I'm keeping on keeping on, I've overcome the dreaded 'rona, and am
slowly rebuilding my strength. It is a process, though, and not one
I expect to come to an end anytime soon.
I guess, in a way, its like the world around me, caught in an
endless argument between the forces of light, who want to keep
people safe, and the forces of darkness, who just care about
themselves. I saw this in the gorcery store the other day; a woman
was wearing an N95 mask with a *valve* -- the looks of derision and
hatred she was getting were fierce.
I don't even know, or care, how many days it's been. Each day is
something like the day before, and something different at the same
time. The weather, thankfully, has been decent, so I've managed to
clear out a weed-choked flower bed and get some planting started
with my youngest. He's chosen to attempt to grow beans this year,
and his little plants are being slowly hardened before planting out
against our fruit wall.
Every time I have to go out into the wider world, I am struck by
how our society has adjusted. Masks and distancing, long queues at
the stores, closed businesses. It has also surprised me how my
reading has, I guess, both prepared me and, perhaps, deceived me.
I'm prepared because I love me a good apocalypse. I think that the
very first I read was Wyndham's glorious (but *hideously* dated)
"Day of the Triffids", and the sub-genre has attracted me ever
since. Bizarrely, as I was finishing Chuck Wendig's "Wanderers"
last December, the first reports of this weird new flu-like disease
were coming out of China. Little did I suspect, eh?
I've also been deceived by my reading, to various degrees, because
of the way our society has reacted. I don't know if it something
unique to the Irish, but all around me are people who are committed
to the cause of keeping people safe. Yes, we have become atomised,
trapped in our homes, but we have done this together. In this I am
reminded of the "Hope-punk" sub-sub-genre, novels like Carrie
Vaughn's "Bannerless" or Emily St. John Mandel's "Station Eleven";
where there is despair, there can also be hope, and I am proud to
live in such a society.
When I look farther afield, I can see much of the hope in the world
around me, but I also see so much of the despair. I see it in
particular in the U.K., the U.S. and Germany. In each case, the
stupid and the selfish are given free rein, threatening everyone
with destruction. I don't know what it is about those three nations
in particular which lends themselves to this weakness, but I can
guess.
So, I sit here, and I watch what my friends are doing in the world.
I wish I had more to say, but for now I'll just wish everyone well,
and hope that everyone is keeping that way.
