I have been quarantined now for over a month. For the first part of this sequestration, I did not see anything green except broccoli, which the museum’s generous patron Todd Emily kindly brought me; I did not feel the sun on my shoulders; and I did not speak to or hear the actual, unfiltered voice of another human being. I listened too much to what the French call the “speakerines” on television, but at times, they moved me with stories of the everyday heroism of doctors, nurses, first responders, grocery clerks, bank tellers — all those people who continue their tasks in an age of quarantine and fear, all those on the proverbial front lines of the pandemic.
I have a friend who is a doctor in New York and I asked him if he had a pill for cabin fever. He said, “Sure, push-ups.” I figured he was right, and thus, for exercise and to escape the sad news from Europe, from China and South Korea and now from our fellow and sister Americans, I prescribed for myself a routine of jogging 3 miles a day in my back yard so that I would not emerge from forced isolation as a prime candidate for Nutrisystem’s free second month of meals. By the way, if one is jogging in my back yard, it takes 107 orbits to go three miles. Forgive me, you PT enthusiasts, but I was bored out of my mind.
I knew I had to find some way to escape remote conferencing, to get out of my non-ergonomic chair, and to push back the walls that were closing in quickly. So, I started taking secateurs with me to clip the wisteria, to girdle my pecan trees of the dreaded English Ivy and to “shape” some out-of-control camellia trees — and I do mean trees, not bushes.
I had to do something. I live next to a master gardener whose joy in flowers — indeed plants of all kinds — she shares eagerly and visually with friends, with neighbors and with passers-by. I, on the other hand, am lucky to have a yard, a bequest to me with the mortgage. And, in spite of these days of feared financial distress, a product of my parents’ having lived through the Great Depression and preaching thereafter the wisdom of saving, I have the luxury of good paid folk, who take care of that yard twice a month.
Of course, I thought of all the trials and tribulations of quarantine in visual terms or in literary ones. What could I do with the time when I was un-Zoomed? I could prepare for future exhibitions at the museum. (I did.) I could write some overdue articles. (I did.) And I could perform research on Deep South art and artists for a book I am writing. (I half-did.) I could tackle the unanswered emails, some 1,000 of them. (I did not, but I am working on it and I will, sadly, now have more time.)
Darn it, I still have a week to continue the “new abnormal,” to answer all that correspondence, and to jog those 107 circles around my newly pruned back yard. There’s still some errant wisteria back there, and you know, like email, “It’ll take over if you let it.”
