Looking out the window
at the cars parked like graves
wondering who else is looking out
unseen behind distant glass
as we all look out for one another
looking out for the virus
looking out for a change.
Sunday’s Theme Music
Walkin’ round the southern hills of our town, thinking through writing, drifting through music and news, I considered songs that felt right for the time. They came up mostly from superficial connections. Like, “Baba O’Riley” (aka “Teenage Wasteland”) (1971) by the Who sprang into the music stream because I was up in the fields.
But then, the social distancing – hunker down – quarantine – self-isolation aspect whispered at me about songs about people knocking at the door. With those songs, I thought of Rod Stewart with “Legs” (“Who’s that knocking on the door? It’s gotta be quarter to four.”) Then came Men at Work with “Who Can It Be Now?”. Finally, my stream settled on an oldie (yes, even older than the cited songs).
Several performers have done “I Hear You Knockin'” but I went with the one I’m most familiar with through poprock radio, the one by Dave Edmunds, which was released in 1970. Other than the lyrics about hearing someone knocking at the door, and telling them they can’t come in, this blues song about being left alone has little to do with our coro sit. But still, it’s a good song.
Enjoy.
Thundering In
They thundered in on loud, glittering machines (Harley motorcyles), ostentatious in their efforts to be cool and tough, shattering me with their numbers and volume.
It was the muses, awakened, returned, and energetic.
Six thirty AM, I’d just finished reviewing my dreams and wasn’t ready to get out of bed. I’d stayed up late watching “Ozark” on Netflix. A cat (Tucker, black and white, long-furred) was nestled against me, warm and purring. Yeah, no need to get up.
I began going through my manuscript in my head. I’d finished reading it. It was okay. Satisfactory.
Yeah, satisfactory and okay weren’t what I was looking for, damn it.
So the muses began riding around, revving their engines and hurling ideas at me. Do this, write this, what about this?
No, that’d be a much different book and not the one that this book is. Ah, but what about doing this? Hmmm…that makes sense. It’s attractive. Appealing.
Time to write (well, edit) like crazy, one more time.
But first, I really need coffee.
The Big Board
I checked the coronavirus big board this morning. I used to check sports or the stock market. The former is on pause and the latter is a shitstorm that I’m avoiding until the age of coro is done.
The U.S. had reached number five last night, but Iran overtook them overnight. China’s flattened growth continues to give us hope.
South Korea provides more hope, though. They took swift action and held strong after a terrible start. Meanwhile, Japan has it together.
And Russia? Their numbers astonish.
Italy’s numbers are painful (and shocking and dismaying) to view, with reports of almost eight hundred more dead overnight. I feel them.
After that, I get more granular with the U.S, looking at the state and county shots. A friend put this one together.
The red continues taking over; no state is spared. West Virginia (who has a very vulnerable population) was last to report on a case. After reading about someone who sought testing (a grim comedy), I suspect that it existed there, but incompetence (or politics) (or fear) kept the numbers from showing up.
Here’s an excerpt of the grim comedy that Carolyn Vigil endured in WV to get her husband tested.
We went to the ER, and I left James in the car. He was really sick: his fever had been as high as 104°F; he had a cough, terrible headaches, body aches. He has asthma, which can lead to more serious disease. I had no symptoms at that point, but I was trying to keep my distance from people at the hospital, because I thought I could be a carrier. A staff member met me at the door. She was very kind, but she said, ‘I don’t think we’re equipped to do this.’ A nurse came out to the car with a sticky note and the number for a hotline—which I had already tried to call, only to find that the number didn’t work—and told me I had to leave and just call that number, or drive to Morgantown, two and a half hours away. I told her, ‘I’m going to remain calm, but I’m not leaving unless he is at least screened.’ The head nurse came out and saw James, and she could tell he was sick. James and I waited in the car until they took him to a room where they could do the exam without risking others in the hospital. Once he got back there, they were very compassionate. They gave him very good care.
They first tried to rule out all other respiratory illnesses. Those tests came back negative, so they decided to go ahead and do the COVID-19 test. But we had to wait until Tuesday to get the result back. Then Tuesday came and nobody contacted us. We called the ER. The ER told us to call the state health lab. The state health lab told James to call the county health department. The county health department said, ‘We have no record of you ever being tested.’ It was bizarre.
h/t to Time.com Check the whole story. Interesting read.
Beyond it all, we’re still waiting for large pieces of information regarding duration, or an unpleasant second wind from COVID-19, waiting to see if social distancing will successfully flatten the curve and buy us time for a vaccine and more resources. Meanwhile, practice safe living out there.
Cheers
Dreams of the Times
First, in a response to the current situation, I dreamed that I opened a cupboard in the house and found an opened package of toilet paper. Toiler paper, as you probably know, is one of the most sought commodities in America in the age of the coronavirus. In the dream, I found an opened twelve pack and laughed as I saw it, remembering that we’d had so many rolls of toilet paper that we’d put some in another cupboard. One roll was gone. I told my wife I’d found it and then put it in the proper cupboard, which, in the dream, accurately reflected our current TPSIT. That whole thing amused me; we’d not stocked additional toilet paper. Fascinating how my mind seemed to gloam onto the tp as emblematic of current thinking and trends.
The next dream segment remembered featured me in a car, which is one of my standard dream features (I dream of being in a car, finding a car, or driving a car a great deal). Sometimes in this dream, I was driving, but sometimes I was a passenger. This changed without reasoning that I could discern. It never bothered me in the dream, and I didn’t think about the other drivers. It didn’t seem to matter to me. I was preoccupied with other things, mostly music.
I had a tiny flesh-colored plug in me. It fit into my upper arm by my shoulder, where you’d typically get a vaccine. I could access it through my clothes. Post-dreaming reflection showed that I was completely oblivious to doing this in the dream; it was normal.
The plug had a tiny flesh-colored line, thin as a spider web, attached to it. Removing the plug from my arm, I’d stick it in my ear and hear music. This process absorbed me. After a while, I began understanding that the music was originating somewhere outside of my body. My body was picking it up as if it was an antenna and then playing it in my head.
Then I figured out (with a lot of surprise) that the music that I was attracting and playing was being amplified out to millions of people. As I assimilated this in the dream, I understood that it was part of a position that I’d been given as some sort of keeper. I completely understood it and it made sense in the dream.
I rotated this responsibility with another man. Older than me, he went through the same process of discovering as I’d endured. As he did, I watched him. Seeing his reaction, I guessed what was going through his head and then told him about what I thought it was. He nodded, beginning to understand what I was saying.
That took place in a car. It seemed like an huge car. Dozens of people were in the car with me, but there was so much room, I could easily walk around it, going from window to window or seat to seat. I’d been driving, but now I was somewhere toward the back of the car when we stopped for gas.
When we stopped for gas, we discovered pieces had fallen off the car. I began looking for and finding irregular chunks of metal. Applying them to the car, I started repairing it. I told others what I was doing so they could do it, too. They ignored me, so I worked alone, finding metal and fixing the car.
I ended up going off by myself in another car. I was driving now, taking a small car up a winding mountain highway. Night was falling. Missing a curve, the car crashed through the white guardrail and fell thousands of feet down into a dark bay.
The car hit the water and immediately dropped toward the bottom, passing quickly through fathoms of water. Unfazed by what was happening, even feeling a little amused, I exited the car and swam up through the light grey-green water until I broke the surface.
It was night. The combined events, crashing and swimming, had taken me a long way from where I’d gone off the road. Using searchlights, others were looking for me way over in another area. Bobbing around in the dark water, I waved my arms and called them, but no one saw or heard. Giving that up, I swam a long distance to the shore and left the water.
They were still looking for me. I could see them but they didn’t know where I was. Exasperated and drenched, I began walking along a road toward them. I guesstimated them to be miles away. Accepting that, I increased my pace.
The dream ended.
Thursday’s Theme Music
We’re self-isolating, practicing social distancing. Yeah, this isn’t because I’ve sworn off people (“I’ve had it with you damn people!” he yelled in dramatic fashion, shaking a fist as he did), but because the gov’t. is following epidemiologists’ advice, trying to flatten the curve by slowing COVID-19’s spread.
Thinking about going for a walk through the neighboring streets and hills, having coffee (in my house), or doing yard work, the Clash’s punk-rock classic, the rockin’, “Should I Stay or Should I Go” 1982. I imagine many people have pondered this the last few days – should I stay or go to the store, etc.
It struck me as a humorous choice, and a rockin’ one.
Thursday’s Theme Music
A double-whammy brought this song into the stream this morning. First were dreams about photographs. Then, as I’m sitting at my desk thinking about the dreams, I see a photograph of my wife on the desk. Taken of her in Christmas, 1981, it was our first Christmas in Okinawa, Japan. A note on the back in her writing says, “I was sick as a dog.” She looks wonderful, though, in a bright purple short-sleeved top. Her hair is bobbed short, as she wore it for a number of years.
Between the dreams and memories, Ringo Starr’s old hit song, “Photograph” (1973) arose. About the only thing in common between the song’s lyrics and sentiment, the dream, and the photograph on the desk is that word, photograph. Everything else is quite different.
Wednesday’s Theme Music
I was ’bout to go outside (and let a cat out) (it’s Boo’s morning habit to go out, do his business in a corner of the yard (the far left side behind the bushes, thank you), and then groom in sunshine) (unless it’s raining or snowing, of course) to gauge the weather (it looks pleasant and warm) when I stopped. Hand on door handle, I watched through the glass at a profusion of birds. The many birds me from opening the door and disrupting the little sparrows’ and jays entertainment.
Boo really wanted out, chittering and chattering at the birds (they were a joyfully noisy congregation). I wondered what’d brought them here.
The juxtaposition of birds and weather reminded me of an instrumental song, “Birdland” by Weather Underground (1977). I used to listen to this in the Philippines while burning candles, reading books, and sipping wine, a pleasure combo.
After the birds abruptly departed, I let the house panther (and jigsaw puzzle expert) out to do his thang, and then came in and re-acquainted myself with “Birdland”. That song always prompts a grin. Hope you hear it and grin, too.
Or at least, smile.
A Storm of Words
A storm of words struck. Three thousand, thirty-one hundred more were added when I’d finished after typing and revising, but that was it. The muses said, “It’s done. Type, the end.”
Really? It’s done?
Well, no. Writers know that more remains after typing the end on a draft. Like having a baby, delivery is just another step in the process. There’s the afterbirth and then, life.
(And yeah, writing a novel isn’t as painful as childbirth. I know it’s a weak simile. The point isn’t about pain, but process.)
There’s uncertainty, finishing a novel, for me. Officially, this is the fourth draft. Unofficially, many parts of it were written multiple times, worked and reworked, trying to mold it into something that follows the three c’s: comprehensible, compelling, and coherent. I don’t know if I succeeded. I’m flush with the emptiness of finishing and the uncertainty of what I’ve finished. I’ll need to re-work all of this tomorrow that was done today; that’s my practice. Then I’ll go back to the start and begin again, reading, reviewing, revising, looking for holes, confusion, and weaknesses. Many likely abound.
I like the characters. They’ve been good to me. I’ll miss them, if this is done. I’ll miss their voices saying, “And then I say this and think that and did this, and then that happened to me.”
Looking back on a couple posts that I wrote about the process, it’s fun to note how cracking some aspect of it seemed more satisfying than finishing writing it. It sort of makes sense, as writing a novel, for me, is a puzzle to be solved. Working on it is the challenge. Finishing it means that the challenge is done.
As always, writing a novel has been an entertaining experience. I want others to read and enjoy it. I want it to challenge their thinking as it challenged mine, and to provide them an escape as it has provided me. That’s a whole other process, getting it out there where others can enjoy it. That’s a more daunting challenge.
Final counts. Time – started November 1st, 2019, finished March 1st, 2020. Wrote almost every day, as I was forced to take time off for holidays and illness. One hundred eighteen thousand words, three hundred ninety pages, and uncounted hours of thought.
Yes, and final working title (who knows if it’ll hold?): Other Moments, Different Times, a speculative novel about life and memory, with science fiction nuances.
The coffee cup is empty but the coffee shop has become noisy with socializing and music. It’s cold outside, despite the sunshine, but it’s time to walk and reflect, time to stop another day of writing like crazy, at least one more time.
Always That Way
When he came in, none noticed him. He drifted from table to table, touching others’ food and drinks with impunity, giving them little “Boops” on their noses like he was playing with children. He hung around awhile as others came and went, not doing anything but loitering, and not taking up much space.
They didn’t know him then but they soon learned who he was. It was always that way with a virus.
Michael Seidel, writer 