Captain's Log, Day 7: There's No Going Back To Who and What You Were Before

Date: April 6, 2020

Time of post 11:45 PM

Quarantine Day: 22

Last Song I Listened To: “Infinity” by One Direction

Last Person I Communicated With: the Apocalypse class GroupMe

Last Thing I Ate: macaroni and cheese

Last Thing I Read: The Way of Thorn and Thunder by Daniel Heath Justice

Current Mood: meh

One Thing I’ve Accomplished Today: grocery shopping (and what a task that was)

One Thing I Want To Accomplish Today: watch the short film for class

One Reason I’m Stressed Today: I’m weirdly concerned that the UK Prime Minister has been hospitalized with COVD; like, I was for some reason convinced that world leaders wouldn’t get it

One Reason I’m Happy Today: my parents have been sending people in the cohort congratulations cards when they pass their defenses, and people are so surprised and happy when they get them! (Molly got hers this week!)

"There’s no going back to who and what you were before,” Unahi to Tarsa, pg. 32 of Daniel Heath Justice’s The Way of Thorn and Thunder (2011).

Dear Apocalypsers,

This week for class, we’re reading a high-fantasy novel by a friend of Dr. Tatonetti’s, and the above quote really stuck out to me. (Side-note: I cannot wait for the day that I can teach novels written by my friends. It’s an inevitability at this point. I’m putting it out into the universe.)

Feels like a good time for some high fantasy.

Here's a thread of quotes from Daniel Heath Justice's #TheWayofThornandThunder #KynshipChronicles pic.twitter.com/9dYOgwJAiS

— Katie Cline (@katiebethbug) April 6, 2020

We keep saying “when this is over;” stores have signs that say “temporary hours,” and I’m reminded again of the tenacity and persistence of the human spirit. Yes, this will pass, as every other pandemic has in the past—but when we step out of our houses and apartments like Plato’s proverbial man inthe cave, will it be the same world? I’m no expert, but I hope we’ve changed. And I don’t just mean that I hope we hold onto this sense of community and respect for healthcare workers, grocery store cashiers, and postal workers or our newfound appreciation of teenagers in fast-food jobs and everyone else in food service—though all those things are good and should ideally continue. Tragedy always brings the nation closer…for a little while, at least.

And I don’t just mean that the world might get their act together and wash their hands regularly and that governments will be more prepared for future crises (though as long as Trump as in charge, I doubt the U.S. will).

I think the world will feel different. We’ll have lived through a major historical event (I hate myself a little for typing that; I’ve seen it so many times, and I’m kind of over it), and that changes someone. 

Changes us.

Hopefully for the better.

I know that I already feel different. I’m not sure how to articulate it right now, but I already feel more appreciative and more grateful. I also feel angrier and a little more cautious. I’m definitely even more aware of how very ill-prepared we are for disaster and how incredibly lucky we are not to have had a pandemic of this scope in 100-ish years.

Really, to quote Taylor Swift, “All I know since yesterday is / Everything has changed.” And that’s a very surreal thing to be aware of. I’m not sure how I’ll feel when we finally come out of isolation, how long these anxious feelings will linger. I went grocery shopping today, and the air in WalMart was just tense. It was so quiet and empty. People weren’t bumping into friends and having conversations; there weren’t screaming children. Half the people were wearing surgical masks and the other half were abruptly stopping in the middle of aisles to stay 6ft away from another shopper. How long will grocery shopping make me nervous? How long before the thought of my parents going out to the store won’t make my stomach tighten in knots? I’ve always been afraid that I’d lose them early in life, but I’ll be damned if it’s COVID that takes them from me.

All I know about this image is that this is Matt Smith
as the Eleventh Doctor, but I liked the quote.

Unahi tells Tarsa that she can’t go back to who she was before, that she’s not the same person she was. That seems to be a running theme in this class: After Deckard falls in love with Rachel, he can’t go back to retiring Replicants; once K believes he’s Deckard’s son (and half-human), he can’t take back the hope that gives him; society can’t go back to the way it was before the apocalypse in The Road; Katniss can’t stop being the Mockingjay and go back to before the Reaping when she was just a poor girl in District 12; Jane can’t change the fact that she was sent to Summerland; Tarsa can’t go back to just being a Redthorn warrior now that she’s a Wielder.

We can’t go back to a time before COVID-19.

And I guess we could argue about whether any of us ever had a choice in all this—Fate vs. free will and all that jazz—but it doesn’t really matter. It’s kind of like in Doctor Who where there are keyevents that can’t be messed with or the whole universe will be screwed up. Or like the entire plot of Harry Potter and the Cursed Child (2017) where two 11-year-olds just mess with the past and drastically alter the future. We can’t go back and change what happened, so maybe we just have to take each day as it comes and deal with the future when it gets here.

May the odds be ever in our favor,

Katie

Works Cited

Justice, Daniel Heath. The Way of Thorn and Thunder: The Kynship Chronicles. University of New Mexico Press, 2013.

Captain's Log, Day 2: I Venture Out Into the World for Sustenance

Date: March 23, 2020

Quarantine Day: 9

Last Song I Listened To: “Heartbreak Weather” by Niall Horan

Last Person I Communicated With: my mom

Last Thing I Ate: Doritos and guacamole

Last Thing I Read: currently reading These Witches Don’t Burn (2019) by Isabel Sterling

Current Mood: tired

One Thing I’ve Accomplished Today: went grocery shopping

One Thing I Want To Accomplish Today: do my dishes (ew!)

One Reason I’m Stressed Today: time to start doing schoolwork again

One Reason I’m Happy Today: the cashier at Dillon’s told me she liked my “crazy cat lady” bag

Dear Apocalyspsers,

You know it’s an apocalypse when the highlight of my day is grocery shopping. Normally, I loathe it, but it’s been my only excuse to get out of the house recently—and I only went to one store instead of my usual 3 or 4!

via GIPHY

(^^^Me in the grocery store today!)

It was actually a little surreal going to the store. Some aisles looked perfectly normal; others were bare and picked over, and I couldn’t help but think, “Is this how it starts?” How long before all the shelves are picked through and there’s nothing left? I (wryly) thought about the “shopping” scenes in The Omega Man (1971). Based on how empty the toilet paper, hand soap, frozen foods, and canned goods aisles were, the convenience store that Neville and Lisa go to is way better stocked than I imagine a grocery store would be during the actual apocalypse.

But I also suddenly understood how so many people succumbed to “panic shopping.” When you’re walking through the store and come across the last 2 frozen pizzas, you suddenly wonder if you need a frozen pizza, too (even if you know that you have 3 in your freezer at home). I think it’s a normal human reaction to then think, “Am I going to be able to get this ever again? Should I but it now, just in case?”

Of course, to an extent, that’s just me being my usual, dramatic self. I don’t honestly think that COVID-19 will send us into an apocalyptic existence a la Omega Man or I Am Legend (2007) or The Road (2006), but this feels like the closest we’ve been to the likes of such a catastrophe in my lifetime. I remember a few other scares—like H1N1 “swine flu” and Zika virus and Ebola—but schools never closed for those. I remember growing up in Alabama and how bread, milk, bottled water, and canned goods would fly off the shelves if a hurricane or snowstorm was predicted, but that only ever lasted a week or so. COVID-19 feels…bigger, but I refuse to wallow with a “we’re doomed” attitude. (I’m far too stubborn to believe that this is the end of humanity as we know it.)

(While I was looking for the meme below, I found this informative article from CNN that suggests it might actually be New Englanders--NOT Southerners--who started the "buy up the milk and bread" trend!)

And, if you dig through the panic and look past the misinformed Facebook posts, there is some good news. China has now closed all of their coronavirus hospitals, and an article from The Independent reports that around 3,200 of the over 80,000 cases of coronavirus in China have been fatal. The paper also reports that over 65,000 people diagnosed with the virus in China have already made a full recovery (Dalton). That’s only a 4% fatality rate, and while it’s always sad that anyone dies from a disease, there have been much scarier death tolls, and I’m trying to hold on to whatever silver lining there might be. Just yesterday, too, one of the other GTAs—Winniebell, who’s an international student from China—posted pictures and a video of her mom and little brother at the park and said that “people could live normally again.” It’s a relief to see that progress is being made. If this was an apocalypse movie, that wouldn’t be the case.

Oddly enough, I’ve always thought the phrase “like a movie” was supposed to be a good thing. And then I took this class, and I can say that I’m very grateful that my life hasn’t been like any of the movies we’ve watched.

Movies (and books, for that matter) are usually pretty predictable. For example, we pretty much know that Katniss and Peeta will end up together when they’re both alive at the end of Mickingjay—Part 2 (2015). It’s not surprising when the Man dies in The Road. We’re not totally surprised that Neville finds a cure in I Am Legend and then dies, even if we haven’t read the book or seen the other adaptations; that’s a pretty classic trope. But real-life isn’t like a movie. There’s no script, no predictability, and if I’ve picked up on any “vibes” this last week and a half, it’s that we’re afraid of the uncertainty that comes with COVID-19: “Have I been exposed?” “Will I show symptoms?” “Can I get tested?” “How long will we have to social distance? Will I or my friends or my family get sick?”

You know, when I said I wanted the real world to be more like Harry Potter I just meant the teleportation and the magic stuff, not the entire plot of book 5 where the government refuses to do anything about a deadly threat so the teenagers have to rise up and fight back.

— Denizcan James (@MrFilmkritik) February 22, 2018

Thinking about what kind of movie life is now made me think about a tweet I saw a while ago. I think it was back during March for Our Lives, but it still works now: “You know, when I said I wanted the real world to be more like Harry Potter I just meant the teleportation and the magic stuff, not the entire plot of  book 5 where the government refuses to do anything about a deadly  threat so the teenagers have to rise up and fight back” (@MrFilmkritik).

When I said I wanted my life to be more like a movie, I meant like a rom-com with a happy ending or Pitch Perfect (2012) where everyone becomes friends and they win the big a cappella competition. You know, happy things.

The one similarity I do see between some of our movies and the current situation is the persistence of the human spirit. Despite being the last man on Earth, Neville kept fighting and surviving. Katniss made it out of the Hunger Games not just once, but twice (and, arguably, three times!). And, today, we see doctors, nurses, pharmacists, grocery store employees, sanitation workers, postal workers, fast food employees, and more still going to work making sure that the country can still half-function and that essential medical equipment can get to those who need it. Broadway is closed, but artists are still making art from home. Celebrities are live-streaming themselves reading to kids. People are trying to make this work.

And, as long as the human spirit persists, I think we’ll make it out of this particular apocalypse.

May the odds be ever in our favor,

Katie

Works Cited:

Dalton, Jane. “Coronavirus: Wuhan doctors celebrate closure of last temporary hospital after dramatic fall in cases in China.” The Independent, 14 March 2020, https://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/coronavirus-wuhan-masks-video-doctors-nurses-hospital-a9402631.html

@MrFilmkritik. “You know, when I said I wanted the real world to be more like Harry Potter I just meant the teleportation and the magic stuff, not the entire plot of  book 5 where the government refuses to do anything about a deadly  threat so the teenagers have to rise up and fight back.” Twitter, 22 Feb. 2018, 5:52 p.m., https://twitter.com/MrFilmkritik/status/966822999839125504