I live by the sea. I mean I live right on the edge of the sea. From the study window where I write I can throw a stone into the water, and I do it often. I can swim naked in front of my beach without anyone seeing me. I could swim toward the far horizon in the dead of winter — clinging to loneliness at last — and no one would notice. I live in a blissful place for all my earthly needs, including, I suppose, my transition to the next life.
In these times of plague ... No, it sounds too dramatic. In these times of forced isolation, the truth is that the coast of Maine, where I live (three hours north of Boston), seems to have remained unmoved, relatively speaking. Stores are closed, as are restaurants, schools, and the YMCA [Christian Youth Association]. But quarantine, figuratively speaking, is Maine's way of getting ahead. This lies far to the north, on the way to nowhere except Canada. The rest of the people are down there. Social distance is our idea of a tightly knit community. Robert Frost, our favorite poet, wrote a poem about it. It said: "Good fences make good neighbors."
Trump makes us think that the country is perhaps getting closer to anarchy, which is the separation par excellence
Marx affirmed that money is the great agent of separation. And since, for Americans, money means more than God, it could be said that we have shaped an entire country based on distancing. Fifty little rival duchies we call "States," each jealous of their prerogatives and their quirks. An economy historically strengthened by separating a race of people in order to enslave it in order to profit from it. An entire genre — not mine — removed from their identical rights. And a long etcetera to our current xenophobia of trade and ... yes ... of infectious disease. Americans understand separation. We take it at lunchtime. We just call it our exceptionalism. "I will take care of myself; you take care of yourself ”. This is what some think will make America great again. This is not my case either.
Here in Maine, my wife and I fall squarely in the most affected age group, 74 and 76 years (although we have no previous pathology that we know of). Kristina has bought a few disinfectant “wipes”, and I have thoroughly gone through the interior of my Tahoe SUV (last weekend without going any further I used the valet service of a nice fish restaurant, which has made me think that the steering wheel could be suspicious). I wiped my gym weights before it closed. We have listened to common sense that recommends using authentic soap better than the few bottles of hand sanitizer that I have left (a friend sent me a recipe to do it myself by putting something like aloe and alcohol in small sprays of those that are no longer known). can buy in supermarkets). We are following the plan. Although, since most of the time we are at home, by the sea (except to go to buy food and the wine shop), nothing seems very different.
MORE INFORMATION
Look outside- Trump: chain of calamities
- R. Ford's American Realism
And yet it is. When this weekend I ventured out to the town market (I was wearing white plastic gloves to make my way through the unexpected, the surfaces and handles of the baskets possibly contaminated), I coincidentally ran into my friend the burly sheriff 's deputy who Ride your exercise bike next to me in the YMCA gym (the bike that goes nowhere, as I call it). "I imagine you are quite used to wearing plastic gloves on your job as a police officer," I said. "Wow," he replied, extending a large bare paw towards the plastic cheese wrapper and giving me a contrite smile from the cop. "Unless I have to pick up parts of some body, you know. Fuck him. Life is too short". "Yes, I suppose," I replied, feeling somewhat ridiculous with my whitish gloved hands, which looked like a corpse's. Then I realized that my friend could also have said "life is too long" without the meaning changing too much. Anyway.
I have been thinking for a long time that our country has become practically ungovernable. And not only since the arrival of Trump, who, among his many felonies, makes me and most of us think that we are not lunatics that the country, at least, is governed by the wrong people, and perhaps is getting closer to anarchy, which is, I suppose, separation par excellence. The truth is that I have been thinking about it for a long time; decades. And I'm sure others have thought so too. It is true that our founding ancestors wanted our democracy to be strong and precarious at the same time. E pluribus unum ["Of many, one", the national motto], etc. At best, Americans can never be told what to do and expect them to do it.
Still, there doesn't seem to be much common sense left that is common in any sense. We think that the Constitution gives us the right to spoil everything if we want and that is fine, as if we were all separate small States. We don't like the government (personally, it doesn't bother me). And yet we all want the government to fix things when we mess them up. Or when nature does it, like this disease that is sweeping us, killing our citizens, people who would have had the chance to survive had it not been for a few young criminals who monopolized the stock of the Purell hand sanitizer, which It must have seemed like a great business idea, typical American, until someone put their names and photos in The New York Times and the train loaded with shit stopped at their station. Sunlight is usually a powerful disinfectant, but is there enough sunlight for everyone? Can we know How many of us, given the opportunity to get the last bottle of hand sanitizer when we already have a dozen, would think beforehand of the citizen who will come after? Would I do it? I would like to think so.
Of course, writing about this is not the same as taking seriously this emergency that will soon become a calamity. At least, it's not the same as taking it seriously enough. We need something (some essence like qi , a vital energy that comes from the spheres) to circulate between us and all our exhausted purposes. Perhaps in the form of good citizenship, pure and simple; the idea that we are really all in this mess together, from Billings to Boca Raton - either going up or down - so that we don't take the last bottle of hand sanitizer or jeopardize the health of others in a restaurant luxury just because it has given us claustrophobia. I don't think I'm stupid to think about it. I think it's just common sense.
News Clips translation.