Blog post for COVID-19
James A. Zarzana
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The world is so unusual now that to begin this blog by saying “our lives are no longer normal” seems senseless. First off, aside from COVID-19, Marianne and I are not in our home of 28 years in Marshall, Minnesota, but in a small rental in Michiana, the area along the Michigan/Indiana border near South Bend. We’re here because we have retired from teaching at Southwest Minnesota State University (SMSU), the reason we moved to Marshall in the first place.
For the past several years, as our retirements approached, we planned on moving back to the South Bend area, since this is where we met and married and lived for a few years. Our daughter, our only child, was born in South Bend, and Marianne’s parents have lived here in Michiana for many years.
During our time in Marshall, we have been in and out of South Bend and other parts of Indiana and Illinois often. Weddings, funerals, holidays, campus visits, graduations, and plain old visits to the grandparents brought us here usually twice a year. Our daughter, Elaine, like us a Notre Dame alum, had her graduation party at her grandparents’ home. We’ve used their home as a base for summer vacations and holiday celebrations. And football weekends, don’t forget about those. Plenty of those.
And so, it was “normal” to move back here as our Golden Years spread out before us. Except, we’re really transitioning not retiring. We’re pivoting to continue and enhance our writing careers. I have three novels of The Marsco Saga published and am working on the fourth and final book in that series. Marianne has a poetry manuscript she is finalizing for publication and is working on a documentary about Sister Jean Lenz, OSF, a seminal professor and administrator brought to campus to aid Notre Dame in its transition from an all-male bastion to a coed institution.
We once had, and still have, grand plans for our Golden Years.
We arrived here March 1, 2020, with a real estate agent lined up and a list of needs and wants for an affordable condo. How hard can buying a place be?
Soon after arriving at our temporary rental, news blubs from distant China and then closer Italy filled the airwaves about the coronavirus, COVID-19. But except that it was rampant in an area of Italy where I have relatives, the news was not something worrying us.
Until Seattle. Until New York State. Until California. Until Indiana and Michigan closed bars and restaurants and schools. Until Notre Dame shut down for a few weeks and now possibly the rest of the semester. Until SMSU extended Spring Break for a week, then moved classes online, and now has canceled its May commencement for the Class of 2020.
Marianne’s parents are elderly. Both will be in their 90s by summer’s end. Both are in relatively good physical health, but are showing signs of aging. Temperamental signs. Signs that make it difficult to convince them to stay home and not expect us to come over regularly. Marianne goes over as much as is feasible, but dealing with the headstrong is not an easy task.
Our little rented house is near a bike path where we’ve enjoyed the warm spring. We love walking together anyway, so this path has been our gateway to afternoon walks and talks. Of all coincidences, we are near a dive bar that was here when Marianne was an undergrad at Notre Dame many years ago. In those days, Michigan had a different drinking age than Indiana, and so, dives such as this one were popular. Even before moving here, the bar came up regularly in Murphy-Zarzana lore. A funny story of the innocent antics of a college kid.
The bar has been shut down for at least two weeks by order of the governor. Restaurants and spas and gyms and theaters are now closed. Notre Dame called on all its overseas students to return home, shutting down a score of international study programs in London, Rome, Jerusalem, and France. The mayor has mandated only essential travel in South Bend, but he may not have the legal power to enforce it.
We need to eat, so we shop. On March 2nd, on our first shopping trip to Meijer’s, a large supermarket, we couldn’t find any hand sanitizer. Not to worry. We knew people were panicking about just that one item. This weekend, I found the shelves growing emptier and emptier. Soup and TP aisles were picked over. Products were there, just not the selection one expects at a large American superstore. Cleaning products like disinfectant wipes are now all gone.
I have seen no signs of panic, but the area does have an unusual, uneasy feel about it. A quiet, tense atmosphere. A foreboding eeriness.
I’ve lived through pre-blizzard shopping frenzies in Minnesota, usually a few each winter. People are generally resigned but upbeat about a few days home with the kids, time to watch some TV, especially if the Vikings were playing down south in Dallas or Miami, even if chicken wings had been impossible to find. I used to joke that pre-blizzard everyone went out for a gallon of whole milk, a superfluous 24-pack of TP, and a loaf of white bread.
But the Weather Channel always gave a pretty accurate end date of a blizzard. And Marshall would clear the streets. Our snow service would clear our driveway. It took time, but no one worried about everyone, everywhere. No one questioned the word of the government and political leaders about the severity of the weather. You could watch the blizzard on radar, after all.
COVID-19 is so different. Invisible. Deadly. With spouting denial from those who should tell us the truth. Falsehood and outright lies shouldn’t be policy. Russian disinformation shouldn’t spread as though it were the truth. The DOW shouldn’t crash 30% in 30 days, and Delta shouldn’t ground 75% of its fleet. And then the word from China and Italy. The deaths mounting. No word from countries like Iran and North Korea and Russia that must be suffering terribly but not reporting the facts.
And worse yet, many people not taking the warning seriously. Florida beaches filled with college students for their last spring break before entering “the real world.” Well, the world just got real. Listen to the news out of NYC, out of San Francisco, places where adults are in charge of public safety.
And so, here we are. Waiting to buy a new place. Waiting for the count of victims to rise. Listening to the reports that at first stated that “this is only hitting older folks”; reports that then became “mostly those taken to hospitals now are younger.” Wondering if our relatives are sick. Praying.
It’s not a blizzard, and it’s not lasting only a few inconvenient days.
Stay safe in this world that is no longer normal. A world in which we do not yet know what “the new normal” is.
Take care of yourself and others—even if from a safe distance.