March 13, 2020.
My husband and I decided to walk downtown to go see his parents. A long walk, but a nice one. We visited for a couple of hours. I can’t remember if we had tea or just did the usual technology problem-solving that had become a regular part of any visit. When we started the trek back home, it seemed pretty quiet for downtown Toronto. Hungry, we stopped in at Kinton Ramen on Bloor. When we got there, it was almost empty. Unheard of. There were the two of us sitting by the front window and another group of four in the back at a high top. The staff looked freaked out. We looked at each other and ate our ramen. I knew this would be the last time we were in a restaurant for a while. I’m sure the others in the restaurant knew too. By the next day (I think), they were shut down. We hopped on the subway after lunch, feeling the urge to get home quickly. There were about three other people on the same subway car. Ominous. On the short walk home from the station, we acknowledged that this was the last day we would have of going into restaurants and using the subway and… who knew what? Our lives changed just like that. Like Joan Didion says, “Life changes in the instant.” That was the instant.
I, unfortunately, already had lots of practice at isolation. Regular readers of this blog and anyone who follows my work knows I had a car accident in 2016 that left me badly concussed. I was unable to read, write, think too much, deal with light or loud noise or too much of anything. I had been working hard to heal and was making some limited progress. But I have to admit that at first, the slow pace of lockdown life was simply a relief to me. I didn’t have to say no to doing social things. I wasn’t missing anything. It was quiet. There was little traffic. For a long time, restaurants had been too loud and I would wear ear plugs if I went to one. Now I couldn’t go. The choice was taken away from me. Same for movies, concerts and everything else that was part of regular life. So, strangely, I was at an advantage at the start.
One person close to me called on March 15, panicked and crying. She said, “How are we supposed to do this? I can’t do this!” and I thought, “Welcome to the world I’ve been living in for four years.” I didn’t say that. Instead, I made a few suggestions on how to cope. However, panic was her preferred response, as it was for many people. I thought back to the start of my concussion and realized it had been for me too. But I had to panic very quietly. Everyone just needed some time. Occasionally, someone would ask me why I was so calm and I would remind them it was because I was already living a very contained life.
I remembered the first SARS. My friend’s father was dying and she was not allowed to go to the hospital to see him. It was serious. It was airborne. Toronto was in a panic. I knew this new SARS was airborne too (how could it not be?), but even I shied away from the implications at first. I still believed in public health. I followed their advice. I washed my hands and wiped down my groceries. That feels like eons ago. I remember an outcry from people who resented being told to wash their hands. I was absolutely astounded by this. Who doesn’t wash their hands, I wondered? I could not imagine what else people would be unwilling to do for themselves and for each other. Anyway, I assumed that there was a mask shortage and that was why the powers that be were not advising masking as a general practice for everyone. They made unintelligible distinctions between aerosols and other particles and whatever and it was all nonsense. I wished they would have just been honest about it, admit there was a shortage and ask people to leave supplies for health care workers first. But that was a dream world. Look at what had happened with toilet paper. Masks would have been hoarded the same way.
What I remember most about this time is how Public Health and other authorities muddied the message. The message never got clear again. How hard would it have been to explain harm reduction? The precautionary principle? The need to ramp up production of PPE?
I didn’t want to take medical supplies away from those who desperately needed them, health care workers or other workers who had no choice but to be in close proximity to others, so I started sewing. I gathered every scrap of fabric I could find, raided my craft supplies, found some elastic and got busy. First I made two layer cloth masks, then three, then four, at which point my sewing machine could barely get through the layers. I gave them to everyone I knew, to anyone who wanted them. It was something I could do to help, and I did it. I ran out of elastic. Eventually I found a small craft store that was packing orders for people and offering door stop pick up. With my elastic supply replete again, I kept sewing. Once masks were plentiful again, and no one on the “front lines” was going to run short, I started using N95s. Cloth masks are better than nothing, but not the best. I wore N95s all the time indoors in public. I’ve never stopped.
In the beginning, I wondered when I would see my daughter again. In a way, I was lucky. She was working “in the field” as an engineer and had to travel to Northern Ontario regularly. This travel and living in large work camps was incredibly stressful for her. The risks of getting covid were huge. On her way to and from home, she would stay in Toronto a few extra hours or an extra day. We would sit in the freezing cold together in the garage with the door open, masks on. That’s how we had Christmas in 2020. We called it, “The Saddest Christmas Ever.”
Toronto was different than other parts of Canada. Lockdown lasted a long time. Everything except truly essential services were closed. We couldn’t get a haircut. Such a minor inconvenience, but an example. Businesses were in crisis. For months. Rural people had the luxury of space. We did not. So much of what the rest of the country depended on came from big urban centres like Toronto. Those Amazon deliveries were starting from warehouses with masked workers in Toronto. Essential workers. Workers who kept us all going. Workers who had to get to and from home. Everyone breathing. There was a positive sense of everyone doing their part. We went outside and banged pots for health care workers. But people are impatient. It went on too long. The implications of what we were learning (that we actually COULD support each other, that temporary benefits actually COULD be extended into a UBI type program, that less traffic meant cleaner air and a healthier environment, that there were new, technology driven ways to increase inclusivity and so on) would impact everything about public policy. Some people didn’t want that. Most people I guess. It would be expensive, they said, not understanding what might be gained. Getting “back to normal” remained a goal, even though normal was so far back in the rearview mirror it was barely a speck. We were just beginning to understand the long term implications of Covid, of Long Covid, that Covid is a vascular disease that presents as a respiratory disease and continues to do damage long after the cold symptoms are gone. We knew almost right away it affected the heart and the brain. I had already done so much to heal my brain. I did not want to start over.
It wasn’t all bad. I remember on the second day meeting friends outside by Lake Ontario and all of us being completely amazed at the silence, at the clarity of the sky. No planes. No traffic. I had a 4km walk I did almost daily which took me through the Humber River Valley and to Lake Ontario. Animals were coming back. There were so many birds. One day, I encountered a ten point buck. A miracle.
We had such hope when vaccines came.
I don’t have the heart to continue. It is just too sad.
The pandemic changed our lives. My husband found the most enjoyable parts of his job were gone and retired. Early. We were lucky we could do that. People died. Public Health died. We got vaccinated. We left Toronto and came out west. More space. Fewer people. Easier. At least it was for a while. Until Omicron. The variant of variants. The variant that should have demonstrated once and for all why continuing to get and give Covid over and over was a terrible idea. But humans, man. We never learn.
There is chatter about the development of a sterilizing nasal vaccine. Maybe five years away. Imagine if the amount of money that just went into killing a bunch of folks in the Middle East had been dedicated to vaccines, or even to cleaning the air. Imagine.
