Coronavirus Journal: Chapter 1

In full-blown hobo mode. All I've been able to do this week is stare at Twitter,
refresh, and stare some more, until I'm too exhausted to do anything but sleep. 

I became a journalist because I wanted to see history with my own eyes.

The realization came to me in the summer of 1989, when brave Chinese students were protesting their government at Tiananmen Square, and then paid a dear price for it. Journalists from the west showed us what was happening, live, and I knew watching it on TV that were looking at a critical moment. Being a history buff already, I set my sights on being a journalist.

Well, we're living through history now. I don't have to go to China, or New York, or anyplace else to experience it. All I have to do is sit in my home, try to keep my distance from others, and hope that me and my family don't either A) become victims of the COVID-19 pandemic, or B) unwittingly pass the virus on to somebody we love and end up killing them.

Just a couple of hours ago, President Trump finally declared a national emergency, but this journal shouldn't and won't be about him. I can write about him elsewhere. Instead, it will be about life in my home and in my community over the next weeks and months as we hunker down and try to survive -- not just the virus, but the economic fallout, and the costs of "social distancing" that we're now being asked to perform in order to slow the spread of the virus. Historians will know the other stuff. We should preserve the tales of real life for them as well. This is my humble attempt.

I'm worried. I'm worried that things will never be good again. I'm worried that I'm raising my son to become an adult in a world in which thriving is impossible, that the work of survival is difficult and mean. 

I worry I'm going to die, penniless, under a bridge, unable to provide for myself or my family.

I worry a lot.

And to be fair, I worry about some of those things even when there isn't a generation-defining pandemic before us. But I worry more, now.

Remember, though, I'm lucky: I have a wife who is more optimistic and resilient than I am. I have a smart and funny child who is going to be a nuisance to keep at home until the storm clears, but that's because he's 11 years old and full of energy and we live in a small house. And for now, we can afford to live a few months even if all our income suddenly dries up. Which -- knock knock -- I hope it doesn't.

We've stockpiled some dry goods, as far as food, but J declines to go into full hoarding mode. For one thing, she says, buying up (say) all the bulk rice at the grocery store means somebody else can't have it, and that's not fair is it? So she's not just optimistic and resilient -- she operates from a place of kindness to others.

I hope we can maintain that outlook over the next few months.

We shall see.