From the very beginning, something just didn’t seem right about this brand new virus. I didn’t think it could be trusted, which I know seems weird to say, but this was a super, hip fox, untrappable and uncaring
Its origins have always been part of the conversation. Was it a bat or an accident at the very, high tech bio lab, both cohabitating in a place called Wuhan. What are the odds? If you have a genderless hard-on for conspiracy, this is a home run!
The dubious lineage of this elusive pandemic, has added to its mystery and make no mistake, #19 is a trickster if ever there was one. Without really knowing how it was birthed, we have been stuck with this bastard of a virus. Just like us, parents are a very important part of the equation. Whether a scientific snafu or an aberration of nature, it was birthed at about the worst time, in terms of the world it was about to disrupt.
It’s like a cheap, bio-mance novel that couldn’t possibly be true, because it seems so unimaginative, at least to me. This is a story about the virus that abruptly shut the world.
This gets a bit tricky for me, because I have this story in my head, but it deals with incredible suffering. So, this is not a happy story, but it can still be a good one, which I am hoping it is.
It entered into a world already deeply divided by money and politics. The schism between the haves and have nots had already contributed to the incredibly divisive nature of our discourse. Science became heartlessly politicized, accused of manipulating its answers to fit the circumstance. Nobody likes to say, “I dunno”, especially scientists, who you’d expect to have the answers. The Vid kept slipping out of the grasp of science, a viral chameleon, forcing fumbles that kicked their credibility in the privates.
It changed the world in its 2 1/2 year marathon and going back to normal is not possible, as the world keeps changing, partially due to the lasting changes brought on by this pathogen of many names. The emotional scar tissue of memory will live within many of us. Did you know that 15 million have died from Covid? You can kiss my ass if you want to argue about how numbers were manipulated, up or down.
Globally, it devastated many countries that were barely hanging on for their last breath already. It exacerbated the survival migration of people all over the world. As more and more non-Christian people of color keep crossing borders into first world countries, the further to the right they will goose-step, evidenced by Italy and Sweden.
There is the big story above and then there is the very small one that follows here. This is only about each of us and our connection to this shape shifting, growing legend of darkness.
Like many of you, as long as I never got it, I was kind of cool about it. Sure, I knew it was real, but until we finally met, it felt like some distant concept. I was walking on water without getting my feet wet.
Finally and inevitably, a couple of months ago, I tested posted. It was on a Sunday, when very much like Raymond in Rain Man, I predictably ride my motorcycle, Flaming Lips. I felt oddly funky, but not sick. For the hell of it, I took the test and BINGO, the pink stripe made its “thumbs down”appearance. Well, so much for my ride. Shit!
I spent the requisite five days in isolation and I got to know the Vid pretty well. I really didn’t have serious physical symptoms, but this fucker made a nest for itself between my ears. I felt it and began to understand what a sinister presence it can have in so many lives, manifesting with an array of symptoms that have caused so many to suffer in silence, not knowing they are part of the mysterious mistreatment, so many of us are having at the hands of this poisonous microbe.
In the beginning, we seemed to take the news that some of us could lose our sense of taste and smell, for who knows how long, as no big deal. Now, think about it! What the fuck would invade your nervous system and tamper with something so basic? It really didn’t set off any alarms, because I think so many of us are tragically numb and how could we be anything else? This was a bad sign.
This virus has eyes and it will think nothing of attacking someone multiple times, often inflicting incredible suffering, just because it can. It makes me think about another Zen tenet, which says that for every action, there is always a reaction. It does make you wonder. How could this be happening? Is it some random accident or is it a direct result of what we are doing to this planet?
When I was in bed and completely alone, I had nothing, but time. I got to know #19. For the most part, I was really curious
how it could move around, ignoring climate and politics and doing whatever the fuck it felt like doing. I think we have treated nature and each other so badly, for so long. Somehow, we have made this bastard virus a life changing force in all our lives. It is not to blame, we are and it’s not done with us just yet, because the world is not done with us.
The story of the Vid continues.