Neabsco Creek – Why hiking predominates these entries – Effects of limited contact with others – Plans for the future remain tentative – The trials of solitude – Donald Trump on tour – Evening statistics
I mentioned to WN and KJ, the organizers of the Potomac Heritage Trail Association, that the segment of the trail across Neabsco Creek and the adjoining wetlands was now complete, and they asked if I could take some photos there and post them to the PHTA Facebook page. I certainly needed no urging to revisit this beautiful area, so I went there today. It was a good day for it; the recent warm and relatively dry weather meant that there was hardly any mud on the trail, and most of it was bridged by wooden planks. I took photos of Neabsco Creek, the wetlands, and Powells Creek, as well as of various flora and fauna in the Neabsco area. I thought that I would never be able to get a photo of any of the numerous red-winged blackbirds that fly about in that area, but on the return back to the car one bird obligingly rested on the rail of the boardwalk and stayed there long enough for to me to take its picture. The birds are starting to revert to their usual shyness now that traffic is resuming normal levels.
One acquaintance who has been going through the journal said to me, “I like your hiking blog.” It is not a hiking blog specifically, although I can understand why people might look upon it as one. I try to include a mixture of personal activities and public ones, which frequently form a great contrast. Certainly it is true that I hike a good deal – it is my main leisure activity. But the main reason that hiking looms so largely in these accounts is that there is little other activity to report. We are very far from this stage at being to resume normal social intercourse. The following example will illustrate what I mean:
A man living in Dallas hosted a surprise birthday party for a relative at a time when he was unknowingly infected with the virus. Twenty-five people attended and shortly afterwards eighteen of them came down with the virus, including two children, two people in their 80s, and a cancer patient. For the most part the infected people are recovering, but the two people in their 80s are in grave danger and are not likely to survive.
It’s easy to deride such people. But the months of social distancing are taking their toll. When I was conversing with RK last night on the telephone, she noted that she had been reading my blog and suggested that one reason I’ve remained healthy to date is that I’ve had contact with very few people. And she is correct. Being retired, I’ve never had to associate with fellow-workers in an office at any time during the pandemic; living on my own, I do not have to worry about infections from other inmates of my household. My interactions with others have been very limited. There are two families whom I know well, to whom I’ve paid an occasional visit, and on these visits we spent most of our time out of doors, sitting well-apart from one another. There have been hikes with RS, with members of the Vigorous Hikers, and, lately, with members from the Wanderbirds; again, these encounters are out of doors and we walk apart from one another. There have been visits to my mother, which have been fairly brief, for which I submit to a temperature scan before going into my mother’s room and during which I do not come very close either to my mother or her care-taker. There have been excursions to stores, for the most part to obtain groceries, and I’ve been buying in bulk to make the need for such excursions as seldom as possible. There have been excursions to the Farmer’s Market, which occur in the open air. For every shopping excursion I wear a face mask at all times. There has been the occasional service required for the upkeep of the house, in which both the serviceman and I wear face masks and keep at a distance from one another. There was the trip to the barbershop yesterday afternoon. There are occasional chats out of doors with my neighbors. And that is the sum total of direct encounters with other people that I’ve had for the past three months.
It has not been easy to cope with this enforced solitude, and I believe that I’m better-equipped to handle such isolation better than most, as I am not especially gregarious by nature. I greatly miss seeing my relatives face to face. I greatly miss going to other people’s houses to visit and to have people as guests in my own. I look back with yearning towards the weekly hikes with the Wanderbirds, where we would all eat and drink and converse while we waited for everyone to complete the route – it was like having a party after the hike. There were also the visits I paid to friends who live outside of the area, with whom I would stay for a few days at a time and visits of friends out of the area to me on the same basis. And there were the trips that small groups of friends would take together, renting a cabin so that we could set up hikes in various regions (mainly to cover sections of the Appalachian Trail) and still other trips where we would fly together to a region in the West or in Canada or in Great Britain or in continental Europe, and from there stay in hotels or cabins and then ride in vans together to explore a national park or a well-known scenic area such as the Bavarian Alps or Banff. There have been concerts, theatre events, dining out with others. These are all out of the question now.
It is simply unknown at this point when it will be possible, for example, to accept visits from friends to stay overnight or to host friends on my own; or when it will be possible to organize any kind of event that involves a substantial group of people together. My aunt will be 90 in July, and many of us wish to celebrate this event appropriately – but it is uncertain at this point whether we will be able to. I am currently scheduled to travel with friends to Rocky Mountain National Park in September, where we are to stay at lodgings in Estes and hike the trails together there; but it may have to be canceled, as all of my other travel plans this year have been. Even eating together with people has become problematic; the past 100 dinners I have eaten at home and in solitude.
I do not make these observations in the spirit of complaint. I know very well that I’m one of the lucky ones. My health and vigor have remained intact, and I am not dependent on others for delivery or preparation of meals. There have no shortages of any significance and I have always been able to get the supplies that I need. I simply observe that the longer they last, constraints of this nature become more difficult to follow. Ambrose Bierce, in The Devil’s Dictionary, gave this definition for the word “alone”: “In bad company.” It is easy, under these circumstances, to know what he meant. Sooner or later people are going to chafe at the continual solitude, and other episodes like the one in Dallas will occur again and again.
However, I don’t mean to depress the readers’ spirits too much by these remarks. There is always the spirited reaction of our Fearless Leader against the virus-related restrictions to cheer us up. Undaunted by the disappointing results of the Tulsa rally, Donald Trump has been organizing similar events across the country and demanding that he grace every one of them with his physical presence, which – despite the fact that he is as unwieldy as a porpoise and red as a boiled lobster – he evidently feels to be irresistible. Nor will he wear any kind of face mask on these occasions. In this he may be showing a degree of wisdom; for if he were to conceal his nose and mouth and cheeks and chin, the onlooker’s attention would inevitably be riveted to his cold, porcine eyes, which are possibly his least prepossessing feature.
Today’s statistics as of 8:00 PM — # of cases worldwide: 9,697,646; # of deaths worldwide: 490,910; # of cases U.S.: 2,501,689 # of deaths U.S.: 126,720.