The Topic De Jour

The fine weather’s blown away somewhere.  We’ve nothing but rain today.  Back the fall I’d bought a simple raincoat that you can use while riding a bike.  First exposed to such things living in Shanghai in 1993, they were essential. The classic photos of Shanghai from that time had a hundred such rain-coated bicyclists in the street with all the colors of a Crayola box of two dozen, facing off, ready to ride when the light changed.  Some people still ride bikes in Shanghai.  But most people take the subway now, certainly if it rains. 

My nephew has a fever.  His dad has a cough and seems to have lost his sense of smell.  They are down in Brooklyn and all but certainly have contracted COVID-19.  They will drive over to Staten Island tomorrow to get tested.  I called my nephew and used a ridiculous Cockney accent in attempt to cheer him up. He seemed like he had a cold.  He didn’t appear to be in a battle for his life.

My sister last saw her son three days ago.  She has almost certainly contracted it as well.  She has asthma.  So, it would more worrisome than usual, were she to have contracted it though women all seem to be faring better than us men, when confronted with this thing.  It is, of course, my mother, her husband, my father, his wife, all of whom live nearby that we’re properly worried about.  It is the ominous unknown, tinged now, more than usual with a martial quality, that sets one on edge. 

Writing this blog, I usually focus on simple, experiential moments that seem worthy of capturing.  I read this.  I listened to that and enjoyed it.  But six years into this effort of daily reckoning it would be grossly inappropriate to avoid the topic de jour:  we are now in the middle of a pandemic, with American-characteristics.  New York is now the epicenter.  China, caught by surprise, approached this challenge in its own way.  There were mistakes.  There were triumphs.  They largely seem to have emerged from the other side.  The United States, with its noble prioritization of freedoms and state’s rights that are different from federal jurisdictions, that are yet again protected by individual liberties, these are clumsy in the face of an epidemic.  More people will die because these freedoms, these checks and balances are assumed.  Which polity absorbs, and learns and emerges with more durability, still remains to be seen.  The fullness of what China or the U.S. have each absorbed with this challenge will take years to play out in full. 

Saturday, 3/28/20