May 2020 – Page 2 – iblamethequarantine

Opportunity

I blame the quarantine for this situation we were thrown into on Friday, March 13, 2020. Students were sent home from school not knowing how long it would be until they could return. Any plans that we had were cancelled as everyone’s only duty was social distancing. Shelves of stores were like barren wastelands, completely rummaged through because everyone was rushing to prepare. Prepare for what? No one knew. Only time would tell. My initial reaction was not a great one. I was angry that my DECA trip to Nashville was cancelled, angry that I might not have a softball season, angry that I would not be able to see any of my friends for the longest time. As I blended into the quarantine life, I came to a realization. I could not change the situation, but I could change how I reacted to it. It diminished many opportunities, but there was a potential for it to bring me even more.

Opportunities to take a break.

Opportunities to catch up on my sleep.

Opportunities to eat healthier.

Opportunities to accomplish everything I had been wanting to do but had no time for.

Opportunities to become closer with my family.

Opportunities to reshape my schedule.

Opportunities to set a precedent for what my life will be like when everything becomes normal again.

Opportunities that I never would have had if it weren’t for this exact circumstance. I realized that the quarantine could have more positive effects for me than negative ones, it all depended on how I would decide to view it and how I would decide to act upon it. I blame the quarantine for opening my mind to a new way of thinking, and allowing me to look for opportunity in what had seemed like the worst of situations.

–Kaitlyn Pristawa, sophomore at Burrillville High School. “I wanted to share both my good and bad experiences with the quarantine.”

Waiting

My head hurts
I am unmotivated and distressed. 
How could the world do this to us?
How could God do this to us? 
Questions swirl through my brain.
I think of what will be canceled next.
My head hurts 
 
I start to accept,
Take a deep breath. 
This isn’t the end,
Even though it really is
I think of the firsts and lasts I have missed so far
And I get sad again. 
 
Megan.
Kait.
Bella. 
And Sam.
Never met face to face but suddenly I understand
I understand I am not alone.
Here are these girls stuck at home 
Waiting at their windows for a chance to meet face to face
To start the next chapter if our lives.
College. 
I have hope again. 
 
We are connected by not only a screen 
We are connected by the heart
Yearning for the same things in life
Hearts breaking for the same cancellations 
Our world seems like it’s falling apart 
 
But here we are
 
Together yet apart
 
Never met face to face
But connected by the heart

–Sierra Madden , Senior at Burrillville High School, Age 18

Music Window

Happy Cinco de Mayo!

Although my neighborhood is multi-Latinx, on May 5th it’s usually alive with the smoky scent of grilled meat and the sounds of Mexican conjunto norteño music that reminds me of the Slovenian polkas my dad used to play.

My dad always loved polka music, and in his younger years, when polka was hot in the Midwest (yup, I said polka was hot), he sang with a few bands. Later, at about my age, he took up the drums, for what I believe were two reasons: he couldn’t find anyone to sing with, and he wanted to save his musician friend, Al, from alcoholism. Only one of these aims was successful.

He had his own band almost until he died. He used to play in the local park for the 4^th of July celebrations. Mexican immigrant families populated many of the same neighborhood that had been the settling areas of Polish immigrants like his family decades earlier, and on Independence Day, both populations came out with their families. I’ve often thought how much these two populations have in common, Catholicism, immigration patterns, work ethic, and folk music. Watching his neighborhood change was not unproblematic for my Dad, who felt less and less relevant as he got older. Still, he loved it when he saw his Mexican neighbors nodded their heads in time to his polkas. This inevitably led to him commenting, “You know, I took Spanish in high school,” reaching for a connection to the changing world around him.

I don’t hear music in my neighborhood today even though more cars whizzed past Tyke and me on our morning walk than have in weeks. But it’s early on a Tuesday morning. Maybe tonight some celebration will trill from my neighbors’ backyards. I’ll nod my head in time, drink a beer, and be thankful for my neighbors, for music, and for celebration.

Enjoy some music today, including a links to Conjunto Norteno La Aurora, Peace for the Ages, an inter-generational collaboration between Stages Theatre (where my sister, Sandy Boren-Barrett is artistic director!! Hey, Sam!) and Alive & Kickin, Brave Combo, and the Linlithgow Male Rugby Club Voice Choir.

–KLB

Music to Quarantine By

Linlithgow Rugby Club Male Voice Choir – still singing together

Linlithgow is a small historic town roughly 20 miles west of Edinburgh. It has been the home of a royal residence since the 12^th century; today the remains of Linlithgow Palace, birth place of Mary Queen of Scots, dominate the town.

Rather unusually, the town’s Rugby Club has its own Male Voice Choir, now approaching its 20^th anniversary. It is an active community-based choir with a growing reputation. Our weekly rehearsals are a blend of hard work and a social element – often a visit to the local pub – and we have 4 – 6 concerts a year, raising money for children’s hospices in Scotland.

The Covid-19 pandemic saw many of the older members of the choir start to self-isolate at home; shortly afterwards – in line with restrictions – all rehearsals and concerts were cancelled indefinitely.

To ensure we all keep in touch the various voice sections now meet weekly online. However, Zoom, Skype etc do not allow us to sing together. So the Baritones – always willing to try something different – devised an experiment to encourage us all to continue singing at home. Rod Aird, our section leader, arranged a lovely song called “Caledonia” for us. And, as other Choirs have done, the nine members of the section sang and recorded the parts on our phones at home. These were then mixed together for a recording we could share with family and friends. And we discovered they loved it…

We were encouraged to share the recording more widely and it was posted it on the Choir’s Facebook page as an unlisted item on YouTube. You can find a link to the illustrated version below.

Inspired by this, the whole choir has been practising “together”, using the same rather basic technology, to unite us as a choir and as friends. Keep an eye on the Choir’s FaceBook page for the results…

–Martyn Wade, Linlithgow, Scotland

Now and Then, Near and Far

An old boyfriend of mine got back in touch with me. Hardly an uncommon occurrence. Most everyone I know has either contacted or been contacted by someone from their past, grade-school pals, college roommates, ex-work buddies.

My friend, Nils, lives in Sweden, where the pandemic is being treated very differently. In the eighties, Nils and I lived in a squat in London with folks from nine different countries. Of course, squats themselves exist because of trauma to populations, illness and war; so many dead, properties lie fallow; so many homeless, you take what you find.

Officially, Sweden officials deny herd immunity as a strategy, but they’re keeping their economy open. The young will survive. The old aren’t. They’ve had a devastating amount of deaths among their elderly population. The government admits they’ve failed this population. But the Swedish government also says they’re trusting their people to take responsibility for themselves and to understand their actions are for the greater good.

“Hard to see the incentive for someone like him,” I said to my husband, Paul, yesterday as we were walking home with our dog, Tyke. A bare-breasted, un-face-masked teenager, weaving among the quarantine-sparse traffic on his skateboard had just swished past us. “I mean, if he doesn’t have an old person in his life, what’s in it for him?”

I guess he’d be shot in China, I thought, but had restraint enough not to say.

Only history will tell us what we did right, and what we did wrong.

Who’s right, who’s wrong.

Until history’s windows open, some stories.

–KLB

Pray Prey Pray

I blame The Quarantine for coinciding with my being fully retired: too much time to reminisce, re-evaluate, ponder my vulnerabilities.

I recalled reading Population Bomb, by Paul Ehrilch in 1968. Overpopulation raised risk of pandemics. Then came Earth Day. April 22nd is the 50th anniversary. Thinking back to that era, one premise generated from environmental studies was that ‘predators keep their prey healthy‘ by eliminating the old, weak, and infirm. That premise led to reintroduction of wolves in Yellowstone among other National Parks and greater tolerance and appreciation of large predictors like mountain lions, bobcats, even coyotes.

Well, all those concepts seemed perfectly acceptable to me as a biology teacher during my 20s and early 30s. Now aged 76, retired and quarantined, it occurred that covid-19 might be a clever predator, especially honing in on the old and infirm humans. I am now “at risk”! Yikes!

Time to reconsider: eugenic efforts to create a master Arian race by selective culling were fortunately unsuccessful. Would we have been a heathier, happier, or better situated species had Hitler prevailed in WW11? Perhaps there exists an essential human nature and human spirit that can and did prevail. Who might have thought that during this epidemic and unforeseen shortages of PPE and ventilator, some of us might be tempted again to choose among who might live or die? Save the young and healthy? Perhaps also the wealthy? Why not allow designer babies using CRISPR? Perfect babies! Blame it on this New Corona Virus that some are tempted again to consider making those life and death choices. But let’s remember our lessons from the past and reconsider our essential human nature as not amenable to genetic tinkering. I thank The Quarantine for providing ponder time. Covid-19 will not make us better! Get a vaccine! ASAP!

–Ross Greenlaw

Clarity in Chaos

COVID-19. Full state shutdowns and stay at home orders mean isolation from other human beings. That is, of course, unless you’re an essential employee. This is the time when people show their true colors. Some people are thankful and smiling, appreciative. Others are angry, violent, looking at all of us as though we are already plagued with the virus while at the same time expecting us to be here. We limit the number of customers in the store and force them to stand behind bright blue lines taped to the floor. It’s a time where people have no choice but to put their lives on pause. People up for promotion are busy working at home, hoping it all makes a difference when they go back to work full time. People wanting to start new careers are welcomed to do so the following year.

Most of all, it’s a time of self-discovery. No more nights bar hopping until 2 am, forgetting my name and every problem surrounding me. No more losing myself in work and school as an excuse to avoid everything else. Both eyes are wide open, looking at me for me; nothing else. I begin to break from bad habits instead of continuing them, no longer unaware of how toxic they are through the haze as life passes me by. I find myself doing things I am passionate about again, not as tied to the responsibilities that used to restrict me. Quarantine is an excuse for rebirth; to find the me that existed before I forgot who I was. The me that isn’t strapped down by societal norms, depression, and anxiety. In chaos and uncertainty, I somehow find clarity. I never knew what it was like to feel hopeless and enlightened at the same time. I blame the quarantine.

–Victoria McGurn

Caronazebo

I blame the quarantine. Before the forced house-arrest Coronavirus I bought ten bundles of cedar sidewall shakes and some pressure-treated lumber to fix a forty-year-old crumbling gazebo that squirrels had chewed apart in my backyard. I hadn’t gotten very far with the project until I was trapped in my house, sixty-plus years old, trying to dodge the Corona deathtrap. The gazebo is twenty feet tall, steep roof slope, and most of the work has to be done from a ladder. Earlier I talked to a roofer and he took three seconds to tell me the gazebo was too flimsy and dangerous for his crew to roof.

So now here I am either watching Dr. Oz and Murder She Wrote or work on the Coronazebo. We live on an acre lot next to fifty wooded acres. Each day I stand on my shaky aluminum extension ladder bouncing back and forth a bit with each ladder rung that I climb. Birds tweet in the woods. I see white poop drops, insect casings and spider webs on shake shingles. Bats fly out of the woods and I know bat per will give me Wuhan wet-market virus for sure. My mind wanders. How long do I have?

Somehow I step on a nail in a shingle that goes through my tread-bare old running shoe. I rush into the house and squeeze half a tube of Neosporin on my puncture wound. I find a jug of Clorox and pour some in a Tupperware shoebox with water to soak my throbbing foot. Within five minutes the top of my foot burns and turns red. I pull out my foot and drain Neosporin and half a box of bandaids to cover the pain. I blame it all on the quarantine.

–Joe Pleser

Hold that Ladder

“You better hold that ladder.”

I say it out loud, as if I’m out there with them not standing over my kitchen sink, watching them as I scarf down my lunch. The workmen climb up and down from the ground to the second-floor balcony, and it’s gripping. I’m more invested in this scene than in any of the shows I’m binging online.

But that’s normal for me. Spying on the neighbors across the street was always a favorite family pastime. We’d all participate, making the occasional comment: “Huh, Mark must have the day off” and “That kid needs to be smacked.” Like we were taking turns narrating a docuseries.

It was our favorite series. The thing that brought us all together, the story that we all shared and cared about equally. Most families get this from a show they watch together, gathered around the tv. My family gathered around the living room window.

We’d even let it interrupt our dinners some nights. Jim would notice something from the kitchen table and hop up, watch for a beat, then give us an update. If it was really good, Dad would get up and join him. The rest of us listened to their commentary, happily munching on our chicken.

Not like the chicken I’m eating now, which tastes like balsa wood flavored with poultry seasoning.

Now, I’m watching my neighbors alone. I’m familiarizing myself with characters that my family doesn’t even know about, all the while wondering “What’s going on back on Washington Ave?”

Now, I’m missing the commentary from my brothers. I’m missing the unity, the connectedness. I’m missing what it feels like to share a moment with my family.

In reality, these things are missing because I flew the coop three years ago.
But right now, I blame the quarantine.

–Thomas Bragg