Today, I’m not going anywhere.

A friend of mine phoned me up yesterday and asked if I could come over. She’d even pay for the cab. I told her flat out “no,” but nicely. Not that I think she has the virus, nor me either. She lives alone now, so I feel bad for her. She does have friends in her new building, downtown, as well as home care, but it’s stinking hot outside, AC or not, and I’d have to stop and pick up a few things on the way.

There was a time I wouldn’t have hesitated, but I’ve gotten pretty lazy since the pandemic hit. Maybe another of Nature’s self-defense mechanisms? Lazy/No out/No exposure. I was a homebody to start off with, a confessed hermit, happy to live out the rest of my days in peace and quiet, having survived 16 years of public Poetry in the Ottawa writing scene.

It’s easy to forget sometimes that we’re in a pandemic.

A case of cabin fever and missing Ontario, I guess, a friend and her husband wanted to drive halfway across the country from Alberta, and stay for a week with me and J.

Normally, not a problem; they did it before, but only for a couple of days.

Then the reality set in...what if they pick up the virus somewhere along the way? Give it to themselves and then us, and we all end up in the hospital.

And of course, if they’re coming in from out of province, they’d have to observe the 14-day quarantine. Where would they do that? At my place?

I told her “Not a good time to come down, things are just beginning to open up here. The four of us would just end up sitting in my living room for 4-6 days."

Sometimes, I don’t know about myself or other people any more. Am I overreacting? Has everyone lost their minds?

Today, I’m not going anywhere.


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07/03/2020

Posted on 07/03/2020
Copyright © 2024 Chris Sorrenti