Impressions of a Quarantine: A Collage

"How is anyone to tell a story which he cannot understand himself?"

—Dostoyevsky¹

"The truth is rarely pure and never simple."

—Wilde²

Note to the reader: This text is comprised of impressions and quotes from my personal journals and commonplace books interlaced with later impressions and reflections. The text is organized thematically rather than chronologically, and my hope is that you will read it with an ear for meter and cadence, pausing at passages that invite a more contemplative gait and freely moving with passages that want to gallop. Thank you.

Earnesty

Earnest cynicism. Cynical sincerity.

Now sedulous. Invoking grim endurance.

March 13. Denison is going to remote learning for three weeks as are virtually all higher education institutions in the state, including OSU. The governor has declared a state of emergency and closed all K–12 schools for three weeks.

Man how naïve we were back then.

Earnesty is not a word. But I swear it should be. Like sobriety. Or gravity. Caught between a trifle and a trauma.

Wilde: In matters of grave importance, style, not sincerity is the vital thing.³

March 31. One thing for sure is I am becoming increasingly uncomfortable with my academic work and its cost for families. Even writing this little essay this seems extraneous—a luxury drawn from excess capital borne on the backs of underpaid workers. . . .

From earnesty to de profundis.

But what of the queer high school or college student stranded and isolated at home, closeted, fearful, and separated from companionship and care? The sexy warmth of possibility and human touch?

Lorde: We tend to think of the erotic as an easy, tantalizing sexual arousal. I speak of the erotic as the deepest life force, a force which moves us toward living in a fundamental way . . . For the erotic is not a question only of what we do; it is a question of how acutely and fully we can feel in the doing.⁴

Or the first-gen student unable to either pay for their rent or for a flight home? Or the two mothers of three scrambling to keep their eldest in college after losing their jobs? Or the single mother of three risking her health and livelihood working overtime at the grocery store, without health insurance, and for little less than a living wage.

March 14. Can this shutdown offer a kind of holy uselessness, a pause in all our thoughtless busyness and relentless consumption? Can it still the insatiable yaw of our clamoring hungry ghosts? Bestow a moment for the earth to rest and heal from our incessant plundering, from the river of CO2 pouring into the sky? Less driving, less buying, less flying, less, less less. . . .

Already searching for the proverbial silver lining. But never quite comfortably sure.

Sertillanges: The spirit of earnestness must go hand in hand with a habit of concentration. . . . Nothing is so disastrous as to keep turning one's attention this way and that.⁵

March 18. It's starting to hit me just how terrible this could be. Not just in terms of illness and death but in the economy and the well-being of millions. But perhaps this will also give us each an opportunity to rethink how we live, our values, our impact on the planet, how we could be more kind, generous, peaceful and take better care of each other, ourselves, and the world.

Face to face with horror, yet still seeking silver.

Dostoyevsky: I swear to you that I am not quite such an ass as I like to appear sometimes, although I am rather an ass, I admit.⁶

Alterity

March 19. Saw what looked like a cardinal in a tree outside my window this morning. Turned out to be a crumpled brown leaf.

Face to face with the other in me. All the others within, clamoring for attention.

April 2. It's been challenging, negative thoughts, regrets, worries. So much time alone with little distraction and the ever-present feeling I could and should be "getting more done."

It's chronic and...