Linnetontheleaf

If I thought that this experience had enhanced my ability to coexist with uncertainty, that’s nothing compared to the spanner Covid-19 is throwing into the works for everyone. Every day, practically every hour, seems to bring new anxieties.

As I’ve mentioned, we’d planned to go to New Orleans next week — it was among my primary concerns when I first broke my jaw, as I wrestled with the prospect of being unable to eat solid foods in the city of gumbo, po’ boys and the finest fried chicken. Eventually I convinced myself that I could handle it — I’d be unhappy, but could cope somehow, as long as I could hear my music, walk my second line and see my Mardi Gras Indians on St. Joseph’s Day.

But then came the corona virus — slowly and quietly at first, spreading like a stain in China, boarding cruise ships, invading the very northern Italian cities we visited last fall, landing on our shores, racing through a Seattle nursing home and a neighborhood in Westchester County, drawing closer and closer with increasing speed.

As a complacent first-world westerner who smugly assumes that my nationality and privilege will protect me, I’m rarely alarmist about such things. Don’t these threats always burn themselves out in more vulnerable populations far from our borders? But that doesn’t seem to be happening this time. Even if the virus itself isn’t a major threat to Americans, the social disruption most definitely is.

Needless to say, New Orleans is off. It was necessary to cancel by tomorrow to get a refund on the Airbnb, and it seems likelier that conditions will deteriorate rather than improve. Maybe we’d have lucked out and found the clubs and restaurants open, but if not? My liquid diet in New Orleans would have been pretty depressing, but to be unable to enjoy its unique music and social arts would have been heart-breaking.

Now I don’t have to confront either eventuality. And in all honesty, after worrying about the trip ever since my accident, eliminating that large complication is a massive relief. My broken jaw, and Covid-19, and the attendant disruptions of both, are all the uncertainty I can manage!

This entry was posted on March 10, 2020 at 12:53 am and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.