Lockdown is hearing about arias being sung from balconies but being blasted by AC/DC's “Highway to Hell” instead.
It's worrying about our elderly neighbors one minute then wondering when they're going to shut the hell up with their incessant hammering the next. It's wishing we could go to lunch at our favorite Chinese restaurant. It's frustration at making sacrifices while others treat it like a vacation, flooding beach and ski towns. It's sharing a laugh with my husband when we can find something to laugh about. It's living in 500 square feet divided by two. It's anxiety about the loss of income as a self‑employed person. It's being happy I can still teach some of my university classes online. It's grief at thinking about the people who have been taken away to hospitals where they may have spent their last days alone. It's despair at seeing the long line of army trucks on the news lined up in Bergamo, ready to transport coffins to other, less crowded crematoriums. It's anger that Italy's February 28 request to EU member states for masks went unanswered. It's gratitude when the first team of Chinese doctors arrived in Rome on March 13 with 31 tons of medical supplies. It's fear that we're expecting a surge of cases here in town. It's knowing we wouldn't be able to reach our relatives in the U.S. and Poland in an emergency. It's disappointment at not getting to see West Side Story on Easter Day in New York City. It's trying to stick to a routine. It's wanting to read but not being able to concentrate. It's early morning quiet because that one neighbor isn't starting his noisy car at 5 a.m. to go to work. It's feeling lucky that our apartment is bright and airy. It's disbelief followed by resignation when they announce schools will be closed for one week, then two, then six, then possibly until September. It's fury at watching world “leaders” lying and trying to rewrite history. It's disgust at people jumping on the bandwagon of borders and phone surveillance in the name of containing a virus. It's being glad I got to the hair salon a week before businesses were forced to close. It's still not going through boxes which have been sitting above a closet for five years. It's walking to the grocery store three times in one day before giving up because the line outside is too long. It's thinking how, if I shut my eyes while I listen to Don Henley's “Sunset Grill,” I can almost, but not quite, transport myself back to a 1990 Hollywood balcony. It's knowing that one day this will be over, and hoping that we are left as unscathed as possible.
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March 2021
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