In 1937, the British government started a project called Mass Observation that was meant to record the mundane life of citizens during World War II. By 1939 on the brink of war, hundreds of unpaid volunteers participated. The result is an intimate portrait of what life looked like during a tumultuous time for a world embroiled in battle.
Instead, we now have Twitter, which is whiplash between the funniest shit I’ve ever seen, bitchy updates from the President, and these dreadful front-line accounts in the ER. I expect all digital records will be lost, but in a few million years, so will our printed accounts.
We started quarantine a few weeks ago. I’m preternaturally well suited to this, and on top of that, I was raised a self-reliant Mormon. In a way, I thrive here. Social pressure is over, not that I ever felt any really, but the fear of missing out is gone. I work from home, and now, so does everyone else. I’m stocked up on food, but then again, I usually am. I like baking. I love cooking. I planted a garden. I made and froze 8 types of soup. I bought a pasta machine and a juicer. I have supplies to paint and make my own cheese. I’m like Laura Ingles Wilder from the future. It’s almost unfair how solid I feel in a crisis. I might have fully morphed into a wild animal in three months, but for now, I am centered.
I used to work at a Quiznos, and a diner, and I used to be really broke all of the time. I used to dance and drink away the rest of my money. Just being in a nice house with a nice man and a juicer is such luxury, even when we’re out of bleach (we are) or meat (we’re not). I’m grateful we’re not in a one bedroom with four people any more. This really feels easy. I don’t mean to brag. It’s the opposite: come eat my soup. I’m guilty for having all of this frozen soup.
Mike is working from home. My job feels solid since my situation hasn’t changed too much and our clients are in high demand. Mike’s job feels less stable. Part of being in a crisis is saying to yourself “we’ll cross that bridge when we get there,” and “just be really grateful” and “you don’t need to buy a bunch of bullshit right now” and “stop being a rabid consumer, you’re going to make people die.” It’s time to buckle your giant, pilgrim belt and start living with some amount of austerity. I suspect this will last months and months and months.
“We’re not going to be able to find the political will or the fear as a people to shut down the spread of the virus. I don’t see us flattening the curve, as everybody has talked about. Maybe some other cities will be able to flatten the curve later, once they see what’s going to happen in New York they’ll begin to believe that they have to flatten the curve. And they’ll go in, but then you’ll find out how many people were infected in the meantime. I mean, we’re going to come out of this a different nation. A different people. If we essentially don’t shut down so that the chain of transmissions don’t stop… um.. you know, we’re going to be looking at hundreds of thousands of dead, I think, unless some drug turns out to be a miracle preventive. And that’s the high hope for Chloroquine, but we don’t really know that yet. And we know there’s not going to be a vaccine for a year so short of that we may have to shelter in place for a year until a vaccine rolls out. Look, I hope for better, but I’m not trying to sugar coat it. I’m trying to explain what the worst-case scenario is. I hope we don’t reach the worst-case scenario but I fear that we are a long way down the road towards it.” —Donald G. McNeil Jr, science and health reporter for the New York Times on The Daily 3/24/2020
