My first mention, in my journal, of the COVID-19 pandemic, came on March 4, a Wednesday.
“Pike Place Market is fairly empty of tourists. Our dentist cancelled our teeth-cleaning appointments, saying that for staff and patient safety she will only see people for urgent needs. Tom is told to work from home for the rest of this week (tomorrow and Friday). … Lots of large organizations seem to be partially closing down….”
This morning I spent about 90 minutes reading The Unbearable Lightness of Being.
A marriage, compulsive infidelity, jealousy, pain, ambivalence; Russian takeover of the country, Czechoslovakia, betrayals to the secret police, twisted thoughts in the male and female characters who have to cope, along with their colleagues. It’s a slow and profound read, written in a layered structure in which events are revisited from different angles. I’m finding a lot of depth in it. At first, because it lingered on the Tomas character for a while, I found it too trapped in the male-philanderer perspective. I felt impatient with that and thought I might abandon the book, and I’m glad I changed my mind. I’ve ordered a copy — it’s not available for Kindle — because the copy I have (a 1985 paperback) is overdue at the library. I never saw the movie. I should watch it.
I pulled out my journals, which began when I was ten, and started typing them into a Google doc for each notebook. Typing my journals led me to read them very closely.
A woman who is 32 told the story of losing her mom as a child and her father’s remarriage to a woman who eventually triggered family fights. The little girl, then in middle school, discovered Harriet the Spy (via the movie), totally related to this character, and found her to be a powerful hero, AND was obsessed with her tape recorder.
I always prick up my ears when someone talks about losing a parent during childhood. I think this is the first time I’ve heard someone explicitly say he isolated himself. He had also been bullied. He didn’t say a lot about feeling isolated, and he didn’t describe “holing up” as self-protection, but still I felt I could relate.
My journals have helped me get some perspective on an aspect of my personality that I’ve often disparaged: I’m not a natural at self-promoting and competing in a public setting or a career setting. I cooperate easily rather than fighting for my own agenda. In fact, I forget NOT to cooperate.