Staring into a Second Lockdown

 

Back in March, I was locked down with a 15-month-old still napping twice a day. With no daycare, we took shifts. I got the afternoon shift and took him out in the stroller to the neighbourhood park, and then into the nearby, quiet cemetery to make him sleep.

While the sick died for want of ventilators in the hallways of Milan’s hospitals, and while China introduced state surveillance that would make the heart of the Stasi go pitter patter, I watched winter turn into spring. Every day, I walked into the cemetery and saw a few more leaves on the trees, the birds' nests get a little bigger, and the days get longer and sunnier. It was so lovely that I forgot how rough other people had it. I just lacked the perspective, even as I strolled past graves everyday.

As we stare into the void of a second lockdown, it all feels the same, but different, and darker. The headlines scream about higher infection rates, the trees shed their leaves, the birds migrate south, and days get shorter, colder, and darker.

So, I was feeling a little down at the prospect of spending a winter indoors.

Until I had a call with my parents, who mentioned their weekly family Zoom call, in which my Opa said he wasn't going anywhere for Christmas because it wasn't worth the risk. He's in his 90s, and well into the risk group. When someone mentioned that it's Christmas, he pointed out that he missed four Christmases in the Nazi-occupied Netherlands during the War. One Christmas isn't so bad.

That snapped me out of my self-centered, me-focused, life-is-so-hard-in-my-nice-home whine fest about a winter lockdown. I needed some perspective to remember that I don't have it that bad. In fact, most of us don't have it that bad when compared others who deal with the coronavirus, like patients, families of patients, doctors, nurses, grocery store employees, or your food delivery dude who are all a little closer to the horrors the coronavirus has created.

 

It's all about perspective. So, am I going to make this about myself? Or am I going to look around, look at the news, look at history, and see that it ain't so bad. Spring will be along soon enough, and the summer, and then we'll all be vaccinated and stuck in crowded trains, shoulder-to-shoulder with strangers, all of us wishing we were locked down again.

The Isolation Begins

Yesterday morning I set out to the local drug store to buy some family necessities. When I got there, I went straight to the toilet paper shelves and managed to score a few rolls. Other shoppers were there, wearing latex gloves and masks, grabbing whatever tissue-y products they could. Minutes later, the shelves were empty, despite the two-per-customer limit.

I waited for a mob to finish asking/accosting a worker stocking shelves about when there will be more toilet paper, and asked her where a certain face wash for Kata was located. She seemed so relieved to answer a non-toilet-paper-related question. 

After grabbing a few less in-demand items (nuts, toothpaste, baby food), I joined the queue, where we all maintained a two-meter distance from each other and avoided eye contact. I paid by card and got out of there as quickly as I could.

In just a few days after I posted my previous post, things jumped a few notches in Germany. Our city-administered day care was closed. Our employers sent us to home office. Playgrounds were cordoned off. Border controls went up. Masks are everywhere. The package delivery guys don't ask for signatures anymore. They ring the front doorbell, wait to be buzzed in, slide the package through the door, and practically run back to their truck.

While some things have changed, some small things haven't. I had to wait for a haircut at my local barber, which is still open for business. People still sit on the patio and sip coffee at the cozy kiosk down the street. There are plenty of joggers, dog walkers, and stroller pushers in our nearby park.

Small things seem even larger in importance than ever before. We're collectively stressing about beating the panic buyers to the toilet paper shelf or wondering if we're going to get this virus by standing too close to a stranger a stoplight. Getting a hair cut or reading a book on a park bench on a sunny day might keep us sane in the coming days, weeks, and months.

But those small things might be more dangerous than we realize. In Italy, everyone was sent home from work and school and, because it was Italy, instead of staying at home, they went to the cafes and clubs and stayed out late to enjoy the warm weather. The rate of infection rose, hospitals were overwhelmed, and the government shut down everything and sent the police into the streets to keep people home.

Many of the small things in this crisis are only dangerous when they're abused. Large groups still gather in public, people cough in stores without covering their dirty germ holes, and they're throwing grill parties in the park. 

In Germany, in particular my state of North-Rhine-Westphalia, which is hardest hit by the coronavirus, we'll see in the coming days if this partial shutdown will have an effect on the infection rate. If not, we'll have to forget about enjoying the small things for a while.