Forty days in quarantine

After realizing that the Arkansas State Capitol in Little Rock and the Kimbell Art Museum in Fort Worth were closed on the same day, Friday, March 13, I was not really aware of the huge severity of this new coronavirus. On March 14 I drove to Austin, even after knowing that the Blanton Art Museum was closed, as well as the Art Museum in San Antonio in order to meet with my parents who had a convention in Austin. They asked me to refrain from hugging them as they were watching the first White House coronavirus press briefing in their hotel room (or at least the first one that I remember watching). A few minutes later I get an e-mail telling me that classes are cancelled at least for the next two weeks. I got back to Odessa on Sunday, March 15 and I've been semi-sheltered (if that's even a real word) since Monday, March 16. 

Seeing the possibility of more closings, but still unaware of the true severity of this virus I decided to get a haircut and groceries on that first day. On the second day, March 17, I was able to renew my driver's license (the payment system was down the day before). As a teacher, working from home and having your hands tied (we are given the activities that we need to grade, and I've been no fan of these) and not being able to teach at my best I've felt useless. On Saturday, March 28 I decided to pause this quarantine and visit Big Bend National Park, and then Monahans Sandhills the next day. These two trips really brought my spirits up. 

The following week I learned about the asymptomatic transmission of this virus. "We're screwed" I thought. We would need to ensure that every human being in the world is locked up for a few weeks in order to ensure that the virus will not be transmitted, which is impossible as we need to eat, we need police officers, first responders, doctors, etc. I've come to the conclusion that governments will have to balance health science and economy. This will be the hardest open question to answer, as no answer will be completely right. Most, if not all major countries are in debt, and adding more debt to keep us locked down indefinitely until we get a vaccine or an effective treatment is not sustainable.

On Good Friday I decided to drive to the Fort Davis Mountains just to breathe fresh air, see some trees, and rock formations:

I came back on that same day of course. A few days later I dreamt that airports were busy again. When this dream comes true we'll be on the road to recovery, and more families will be either providing or on their way to put food on the table. In the meantime, I'll try to finish this year as best as I can. I'll start with a day trip next week, possibly followed by longer road trips if parks begin to open, keep cooking, and planning future trips.

As we're falling on this seemingly bottomless pit in which we have not hit bottom, I'm hoping that once we do, we'll see a tunnel, we'll see the light at the end of it, and come out to a better, brighter place.