go mad.

[Joan Price]

Such a wonderful post! This deserves publication beyond your blog. It shows how strong you were in your coping skills, your self-care, your ability to make the most of your isolation. Thank you.

[Sheila Parks]

Hello dear Sue

I somehow never feel comfortable calling you "Katz". Not sure why.

THANK YOU for this wonderful writing.