At over 60 meditations upon my time within this personal city of Oran via a global pandemic, to day the gates open, and there is no parade, no reunion, ...and no definitive ending.
Here it is, the end of this journal, a moment I originally expected to be months later, then just one month later than it would happen. Here it is, finally and regardless, my official end to my quasi-monastic existence of the past fifteen months.
I started this because the book "The Plague" changed my life, giving me hope to fight against the absurdity of life, suffering and death. In my own way, I wanted to be like Dr. Rieux and just write down what life was life in the time of plague. While I would have preferred to write about a fifteen month world tour doing Music all over the globe, Fate gave me something way different, so I shook its hands and agreed to do my best. While I cannot say i did my best, or whether this has any value or merit, I believed I had no choice. It was time to write what it was like for me and what I saw and felt during this extreme time.
Yes, you are correct, I did not have to live so isolated from the world. But I am not much of a gambler and one was allowing to push Fortune's hand. Remember this: if you did not go out during this time, the odds were in your favor to live and have other people live. While it was extreme, one had to remember that you were not gambling with your life, but the lives of others you lived with and simply came in contact with. Anything could happen, so one had to rebel against it as best one could.
As of this writing, there are 594,000 deaths due to Covid in the United States. The number shall go to 600,000 by the end of June. There have been 36,250,000 cases in the USA alone. This number shall also rise.The attitude of personal freedom over the safety and health of the collective whole could very well cause another burst of spread in the country. For now, at least, things are getting better.
In the end, I was saved by kindness, letters to be precise. This may sound arcane, but what saved my soul from truly breaking was having friends to write to. To be able to communicate deeply with others was food for my soul. To those people, to all they gave via their written word, I am forever grateful.
I am angry that I did so little with my "free" time, but now, I see, it was about survival. My world, as I had existed in it, was gone. I was a fish in a massive lake that wound up in a fish tank. In the beginning, I was within the momentum of the former way of life, internally living within an open vista. It too months of banging my head against the walls of the tank to realize that any straight line I was swimming in was just a circle. There were early hopes and dreams of cleaning and fixing up the house and online classes and...a thousand other things. But when you are granted a never ending amount of open tomorrows that are as same as the day before, you can keep putting it off. In the end, I realized that I rebelled the best I could, by surviving.
There is no grand celebration of exit. Unlike the book, there is no collective celebration, just an ability to go back into the stream of humanity. This lack of a cohesive liberation makes it odd to say the least. Yes, we were all at risk, but this is a vast country, not a small town like Oran. But like the book, the wealthy went through this without much sacrifice and the poor were devastated. The massive unemployment and people in need of food was crushing. For the record, we are still hurting, but as things open up, the suffering is easing a bit.
I am grateful that I did not lose anyone I know to the pandemic. Yes, there were fringe people who passed away, but everyone within my inner circle was spared. For this, I am so very grateful. I waited until I got my first injection to begin to be at ease with that, as the book has the death of Tarrou happen at the end. The strange history of my life would have seemed to dictate that something so dark would have happened. Again, I am grateful that I have been spared that sorrow as I know hundreds of thousands of others were not.
It is expected that one should learn from such an experience. Have I learned anything? Yes, I have, but those lessons are going to arise as I go back out into the world and experience it. If anything, I have learned I could exist without doing what I have dedicated my life to for most of my life. I say "existed" because I did not feel as alive as I used to in the past. Being in solitude makes one confront thoughts and emotions that motion and habit conceal. And I have had to confront things that I did not want to within this stream of endless time within repetition. It was not a habit via desire, but one out of necessity that was forever driven in part by a fear of illness and death within the outside world. It is going to take time to have that constant stress fade and a clarity within peacefulness take hold again.
From here in my life, there is an unknown within a familiar landscape. I have lost most of my income and will have to see if my life's work can continue. Reinvention is a place I know I will have to go. I would fear it f there was a possibility that I did not have to go there. But there is no option. The old ways of my life are gone and it may be years before it gets back to most of what it was. As it was decaying before the plague came, I have extreme doubts that the arts will have a massive re-birth, especially live music. But I could be wrong, and I hope I am. Only time will tell.
The one dark blessing from going to so many funerals in my life is the understanding that, regardless of what one feels or desires, life goes on, even if that life is one of disgust and misery. For this I am grateful. It may seem out of place or bad form to be grateful for anything coming from loss and sorrow, but one must take what one can from death and mourning. As Camus said, the Universe is indifferent to it all, so physics allow the sun to rise again and for food to taste good. You get what you can, no?
This is a society without much tradition and culture, so these events will be given an even lighter touch than the plagues of before. We will all just move on. There is already a feeling that the pandemic is gone and life can just edited back into the way it was before all this. Then again, I have never heard of anyone speak of the previous pandemic, so....
This country is healing enough to survive, but not to thrive. The plague of intolerance is still very alive and well. This is exactly what was said at the end of the novel, that the plague bacillus is never really gone, just staying dormant and silent. The hatred and rebellion that invaded the capital of the USA on January 6 of this year was the beginning bloom of what has been with us for a very long time. While things are quiet now, the darkness that burst forth is still very much around and will, like the plague and Covid, come back again in some form.
Let it be known that one CAN survive in a fish tank, but it is not joyful. And that is what I missed the most, the feeling of joy that I would get so many times in my life. I am not talking about happiness, but joy, that feeling where one's soul is swelling with bliss and wonder of the moment. Perhaps there were moments, but they were subdued at best. These past many months was about survival, and while joy can arrive where it wishes, it is impossible to reach for the sun when the sky is a seemingly eternal grey.
In the end, what remains is both the presence and echoes of the love and presence that once was. The former with be the thread that guides the soul out, while the latter will be what one finds in the outgoing maze that has no walls. I will start by visiting friends and having meals with them. I will start writing in earnest again. And, like Dr. Rieux, I will get on with life, carrying the memories and experiences of all this with me. I can only help that it will make me a more grateful person for everything I took for granted and, if one can learn anything from all this, it is that nothing that brings joy should ever be taken for granted.
So, thank you, dear reader, for following me along this road. I hope you found some camaraderie in all that I have written. If anyone reading this has not lived through it, know I have done my best to tell what this was like from my perspective and not be too emotional over it. All this has been a homage to Albert Camus. It may have worked. it may have failed. Regardless, I wrote it all down as best I could. In the end, I would ask one thing of you all: appreciate all the things you take for granted because, as this has shown, it can all vanish without warning and one cannot change it, only survive until it is all over.
Be kind to each other as well. This world needs such a simple and beautiful thing.
Take care.
And I thank you....
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