Solar Corona
[Update: Hi and thanks for reading! Since having published this, I’ve learned that the title “Solar Corona” seems to be lost on many readers. It’s a reference to the sun, which I discuss in the piece, and a play on words with the coronavirus.]
“Does it rain as much as they say?” I’m often asked when I tell people I live outside Seattle. The city’s reputation for downpour precedes itself. “No, not really,” I reply, “but it is pretty cloudy most of the year.” They pity me for this admission, as if I’d said I walk the earth in total grayscale. But I assure them that I love the overcast skies; they suit me. Sunny days usually felt too harsh too me; too loud, despite their beauty. The brightness often felt like an intrusion, thus I was rarely in the mood for strong sunlight. I felt differently though on a recent walk.
Having been inside for several days in a row under Washington State’s Stay-At-Home order, I was longing for fresh air. I took a stroll to the mailbox and did a rare thing of basking in the sun, my skin soaked in its rays. The smile I got from a neighbor walking his dogs — from a safe distance, of course — seemed almost as warm as the orb itself. I slowed my pace on the walk back, making the journey last a little longer. I just moved into my place in January, yet it feels like I’ve lived here much longer since I’ve spent so much time inside its walls.
Formerly shy, currently reserved and a lifelong introvert, I have not had as difficult a quarantine experience as many others have. I am also a homebody, and began working remotely long before the virus hit this part of the world. The jokes about completing assignments in sweatpants, bathed in the glow of a laptop screen with takeout boxes adjacent, were not new in my network. But it was hard to ease into this at the beginning, even for me: the work that dried up; the canceled music shows I was set to attend (a casualty of which also included an interview with one of my favorite bands); the postponed wedding I was to be a part of; the pall cast over my upcoming birthday.
But then I quickly shift my perspective and remember that some people will never see their next birthday at all. Locally and abroad, people young and old are suffering — and dying. Here in Seattle, the place I call my home; in Detroit, my hometown; and in Italy, where I lived for a short time just over a year ago are three of the hardest-hit areas crushed under the weight of such a tiny pathogen, but the entire globe is feeling the impact of this crisis, and not only in terms of health. I worry for the millions of people who have lost their jobs or are wondering how they will pay rent; the kids I volunteer with who are more likely than ever to experience abuse and neglect. I am concerned for other young people who, like me, grew up without internet access in the home and had to rely on libraries and kind neighbors to get online, falling even more behind their peers who can engage in distance learning more readily. I worry about my Nana, who is 89 years old but thankfully safe. And of course, I worry about the essential workers who risk their lives daily to provide us with things we need (and many things we actually don’t).
Recently I’m especially worried about my dad, who is 63, diabetic and who for the past 10 days has been hospitalized with COVID-19, going from fever to myocarditis to encephalopathy. My father’s mind and body under duress, pumped full of drugs (including the experimental hydroxychloroquine); restrained to the hospital bed for trying to escape; doing donuts between hallucinations and what seems like a near-catatonic state (though he started improving yesterday). My Pop is diabetic and was already experiencing renal failure before the virus hit. His long-awaited kidney transplant surgery, which was finally supposed to happen this month, had already been postponed indefinitely due to the pandemic. My great-aunt, whom my dad was caring for, died Tuesday of after just two days of coronavirus treatment. I worry that if the worst happens, I will still be forbidden from traveling to be with my family because they live across the country. It is bad enough I cannot be by his side, but only talk to him on the phone (and some days not even that, when he is too weak to speak). There are plenty of relaxing moments I’ve had being at home, but there are times when I do worry. Earlier this week it was hard to do little else.
Last month, I also worried about myself when I developed some symptoms of COVID-19.
It began, like many people, with a sore throat. I didn’t worry too much; if I get too cold at night (which is often), I sometimes wake up this way. But then a few days later came the chest pain and irritated, itchy eyes. The next day brought fatigue, mild aches and a headache. Then no more chest pain, but nausea in its stead. Then all those symptoms ceased but I had slight shortness of breath and an unexplainable numbness in different parts of my body, especially the toes. But never a fever, strangely enough. Of course I wondered where I contracted it, and how, and from whom — not that it really mattered. My mind went through the few places I’d been in the past month before and after the executive order. I had been careful at the grocery store but I suppose I could have exercised more caution. Or maybe it was from the handle at the gas pump. I was caught off guard by this malaise, and it wasn’t due to some cavalier feeling of invincibility that comes with being young either. It’s because I’m hardly ever sick. The chicken pox in third grade and a handful of mild ailments spread out over three decades made me think this illness might overlook me. I was lucky that I could manage quite well at home; so many people aren’t so fortunate. Being frustratingly ineligible for testing, I just stayed in isolation.
It is a strange thing, contemplating one’s mortality. I knew it was highly unlikely that I would die — I am (almost) 32 and very healthy; reports suggest that women are less likely to die from it than men; my symptoms were mild in the grand scheme of things — but that didn’t stop the fear from rising that night, the night I first felt chest pain. The news has been reporting younger and younger victims, and around the time I self-diagnosed, I learned from Facebook that a high school classmate had lost her younger brother to the coronavirus. He was 26 years old. My thoughts wandered in a labyrinth of anxiety — fleeting, but powerful in the time that they sat with me. It was not the first time I’d wondered if I might die — like at 16 when a car ran a red light, slamming into the passenger side I was riding in; or last year, before I had surgery last summer — but this uncertainty around COVID-19 was a little more potent. This virus is kind of scary, and unpredictable. I wondered if I’d be the exception, despite the rather blithe assurances that it mainly targets the elderly and the infirm (as though they’re not important too). But I was fearful not so much of death itself — I felt some degree of readiness born of my spirituality, I suppose — but it was harder to confront the idea of things that I’d left unsaid; the people I would have wanted to see before The End; the misunderstandings and mistakes that remained, unclarified and unatoned. I was not ready to leave this world, and thankfully I didn’t. I’ve been given an extension.
This pandemic has made me reflect on how grateful I should be. Gratitude is not new for me, but it was fortified in the afterglow of a dance with death. Once this is all over, I look forward to enjoying a little Seattle sunlight once again. I’ll probably appreciate it more from now on.
