Quarantine
Five years ago this weekend, the New York Times Magazine cover took stock of ‘What We’ve Learned in Quarantine.’ Articles on the lessons of lockdown featured headlines such as ‘The Truth About Cocoon,’ ‘The Comfort of Common Creatures’ and ‘Insanity Can Keep You Sane.’ More oblique topics ranged from ‘You’re Never Alone in a Dusty Apartment’ and ‘The Unexpected Solace in Learning to Play Piano’ to ‘When the World Unravels, Braid Your Own Hair.’ Artwork filled out the issue with original photography and illustrations inspired by quotations like “Where Have These Children Gone?” “If I’m Never Allowed To Be in a Room With Someone” and “Drawing Has Always Been My Sorting Tool.”
Flipping back the pages of my journal chronicling random moments over the course of the pandemic, I take stock of the momentous and the mundane. The day before widespread lockdown commenced in March 2020, an investigative report on a syndicated newsmagazine foreshadowed what was to come. “Does toilet paper really have a calming effect in a crisis?” asked Deborah Norville in the opening tease to Inside Edition. Meanwhile, CBS 2 News studios were evacuated for disinfecting after an employee at the Broadcast Center tested positive for COVID-19.
Day 2 | Flying to Florida, my wife observes everything looks clean but reeks of Lysol as everyone aboard wipes down every inch of the cabin. “Who knows what side effects we’ll all be suffering after such overexposure to antibacterial antiseptics?”
Day 7 | Amidst the looming darkness, my friend Donna finds solace by watching a rebroadcast of the 1965 television presentation of Rodgers and Hammerstein’s Cinderella starring Leslie Ann Warren last seen when she was a young girl.
Day 9 | Despite the sudden cancellation of a long planned trip to South America, daily notifications continue to inform of reservations at restaurants, wine tastings, cooking classes and tango demonstrations booked months in advance.
Day 14 | My cousins in Argentina send texts expressing concern over grave reports from the North American epicenter of the pandemic in the wake of my cancelled trip. According to Google Translate: Take care of a lot. We get dramatic numbers of New York infected. We wait from here to find you well. We send a big hug.
Day 67 | Fellow employees compare euphemisms for job elimination as our recently merged company announces reductions in work force due to the worldwide shutdown. One of the corporate owners “synergizes” while the other “de-duplicates.” Management urges staff to continue business as usual while an undeniable undertow of uncertainty rocks everyone’s world.
Day 97 | Three months and five days after a company-wide memo mandated work-from-home until further notice, I venture from my suburb and return to New York City for the first time. Satisfying established protocols, I am admitted to my dentist’s office for an overdue adjustment to my bite.
Day 130 | A couple of friends seek a change of scenery by renting a house in the country instead of remaining in their apartment in the city. They discover fundamental truths about themselves while far from familiar ground. The wife, who always thought herself tolerant and open minded, finds herself judgmental and dismissive. The husband, typically rigid in his ways, turns out to be more malleable as he finds common ground with those who share similar interests in cars and beers.
Day 318 | Six months pass before I return to the city for a second time. The streets are still mostly empty. Anyone at large is still masked. Coming and going, I ride a mostly empty train in and out of Grand Central.
Day 361 | I become eligible for the vaccine. Fifty-one weeks into the shutdown, I receive my first dose. It feels monumental even as everything surrounding me at the Walgreens in Yonkers is mundane. Once the Moderna serum is plunged into my bloodstream, a veil of vulnerability gives way to a sense of invincibility. Social encounters in public places are now planned with others similarly inoculated.
As more people become vaccinated, engagements expand to more than two people at a time. A dinner party at a friend’s home (Day 351), a gathering of colleagues for drinks and appetizers at an outside seating shed (Day 446), a concert at a downtown club requiring vaccination cards and IDs to be presented at the door (Day 456). The phrase “The New Normal” becomes ubiquitous.
Day 481 | A passenger on the inbound express sneezes during the morning commute. No one utters a word. In former times, someone would have called out “Bless you.” Instead, masked vaccinated riders refrain from acknowledging the respiratory event ever occurred.
I return to my office for the first time. Surfaces have been wiped down with disinfectant. Plants have been neglected to wither.
Five hundred days since lockdown, the world is reopening more than closing and I experience a series of firsts: attending a sports event (540), a movie (596), a show (559), walking through an airport, boarding a flight, staying at a hotel (567), wearing a suit and tie (Day 568). The first time I go into the city for a second time in the same week (579). Everything is something.
Day 1,825 | Five years after the New York Times Magazine took stock of what we learned in quarantine, I no longer chronicle daily details of the pandemic. A myriad of other crises now dominate the headlines and the existential question of our survival remains alive and well.