Journal of the Plague Year, Day 1

1st day [now yesterday] of general quarantine in the area where I live, as good a place to start as any. In theory, my own days aren't that different. It's just that I won't be shopping more than once a week, and that with a bit of trepidation. But my days have the potential to be filled with art and gardening, and I can binge watch a lot of movies so the evenings don't seem too long and dreadful. I am retired, my support checks come on their own, though, in fact, nothing just happens, someone has to be somewhere to process it.

So I've decided my Plague Year posts will be a mixture of art, photos, garden talk, cat photos, interspersed with my own sense of uneasiness. And it could be a set of rambling blog posts or it could be the unfolding of further oh my god moments that I would not have fully imagined on day 1. Whatever, we've got some time for this to unfold.

What does the title mean? Wikipedia provides a bit of background. And here is the actual journal. I've read some excerpts long ago, but have to admit I don't quite want to reread it right now. Besides, my journal will hopefully be a much milder thing.

So, on the art front.  This is a regular 5 x 8 mixed media card. It is a Zentangle version of an embroidery that I have been working on, but have been stalled out the past few days. It was much easier to complete the Zentangle, that's for sure. Pardon my black lines, it was originally set up for Instagram.

Here are some detail shots. As well as Zentangle, I am starting to be influenced by Indian mandala patterns. The curved arch shape is a variation of one. Here is my favorite lesson source, Kalakriti by Karishma. The patterns I have seen so far are taught as a line of patterns rather than a circle. There is another YouTube teacher, Vijayta Sharma, who does mandala circles. I'm not sure if the shapes I am learning are fully traditional or if they are unique to the teachers. The patterns work very well alongside Zentangle patterns.

In between the sun rays are little strip samplers of Zentangle based shapes. The sun itself is composed of rows of Shattuck. The bright yellow rays are made with Posca pens while the center of the sun was painted with diluted watercolors after the lines were made. I have to make sure I don't try this with Gel pens, as they will bleed. Microline is fine for adding water later.

Once I finished the larger piece I decided to experiment with bright and metallic Gel pens on a black paper surface. The top row has a set of 4 different mandala patterns, a la Karishma. I am a swoopy, jittery line drawer, which does not help for these small, precise patterns. The lower two rows were just fiddling around. 

Next I tried some of my favorite Zentangle flowers with green vines to fill up the space.

Here I am practicing mandala components on graph paper. I hope to find an optimum size, make a general shape to cut out and draw a bunch of variations on stamp rubber. If they are all the same size, or I make a second or third size that will interlock with the standard size, then I can do a ton of interesting things. This may be my first really absorbing project for my Plague Year.

I took a neighborhood walk on Day 1, planning on heading to the nearest freeway overpass to record the traffic situation. On the way there I took a couple of photos. I think this is a strawberry guava tree, I'll have to look again. It has manzanita like bark but underneath are swirls of color rather than solid mahogany brown. Here is the original:

And here I went to ToolWiz's feature on my phone that allows you to make a collage of several photos. I put the same photo in 3 places, but moved them slightly to one side or the other so the images would be related but not identical.

Then I made a contrasting layer, headed in the other direction, with the layers blended.

And added yet another layer using the original photo, I think.

I tinted a corner of the earlier one green. I've come to love shades of green and orange used together.

Here it is with another unrelated photo providing the green. It's from a photo session I haven't posted yet, an out of focus magnolia blossom. I have a strong affection for this one and may need to print it professionally once the Plague Year is over.

Here are a couple more versions with my daisy sampler from earlier layered on top.

So I reached the overpass, after playing the game of "more than 6 feet separation" with everyone I crossed paths with. I didn't pet my neighbor's dog as I usually would have. A woman and I made a quick switch, she to the street, me staying straight on the sidewalk. I joked that it had been a matter of which one of us opted for the street (I have since taken my turn to take the street option, and spent an uncomfortable 5 minutes backing away from a neighbor who kept moving closer and closer to explain something to me).  We are largely a cooperative, peaceful, law abiding neighborhood. Another reason to like and appreciate my neighbors, even though we are not "best buddies."

Anyway, here is the freeway. This is on a Tuesday morning at 9:30. Not completely devoid of cars, but not all businesses are closed. And those trucks are hopefully bringing us tons of medical supplies, staple food products and TOILET PAPER!  Which thought has caused the song "rollin', rollin', rollin', keep those wheels rollin' " to enter into my mind and not leave....

But honestly speaking, where are we if the supply chains fail?

OK, never mind, that's one of those thoughts that causes panic to rise in my throat. The deal is to stay isolated, not panic, mind the rules, hope for the best but somehow prepare for the worst, without thinking about what that might be, too much....

oh, here is the online map of freeway slowdowns for yesterday. There were none....

Some single fruit tree blossoms to take the mind off....

And some daisies, a compost of 4 different photos, one pasted over another. The overlap gets erased to show the earlier ones. It works somewhat, though a bit fuzzy, with some distorted daisies poking out here and there....

And here we are for the plague count:
3/17/2020, 5:13 PM: United States: 6,423 people with the virus, per test results.

3/18/2020, 7:53 AM: United States 6,519 with the virus, per test results.

Some context: this is from the John's Hopkins corona virus tracker. It is often slower to report totals than other sources. And any number you see is likely to be a fraction of the actual cases of people who have it. What gets reported is a function of testing, and many administrations may feel it is to their advantage not to have the actual figures known. It's a combination of the usual imprecision of hitting a moving target, confusion that takes place during the early stages of any crisis, and incompetence to the point of malevolence of some of those in power worldwide. I tend to trust local news more, because those issuing reports realize that this crisis is hitting close to home. 

A couple of other sources that I check regularly:

The Worldometer corona virus update. Normally a population tracking site. The numbers are more up to date, includes narrative at the bottom.

Our local paper has a regional tracker, but it is using some of the same sources that I am using, so not sure if it brings anything new to the table.  There are strong sentiments about being too specific about who is sick, what town they are in, what places they may have frequented. I see the sense, but it means that people who might know to self-isolate will still be out there with the rest of us. And, in fact, WE might be the ones who should be self-isolating.

This last one isn't as graphically striking at the Johns Hopkins tracker, but seems the most up to date. It is called Covid-19 in US and Canada, and is produced "with love by first generation Chinese immigrants." You can show them your appreciation by buying them some boba tea! This site shows each state by county, and keeps note of "new cases" so you can get an idea of how rapidly it is spreading (or rather, the spread is being measured) in each county. 

Whatever numbers you see on any of these sites are just a pale reflection of who is really infected. With strong isolation measures, I would hope to see the new cases dropping in the next two weeks. At the same time, we are strangling our economy, both on the large and the individual level, the longer we stay isolated. But if we do nothing in the way of isolation, the problem will be much worse and last much longer. Kind of like cutting off a finger, or an arm, to save the body.....sigh.....

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And now on to the plague thoughts (actually written on Day 2, as I haven't posted this yet). Yesterday I posted on Facebook, usually my least favorite place to be, that I was feeling hopeful for my own family as we were all able to be isolated and had enough resources to survive. I felt that every day would bring a lessoning of the chances for us to get it. An acquaintance immediately said something that I interpreted as meaning "well, bully for you, now pray for the rest of us." And I immediately felt a huge amount of shame for having boasted about our relative well being. She says I misunderstood her intent, and she is probably quite right, but indeed I do feel guilty for what we have. What I didn't do a good job of conveying was how fragile I know our relative prosperity to be.

The relative isolation of myself from the world in retirement, something that generally depresses me, has now turned out to be a blessing. For the time being anyway. I've actually had little close contact with all but one friend for the past 3 weeks, though there has been group contact at the grocery stores, at my Spanish and belly dancing classes (yes, both cancelled for now). We're not a huggy, kissy bunch to begin with, good thing, eh?

We may indeed skip the virus, but not the economic devastation that is being set up as this is going on. Or perhaps social unrest. The rich harm us over from a distance; anyone local who want to take advantage of chaos to get more for themselves would harm us up close and personal. Or maybe we will all come together and fight for the common good. I guess this is where we get to decide. Anyway, I have tried to keep politics off of this blog, and I probably will continue to do so, but my experience with the current administration has taught me ways to fight stress and anger and helplessness that I am now calling up in this current crisis. It had already seemed like we were lurching from one bad thing to the next, now it's just made manifest in all of our lives, we are no longer bystanders to suffering. Can we take control even in times of little control and rebuild things from the bottom up?

NOTE: at this time I cannot tell you which part of this Plague Journal is more important, the parts where I blither on about art and happy things or the parts where I give free rein to angsty emotions.
Being a history major, I'm always appreciative of any evidence of what the everyday person thought, felt, did. The heroes and villains get whole books and even graduate seminars devoted to their deeds, the rest of us have blogs....  :-)

On other days I hope I have more creative and hopeful thoughts, and if I have managed to find people who are making progress in long-term solutions I will give links here. I think we still have more hopelessness to go through before we find new sources of hope. For all of us who have been grumbling about social ills in our country, now is the time to make good on possible solutions.