Notes from Pandemonia 2020 (Everett)

I figure this lock down/shelter-in-place/quarantine thing is no biggie. I like the notion of free time, a landscape of possibility without the interference of appointments, deadlines, obligations. There is a kind of personal freedom in controlling my own time. Besides, how long can it last? Two weeks? Three?

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I am doing all the usual: clean, cook, gain 10 pounds, drink lots of vodka.  I read and write, and I watch a lot of TV-- in particular, the news. Already addicted to current events, I am hooked on the political and pandemic mayhem. I even leave the bedroom television on all night so I can wake and watch. Rolling body count. Barely concealed panic. Vivid dreams ensue.

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The pandemic shutdown has collapsed the economy, and there are shortages and threats of shortages. Reports of floods and tornados. The seventeen-year cicada brood hatched, and killer hornets are invading the west coast. Every day another catastrophe strikes. I pefer my plagues one at a time, please.

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Apparently the worst was yet to come. Millions of us, trapped in our houses tuned into our televisions, were caught watching, and before we could stop watching, we became complicit in an act of brutality that ended in murder. We didn’t hear about it, we didn’t read about it, we watched a man die. Watched a murder in real time. To know is to be somehow responsible, but how to respond under these conditions? Of course, truth is we have always been complicit in our silence and lack of action for hundreds, thousands of brutal acts of injustice. But this one struck when all our defenses are on alert, when we feel so vulnerable, when death is heavy on our minds.

Racism is the forever plague of our nation. A birth defect. George Floyd’s death is epiphanic for some; for others, the enraged response of people is long overdue. The abundant videos of abusive police tactics reported on and aired on television since the murder of Floyd should convince all but avowed racists that systemic racism exists and needs to be, at long last, paid more than lip service.

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A huge pelican just flew close past my window. Its wingspan must be six to eight feet wide; it cast a shadow completely blocking the sun for a few seconds. I live among dinosaurs: birds; alligators; sharks; human dinosaurs, too often in positions of power. Resisting change. Rejecting science. Lacking empathy. They respond only to their hunger.

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Historically, social change follows traumatic events, often change for the better. Perhaps our lock-down has given us time to reflect and ponder important things that get short shrift in “normal” times. That’s my ray of hope.

 Meanwhile, my days have fallen into a rhythm of sorts, a loose, unbinding schedule. Working, writing ward off depression. Still, some days I must force myself to get up. I don’t know what day it is half of the time, but strangely, it doesn’t really matter. I am quieter. Life is quieter.

How long has it been now?

Connie Willett Everett’s poems, fiction, essays and reviews have appeared in numerous journals and magazines. She has authored three poetry chapbooks, and she has one Pushcart nomination. She is publisher/ editor of Pudding Magazine. Recent poems have appeared online at The Ravens Perch and are forthcoming in Main Street Rag.