Anniversary of Madness
Looking Back On March 2020
I arrived in Spokane a few days before the end of 2019. One of my oldest clients had offered me a job so lucrative that I closed my training business and drove across the country to join his team. My first night there I took a walk around downtown. A man stopped me to comment on my jacket. “Why you wearing that thing?” he asked, pointing at the small swatch of colorful patchwork on my black puffy. I ignored him and kept walking. After turning a corner I stopped to look at my reflection in a store window. Seriously? I thought. This is my *boring* jacket.
A few days later—New Year’s Eve—I hit Satellite Lounge, the neighborhood bar. Two people pulled me aside to offer their thoughts on the flat cap I wore. It was a handsome hat. Navy blue, Irish tweed, and definitely not a fashion statement. “Are you gay or something?” one guy asked as his eyes glared at the top of my head.
I knew moving away from my decade-long hometown would be tricky. I was single and middle-aged with no kids or pets, and the only people I knew in all of eastern Washington were colleagues. Add to it that I tend to have a hard time in unfamiliar social situations. I may be mostly extroverted, but breaking the ice gracefully isn’t my strong suit. The cherry on top was the fact that I’d be traveling a lot. Any roots I’d plant would be small and shallow.
And suddenly my awareness was extra-piqued as I wondered about what my coat and hat were saying about this new guy in town. Gosh, would I ever fit into this place?
Business trips interspersed with furnishing my new home kept me super busy. Still, wasn’t long before I knew my neighbors, had a favorite cafe, and grew smitten by the city’s walkability. I mellowed just about the time that March Madness started. Conference tournaments were in progress, setting the stage for the big dance. I followed the first round of the ACC tourney on my phone, refreshing every few seconds to catch the action, then made a date with myself to hit a bar to actually watch round two. The Tarheels would face Syracuse. And after their glorious upset of Virginia Tech, I hoped momentum would hurl them into the quarterfinals.
The next day—March 11—I bellied up to the back bar of Satellite Lounge. I’d become a new regular there and enjoyed my budding camaraderie with the bartenders. Still accustomed to arriving early to watch any UNC game, I secured my seat an hour before tipoff and ordered a weak lager to moderate a buzz. Business was slow, and the bartender told me this was typical for a Wednesday. “But the game!” I said. Her face reminded me I was no longer in Tar Heel country. Still, she offered to unmute the TV facing my stool.
To kill time I fussed with my phone. Scrolled my Instagram feed and watched video clips of quarantined Italian musicians play balcony concerts for their similarly sequestered neighbors. The utter humanity of it choked me up. I wondered if this foreign disease, this coronavirus, would somehow make its way into the US. How typical to think we’d somehow be shielded from this fast spreading sickness. The vibe reminded me of the 1995 medical disaster film, Outbreak. Specifically, the scene on the airplane when someone coughed and airborne pathogens filled the lungs of the other unsuspecting passengers, thus bringing a new strain of ebola to North America. Whose to say life wouldn’t imitate art with this thing that currently seemed confined to China and, more recently, Europe. How long before we were serenading each other from afar, trapped in our homes by a germ.
An incoming text distracted me and I promptly opened the message from H, a woman I met just days before leaving North Carolina. We’d recently advanced our new friendship from social media to the phone, and multiple daily exchanges had become the norm. This text, however, included a selfie that made me gasp. It was vanilla—just a headshot with a visible bare shoulder—but she said she’d taken it just for me, and that was enough to make me swoon. I wondered if we would be a part of each other’s future. A future that, according to every news outlet on the planet, was overshadowed by a hardcore spiky virus named for a crown.
The ballgame was forgettable. UNC looked tired and it was evident this pummeling would end their season. During a TV time out, it was announced the NBA had canceled the remainder of their season. Utah Jazz center Rudy Gobert tested positive for Covid-19 before tip-off in Oklahoma City, so the league cut their losses before things got out of hand. The news made me feel like an idiot. Had I been kidding myself about this thing’s severity? During the next commercial a newsflash told the world that Tom and Rita Hanks also tested positive while working on location in Queensland, Australia. This, for me, was the moment that everything changed.
The coming weeks were a blur. At some point I got caught up in the frenzy of the world’s busted supply chain and spent more than $600 on two carts worth of canned goods. Beans, it seemed, would sustain me during the apocalypse. I also caught myself researching the easiest way to buy a gun. I didn’t own a gun—never have—and don’t condone others owning one, either. But what if shit really did hit the fan and all the armed Spokanites I’d grown accustomed to seeing around town got desperate and came banging down doors, pistols raised? How would I defend myself? Fortunately my voice of reason outscreamed my fear and reminded me of my stance on firearms—you shouldn’t own one unless you’re ready to pull the trigger. I, most definitely, am not.
I also hastily applied for two new credit cards in case ATMs stopped working. I raced to Auntie’s, an indy bookstore, before they barred their doors and bought a couple dozen new titles. And not my usual 100-page novellas, either. I reached out to family. I thanked my employer for continuing to pay me during this crisis. I rode my bike to Idaho every Friday. I got really doggone good at using Zoom.
As time went on, I researched how to grow carrots in a sunny spot of my living room and eventually harvested a dozen inch-long beauties. I sautéed them with the oyster mushrooms growing on an inoculated log in my closet and felt pretty goddamned self sufficient.
Also, my brothers and I sent each other monthly videos of homemade comedy routines. I chatted with my parents every weekend after years of only occasional contact. I videoed myself walking a mile in my apartment. I held a virtual art class with a kindergartner. I did a weekly virtual happy hour with my ex. I ordered customized beard masks from an Etsy vendor. I dug into Spokane’s historical archives and learned that in 1910 Harry Houdini did a stunt off the Washington Street bridge. Got good at taking drive-thru Covid tests before and after risky air travel to see family in Los Angeles.
I also paid Jeremy Novy, the famous street artist, fifty bucks to stencil one goldfish on the sidewalk below my building as he passed through town. He painted three. I made exquisite corpses with H. Traded Friday poems with a dear friend. Followed Barry Lopez’s advice to become a local naturalist and learned the trees and plants and wildlife in my urban landscape. I offered “free” coaching calls to anyone who wanted them. I even finally sat down to write With a Good Heart, my 369-page book about my six month walk across America.
Even though I was alone during quarantine, I thrived in the midst of the forced solitude. Moments of boredom amounted to new projects, and human connections, albeit virtual, expanded in ways they would never have otherwise. Reflecting back on this strange time is to promptly recall a terrifying time that was also the most creatively abundant and hopeful span of my life. Surely my privilege, my access to resources, and my supportive community fed this fire. It’s obvious that what could have been a worst case scenario really wasn’t so bad after all. Even though it was.
These days I yearn for the sort of laser focus those days afforded. I don’t wish for a redo of how things went down, no way, but I do wonder why now, with the world wide open, I feel so out of step. It’s like during that short couple years I forgot how to interact normally with people. I became awkward about it. I’m still holding onto the solace I felt in isolation—even though I no longer want to be isolated. Such a push-pull. Sure, I can fake it in our post-Covid world—I am well-practiced at coping with what’s uncomfortable by shrouding my real feelings. But if I’m truly being honest with myself, I’m now more scattered and indecisive and afraid than I’ve ever been. What gives?
I imagine that someday we’ll better understand the long term effects of what we all experienced during the hilt of the pandemic. I, for one, am focused on relearning how to be a human in the day to day bustle. Gah. What a hassle. The fact that I used to be good at this doesn’t make me good at it now.
I have to believe that my awareness coupled with the passing of time will help me soon feel grounded. Meanwhile, I’ll take a page from lockdown, my life’s most poignant days, and focus on one main thing—creating. I’ll make art, make adventures, make connections, make renewal. Everything is bound to come back together eventually.
