Zen Dixie
  • Home
    • About >
      • Contact Form
      • About Jas Faulkner
      • A (Sort of) Brief History of Zen Dixie
      • Legalese and All That Jas
  • Emily Dickinson Is Sick Of Your Shit
    • Ask Pandora >
      • Ask Pandora- Why are content creators so sloppy?
      • Ask Pandora- Breakups Part One: The Six Month Rule
      • Ask Pandora- Breakups Part Two: Leave People Alone
    • Miscellany >
      • An Open Letter To Marcus' Mom
      • Are Doctors Getting Paychecks From Big Pharma?
      • Guns 'n' Scrunchies
      • I'll Take My Stand
      • Ray Chased The Rain Away
      • Smile For The Tennessee DMV
      • Your Third Grader Does Not Need A Sports Bra
    • Plague Life >
      • We Closed The Door Behind Us
      • We Do Shakespeare With Tin Cans and String
      • We Get COVID Fatigue
      • We Get A New Tenant And Keep The Kid
      • We Go Into Quarantine
      • We Rethink Media
      • We Think We've Heard Everything.
  • Arty Stuff
    • My Marker Rant
  • Belles Lettres & Mylar
    • Books >
      • Book Reviews >
        • Danny's Doodles
        • Review: The Life of Lou Reed: Notes from the Velvet Underground
      • Links For Bookish Folk
      • Reading Life/Writing Life >
        • Our libraries as expressions of who we were, who we are, and what we wish for the future.
    • Watch This! >
      • Coming 2 America
      • Them: A Review
      • Watching Star Wars >
        • Watching Star Wars Episode I: The Phantom Menace
        • Watching Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones
    • Stick This In Your Ear >
      • Music Short Takes >
        • Music Short Takes - November 2021 >
          • Music Short Takes For 12 November 2021
          • Music Short Takes For 13 November 2021
          • Music Short Takes For 14 November 2021
          • Music Short Takes For 15 November 2021
          • Music Short Takes For 16 November 2021
          • Music Short Takes For 17 November 2021
          • Music Short Takes For 23 November 2021
          • Music Short Takes For 26 November 2021
          • Music Short Takes For 28 November 2021
          • Music Short Takes For 29 November 2021
          • Music Short Takes For 30 November 2021
      • Music Short Takes - December 2021 >
        • Music Short Takes For December 2, 2021
      • Music Short Takes - January 2022 >
        • Music Short Takes For 23 January 2022
        • Music Short Takes For 27 January 2022
      • Music Short Takes - April/May 2022 >
        • Music Short Takes For April 29, 2022
        • Music Short Takes For May 1st 2022
  • The Front Page Blog
  • The Subterranean Pancreatic Blues
    • Wow! That's Sweet! How To Deal With Palate Shift
    • Review: Russell Stover Sugar Free Chocolates
    • What Not To Say To a Diabetic

We Closed The Door Behind Us

     The day after Valentine's Day (Or was it the day after the day after?) a friend who had been a Doctors Without Borders physician asked me if I'd heard very much about the new strain of SARS that was leveling a swath of the population in China. At the time, the only information I had was that it was very bad (per CNN) and a friend of Kevin's returned from an academic exchange in China and immediately asked for advice and assistance from the CDC. Their response was a form letter telling him to cover his mouth when the coughed.

     Nigel sighed.

     "We have this handled," I said. "We've always had things like this handled." The more I talked, the less I believed what I was saying.

     Nigel, who is rarely at a loss for words, was still quiet and I was getting unnerved.

     "How bad is it? Really, I'm not being specious. What are we in for?"

     Nigel cleared his throat. "It's bad. And I don't think your government -or any government for that matter- has a handle on this. I think... I am not overstating this.  I think you and your mother would both be at an appreciably higher level of risk, her because of her age and you because of your medical history. You need to prepare to get in and stay in."

     "Shelter in place" had not gained currency as a descriptor for people staying home.  The grocery stores were still well-stocked. For the most part, people in my part of the country seemed to be pretty calm about it. There were grim accounts of a nursing home outbreak in Seattle and things were starting to get a little wobbly in New York. In landlocked, culturally vacuum-packed Nashville, it was business as usual.

     Nigel has never been given to hyperbolic expression. He'd never been known to be overly dramatic. I sat in the back yard and watched as the squirrels and crows jockeyed for dominance over the pan of burnt popcorn I set under one of the feeders. How do I broach this with my mother? For the past three years, she'd read the news with an increasing level of horror. How do I tell her it might be dangerous to go to Trader Joe's for tofu? How do I tell her book shopping junkets might be a thing of the past? How do I tell her we might be hermits for a while?

     Wait a minute. She might like that last bit. Mom is not the most social creature on the planet. Her favorite Mutts character is Crabby and if you want to make her ragey, suggest a pot luck. So we talked and she was upset by the reasons, but ultimately fine with hunkering down while pestilence rode roughshod through the world. We made a list of places to go while we still could. I visited people. We went to Tractor Supply, the bookshops, and one last trip to the grocer's before everything had to be ordered in. Other things slipped into limbo: My search for a church, my plans to get my art out, road trips... all of it was  put on indefinite hold.
​Go Back: Plague Life - Emily Dickenson Is Sick Of Your Shit - Home
Copyright 2007 - 2022
Legal stuff to make you very sleepy (binaural beats not included.)

All original content on this blog is the property of the blog owner and protected by U.S. and international copyright laws and cannot be stored on any retrieval system, reproduced, reposted, displayed, modified or transmitted in any form, electronic or otherwise without written permission of the copyright owner except as noted below. A brief excerpt of content may be quoted as long as a link is provided back to the source page on this blog and this blog owner is noted as author or source. DISCLAIMER This is a personal website for the owner of Zen Dixie. The content within it is intended for personal use. The views and opinions within this blog represent the owner. It does not represent the opinions and views of other people, institutions, or organizations the owner may be affiliated with individually or as a group unless stated explicitly.

And furthermore...
Zen Dixie is a sole proprietorship owned and operated by Jas Faulkner. Any attempts to conduct business or procure money, credentials and other perks, or publish using this name by anyone other than the owner of this site, domain, and trademark will be dealt with swiftly and to the full extent that legal intervention allows.

Unless otherwise stated, the material published within this website and/or linked to this website is copyright of Zen Dixie and/or Jas Faulkner. No part may be reproduced in whole or in part without the specific written permission of Jas Faulkner (sole proprietor of Zen Dixie) first hand and obtained.