Plague Journal, Day 140: Fevered dreams of fascism

I dream of a fascist world; The Girlfriend and I have to speak in code to avoid detection by the state. For dream-logic reasons this means using code words that begin with B. I need to tell her something vital for which our code word is “baby,” but I lose track of her. The stakes are planetary, existential. I’m running around the dreamscape thinking “Baby, baby, baby” when I awake, sweaty, hyperventilating. It’s 3:30 a.m.

Four nights this week I wake from nightmares. It’s hot in Brooklyn, temperatures through the night in the sticky 80s; we keep fans blowing, but my dreams are of feats and endeavors (track meets, hunting expeditions, tennis matches) at which I’m failing. The failures are unrecoverable: spikes fall from my track shoes, my rifle bends like butter, I challenge match point but evidence that my foe’s ball hit the line is marked by a puddle of pistachio ice cream. Failure means unexplained but certain trauma, not for me but someone else. 

I dream while authoritarianism has arrived in America in ways I’d assumed would never occur in my lifetime. Its entrenchment remains uncertain; we may yet repel it. Trump, who likes to tweet trial balloons to see what he can get away with, got verbally smacked down Thursday, including by Republicans, when he pondered postponing the November election (which he has no power to do). 

Federal law enforcement agents from a range of agencies (U.S. Marshals Service, the Federal Protective Service, U.S. Customs and Border Protection) agreed this week to leave Portland, Oregon, where they’d been dispatched by the Office of Homeland Security to protect a federal courthouse that demonstrators had vandalized with firecrackers and graffiti. (Oregon Gov. Kate Brown brokered the deal.) Agents wearing unmarked uniforms had been taking into custody Portland protestors in unmarked cars. (The New York Police Department took a protestor into an unmarked car on Tuesday.)

I’d been telling students for years about the Constitutional protection of habeas corpus, how police agencies are required by law to tell independent judges and the public when they arrest someone, how such accountability distinguishes the United States from authoritarian regimes who “disappear” their enemies. Now my high school classmates — nominally concerned about overweening governmental power — use social media to preen and cheer as feds crack skulls and shoot gas pellets and rubber bullets against protestors armed with fireworks, spray cans, laser pointers.  

Trump wants to use U.S. Customs and Border Protection forces as a militarized force against cities with Democratic mayors (Chicago, New York, Oakland, Albuquerque) that have seen high levels of #BlackLivesMatter protests; he’s promised to send as many as 75,000 agents into such cities from what is now the country’s largest law-enforcement agency. CBP has its own elite unit, Bortac, trained to stop immigrant and drug smugglers but now ready operate on crowd control and protest management; within 100 miles of U.S. borders, they’re freed of some of the Constitutional protections that constrain other law enforcement officers.

Masha Gessen, whose New Yorker dispatches are essential Trump Era reading, locates a turning point in America’s evolution toward authoritarianism in the post-9/11 era, in our acceptance of the notion of a threatened “homeland” and the creation of the Department of Homeland Security. Now she equates our “anti-terrorist” policies to those of Putin’s Russia. 

“The nation used to protect itself against other nations and their hostile military forces, but now it had to fear individuals,” Gessen writes. “This is the premise on which secret police forces are built. Their stated purpose is to find danger where normal human activity appears to be taking place.” 

Gessen also notes the primary emotion in which Trumpians traffic: “What we are also seeing is a perfect storm of fear: the legacy of fear cultivated in the wake of 9/11, and the fear that Trump campaigned on in 2016 and continues to campaign on now."

I read about the fear not just among the protesters but among federal agents assigned to “police” them; the A.P. has a powerful story describing a night of Portland protests from both perspectives. 

(A.P. Photo/Noah Berger)

I see the fear in my former classmates’ fact-free descriptions of crazed “antifa,” “communist,” “socialist” “thugs,” whom they envision, based on federal government and right-wing media messaging, as destroying the core of America’s cities. (Portland’s protests were confined to a six-block area of downtown, damage limited to a few federal buildings.) The anti-Black, anti-immigrant racism inherent in their descriptions can’t be gainsaid; nor can their propaganda-fed anxiety. 

CoronaWorld fills us with fear. Like those across the nation, my daughter’s Brooklyn public school ponders reopening in the fall; camps immediately form between parents desperate for the school to reopen (citing well-founded concerns for their children’s, their own mental health) and those desperate for it to remain closed (citing well-founded concerns for their children’s, their own physical health). 

The plummeting economy fills us with fear. The pandemic wiped out five years of economic growth in the second quarter, to no good end; rather than using the pause to create testing and tracing systems to check the virus, we’re worse off than when we began the pause last spring. (Vanity Fair has a devastating account of federal inaction led by the president’s son-in-law.) 

The national picture looks bleak; the local picture looks bleak. 

“I’m scared, folks,” writes a New York state assembly member, about a coming wave of national evictions. (Renters at risk range from 1 in 5 in Vermont to almost 3 in 5 in Tennessee.) “I know people joke around about how I’m always seeing the future. But I am just seeing cause and effect. Basic economics....and the result. This isn’t a warning anymore. Please please please. We need to help people. We need to help our communities.”

Fear has become routinized, numbs our souls, keeps us distanced more than physical distancing ever could. My fevered dreams continue. Ninety-four days until Election Day. 

Plague Journal, Day 115: Choosing An Endpoint

Monday: The Kid and I are heading upstate for a few days, to a cabin with no internet, no wi-fi, no cable, but a nearby state park, grill, outdoor chairs, lots of books and, says the proprietor, VCR tapes. We’re taking a jigsaw puzzle, books, mosquito repellant, walking shoes, swimsuits. 

New York City today enters Phase 3 of reopening (save for indoor dining). Numbers of COVID-19 sufferers in New York City and State have bumped up the past few week, but numbers in the hospitals, numbers of dead, have continued to decline. The improving local picture contrasts markedly with spiking numbers across much of the rest of the country — aside from the number of dead, which either remains a lagging indicator or reflects better protections of old people or reflects improved medical treatments as doctors manage the virus or, most likely, all three. 

I likely won’t post for a few days. (I’d have to drive to a town to find wi-fi; I doubt I’ll want to.) I may write. I’ve written and posted for 112 straight days. I’m not sure if I’ll continue this part of this project. I’m tired of writing, tired of the daily (self-imposed) deadline, feel a sense of diminishing returns. But the project has also given structure and meaning to a deeply unsettling stretch. I’m scared to stop.

Many dull days I’ve refreshed myself with a reminder or two. 

As CoronaWorld reality set in, a friend and generous reader cited advice of her friend, photographer Alec Soth, to students: “If you can’t make anything up, if you can’t think straight, it’s enough to get down the details. Record the things you’ll forget, that your brain will later shield from you the way trauma erases and reshapes memory. Your last night out in the world. The last time things seemed normal. The morning the grocery store first felt dangerous. The first moment it all felt close to home. The room where you are isolating now.” 

“The function of art in society is to build. We rebuild when we’re in danger of collapsing.” — Sigmund Freud

“Recounting the story … allows us to put the parts and pieces into context, and also to develop meaning from the story. Those elements — the recalling and setting to rest, and putting it in a meaningful context — are part of the recovery process.” — Dr. Robert Ursano, professor of psychiatry and neuroscience.

“We use our minds not to discover facts but to hide them.” — neuroscientist Antonio Damasio

Research from Southern Methodist University suggested that writing or talking about traumatic experiences had a positive impact on a patient’s health and immune system. Holding back thoughts and emotions is stressful; you have the negative feelings either way, but you have to work to repress them. That taxes the brain and body, making you more susceptible to getting sick or just feeling awful. — Eric Ravenscraft, The New York Times. 

To keep such projects constructive, Ravenscraft made a few suggestions: choose the right time to talk; talk about the good as well as the bad; choose an endpoint. 

See you on the other side. 

Plague Journal, Day 114: A Few Words About Independence Day (Including from The Kid)

Declaration of Independence, July 4, 1776: “We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness. — That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed, — That whenever any Form of Government becomes destructive of these ends, it is the Right of the People to alter or to abolish it, and to institute new Government, laying its foundation on such principles and organizing its powers in such form, as to them shall seem most likely to effect their Safety and Happiness.”  

* * *

The Kid, July 4, 2020: “I’m not a fan of Independence Day celebrations. I think it’s a day that should be recognized but not glamorized. I don’t think it’s fair to say that we’re founded on the idea we’re all created equal. When those men were writing it, they didn’t mean that ‘all’ were created equal. They didn’t think of slaves as people; they thought of Black people and women as property. The country was founded by racists and misogynists and bad people. 

“OK, the Declaration of Independence says ‘All men are created equal.’ That’s a good thing we should try to live up to, and whether or not the Declaration says it, it should be a goal for any society. But I don’t think our nation was founded on that idea — I take offense to that, and to the glamorizing of July 4 as ‘independence day’ when it didn’t mean independence for the vast majority of people who lived in America. We shouldn’t glamorize a bunch of rich white men who in some ways weren’t better than King George.”

* * * 

Frederick Douglass, July 5, 1852: “I am not included within the pale of this glorious anniversary! Your high independence only reveals the immeasurable distance between us. The blessings in which you this day rejoice are not enjoyed in common. The rich inheritance of justice, liberty, prosperity, and independence bequeathed by your fathers is shared by you, not by me. The sunlight that brought life and healing to you has brought stripes and death to me. 

"This Fourth of July is yours, not mine. You may rejoice, I must mourn. To drag a man in fetters into the grand illuminated temple of liberty, and call upon him to join you in joyous anthems, were inhuman mockery and sacrilegious irony. Do you mean, citizens, to mock me, by asking me to speak today? 

“What to the American slave is your Fourth of July? I answer, a day that reveals to him more than all other days of the year, the gross injustice and cruelty to which he is the constant victim. To him your celebration is a sham; your boasted liberty an unholy license; your national greatness, swelling vanity; your sounds of rejoicing are empty and heartless; your denunciations of tyrants, brass-fronted impudence; your shouts of liberty and equality, hollow mockery; your prayers and hymns, your sermons and thanksgivings, with all your religious parade and solemnity, are to him mere bombast, fraud, deception, impiety, and hypocrisy, a thin veil to cover up crimes which would disgrace a nation of savages. There is not a nation of the earth guilty of practices more shocking and bloody than are the people of these United States at this very hour.  Go where you may, search where you will, roam through all the monarchies and despotisms of the Old World, travel through South America, search out every abuse and when you have found the last, lay your facts by the side of the everyday practices of this nation, and you will say with me that, for revolting barbarity and shameless hypocrisy, America reigns without a rival.”

* * *

George W. Bush, July 4, 2008: “Thomas Jefferson understood that these rights do not belong to Americans alone. They belong to all mankind. And he looked to the day when all people could secure them. … In one of the final letters of his life, he wrote, ‘May it be to the world, what I believe it will be — to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all — the Signal of arousing men to burst the chains, and to assume the blessings and security of self-government.’ …

“We also honor Jefferson's legacy by welcoming newcomers to our land. And that is what we're here to celebrate today. Throughout our history, the words of the Declaration have inspired immigrants from around the world to set sail to our shores. These immigrants have helped transform 13 small colonies into a great and growing nation of more than 300 [million] people. They've made America a melting pot of cultures from all across the world. They've made diversity one of the great strengths of our democracy. And all of us here today are here to honor and pay tribute to that great notion of America.

“Those of you taking the oath of citizenship at this ceremony hail from 30 different nations. You represent many different ethnicities and races and religions. But you all have one thing in common -- and that is a shared love of freedom. This love of liberty is what binds our nation together, and this is the love that makes us all Americans.”

* * *

Purna Swaraj, India, (adopted) Jan. 26, 1930: “We believe that it is the inalienable right of the Indian people, as of any other people, to have freedom and to enjoy the fruits of their toil and have the necessities of life, so that they may have full opportunities of growth. We believe also that if any government deprives a people of these rights and oppresses them the people have a further right to alter it or to abolish it. The British government in India has not only deprived the Indian people of their freedom but has based itself on the exploitation of the masses, and has ruined India economically, politically, culturally, and spiritually. We believe, therefore, that India must sever the British connection and attain Purna Swaraj, or complete independence.”

* * *

The Kid, July 4, 2020: “I think a lot of decent equality ideals have come out of the original founders. But I’m not sure that the original founders would have wanted some of it. India’s founders may have got inspiration from the Declaration of Independence. But I don’t think America’s founders would have cared if India were free; I think they would’ve thought India should be ruled by the British. 

“If American has become a pioneer for other nations to follow, I think it’s mostly by chance. A lot of the time America may have been portrayed as amazing land of freedom for others to aspire to, but what others were told was not super accurate. I think America was given more credit than it deserved.” 

* * *

Barack Obama, July 4, 2016: “It's important to remember what a miracle this country is. How incredibly lucky we are that people, generations ago, were willing to take up arms and fight for our freedom. And then people, inside this country, understanding that there were imperfections in our union and were willing to keep on fighting on behalf of extending that freedom to all people and not just some. 

“And that story of independence is not something that happens and then we just put away. It's something that we have to fight for every single day. It's something that we have to nurture, and we have to spread the word, and we have to work on. And it involves us respecting each other. And it involves us recognizing that there are still people in this country who are going hungry -- and they're not free because of that. There are still people in this country who can't find work -- and freedom without the ability to contribute to society and put a roof over your head or look after your family, that's not yet what we aim for. 

"And so on a day like this, we celebrate, we have fun, we marvel at everything that's been done before, but we also have to recommit ourselves to making sure that everybody in this country is free; that everybody has opportunity; that everybody gets a fair shot; that we look after all of our veterans when they come home; that we look after our military families and give them a fair shake; that every child has a good education. That is what we should be striving for on Independence Day.”

* * *

Donald Trump, July 3, 2020: “Angry mobs are trying to tear down statues of our Founders, deface our most sacred memorials, and unleash a wave of violent crime in our cities. Many of these people have no idea why they are doing this, but some know exactly what they are doing. They think the American people are weak and soft and submissive. But no, the American people are strong and proud, and they will not allow our country, and all of its values, history, and culture, to be taken from them. … 

“In our schools, our newsrooms, even our corporate boardrooms, there is a new far-left fascism that demands absolute allegiance. If you do not speak its language, perform its rituals, recite its mantras, and follow its commandments, then you will be censored, banished, blacklisted, persecuted, and punished. It’s not going to happen to us. 

“Make no mistake: this left-wing cultural revolution is designed to overthrow the American Revolution. In so doing, they would destroy the very civilization that rescued billions from poverty, disease, violence, and hunger, and that lifted humanity to new heights of achievement, discovery, and progress. To make this possible, they are determined to tear down every statue, symbol, and memory of our national heritage.” 

* * *

The Kid, July 4, 2020: “The Declaration and the Constitution in a lot of parts make sense. People should absolutely be treated equally. But I’m not sure the founders had such revolutionary ideals, since they weren’t really talking about all people. What we’re doing on the Fourth of July is not celebrating the idea of equality; we’re glamorizing the people who wrote the words, when those people were vastly problematic and racist and came from a time — well, let’s just say that’s not a super great time in our history. 

“The idea of equality: let’s celebrate that! Let’s celebrate Juneteenth! Let’s celebrate the freeing of enslaved people! We should be more celebratory of people who actually thought of equality for all, not just for white male property owners. There are better people to celebrate and glorify than these men and the founding of an inherently racist country.”

* * *

Joe Biden, July 4, 2020: “Our nation was founded on a simple idea: We're all created equal. We've never lived up to it — but we've never stopped trying. This Independence Day, let's not just celebrate those words, let's commit to finally fulfill them. Happy Fourth Of July!”

Plague Journal, Day 113: Aging Loved Ones Go Wobbly

My brother sent his three siblings an email Wednesday evening: 

“Since Monday mid-morning Mom has been feeling dizzy. She called her general practitioner Tuesday and was advised to go to urgent care or an emergency room to get checked out. I took her to the ER yesterday afternoon as urgent care was booked. 

“She was diagnosed with hypertension. Her blood pressure when we checked in was 188/73 — way too high. It was lower when we left; I don’t know the number. Her sodium level was low but not too bad. I called her cardiologist this morning; the earliest appointment I could get is next Tuesday. Her blood pressure this morning was 150. 

“I spoke last night on the phone with the doc who saw her. (I couldn’t go in with her since the ER has strict COVID-19 protocols.) He has concerns, which I share, that Mom is unstable on her feet and probably shouldn’t be home alone. I stayed around last night until Mom was getting ready for bed and called her this morning before she got up. (I’m with her as I write this.) She’s using a walker to get around the house. She can walk fine with it but is wobbly without it. 

“I asked the doc about COVID-19. They test everyone who gets admitted, but since she wasn’t admitted, no test. She doesn’t have COVID symptoms, so he wasn’t concerned about that. 

“She feels better this morning: not dizzy, and she has her appetite back. But she’s still a bit unsure on her feet, and her cognitive abilities seem a bit diminished. I’ll be leaving soon but checking in every few hours. We’ll check her blood pressure regularly, and I’ll be around for the coming three-day weekend. Mom will also let three different neighbors know what’s going on. Her spirit is fine since she’s feeling better today.” 

The five of us did a conference call Wednesday night. Mom, who’s 89, has lived alone since Dad’s death 10 years ago, seemed normal, grateful for if a touch impatient with our concerns. She had an episode in 2018 when, while traveling to the East Coast, she got a cold, then flew back to California. Her salt levels became alarmingly low, her blood pressure spiked, and for a few days she was bed-ridden, listless, groggy, with diminished cognition. My older sister flew in from out of state to be with her; doctors adjusted her blood-pressure medication, and within a week or so she was close to normal. 

On the phone we encouraged her to keep a log of her blood-pressure numbers, along with notes about her condition she can show to the doctor next week. We ran through emergency protocols, encouraging her to call 9-1-1 if she’s in any trouble. She said she’d prefer to rely on a neighbor, maybe call a cab; we exhorted her to consider those as inferior options, even if she doesn’t feel like it’s a “real emergency.” With some force she insisted that she feels able to judge her condition. She probably is. 

Her blood pressure numbers over the last couple of days have remained normal; this weekend, if she keeps improving, she’s likely to give up the walker. 

Our close family friend in Northern California, retired and living with her husband, had a health scare of her own, which she recounted on her blog. 

“We were meeting our kids and grandkids at my favorite beach to celebrate my birthday. I wasn't feeling well, and my oxygen numbers were low, but I am never one to miss a celebration. Once when I was 6, I was in a play in school. I had a fever in the morning, but I insisted that I go to school — as you might imagine, I was an insistent child. I was wearing a red velvet dress, and during the play my face got redder and redder to match the red velvet. I had the chicken pox. 

“Never one to learn certain lessons — I face emotional situations with great courage and live in deep denial about my physical being — I thought I’d be fine at the beach. Walking to the sea I was very short of breath, and on the way back I could barely make it to the car. My elder daughter, who watches me like a hawk, grabbed my arm and helped me all the way to the car.  My husband finally insisted that I call the doctor, and the doc said, ‘Go to the ER!’ 

“My husband left me off at the ER entrance Saturday late afternoon; that was the last I saw him until Tuesday noon. 

"At the ER I was kept outside while they gave me a COVID-19 test and checked my vital signs. I was then put in a room in the ER. Spooky. Everyone was masked with plastic shields and gloved, with sterile gowns. Very few people around. I was kept there for many hours and given a first round of testing. My rapid COVID-19 test proved negative, but they insisted I be admitted as my oxygen numbers were low. 

“For three days and nights I lived in an isolation room. It was a large corner room with a lovely view of the Berkeley Hills, but its size and view, devoid of any people, was disconcerting. My husband was not able to visit or bring me anything (COVID rules). At one point in desperation, I asked a kindly nurse to go downstairs and get my phone charger from him, which the nurse valiantly did.

“I had another COVID test, which was negative. But I was kept in my room until Monday night when, around midnight, I was awakened and wheeled into another room without explanation. Nurses came into the room, as in the ER wearing masks, plastic shields, gloves, and sterile gowns. They were kind and efficient, although muffled and hard to understand. I began to feel as if I had been shot into space where human contact was no longer possible; I wondered if human nurses had been replaced by androids. 

“I didn't feel ill. A small amount of oxygen helped my oxygen levels, but I was wheeled from test to test through empty halls and laboratories, and the feeling of outer space intensified. A few comments from nurses also disturbed me. After I asked, one nurse told me they aren't tested for COVID unless they get sick. Another said their work wouldn't be as stressful if they had enough protective gear. A third, when I said my room was cold, quipped that the hospital probably hadn't paid its bills. (He was, however, able to turn up the heat.) Grumblings of the spaceship crew, but the captain was nowhere in sight: all questions were referred to an unseen charge nurse or the doctor who visited briefly each day. Family and friends called daily ,which kept me tethered to earth for parts of each day. But as the hours stretched on, my mind and body floated in space. Finally, on Tuesday around noon, I was released, and I landed back on earth, with no new information about why my oxygen had dipped so low. 

“All rather freaky. Now I’m home, fully back on land and feeling fine. But I carry with me a sense of unease, some about my health but more about how we must live in this world of COVID-19.”

Plague Journal, Day 112: Dining Out, Feeling Our Way To A New Normal

Thursday evening. The Girlfriend and I ride bicycles to a Park Slope restaurant — 2 miles north for her, a mile south for me. We’re meeting friends we haven’t seen since Before CoronaWorld, a married couple living with their two children, a daughter done with her first college year, a son ready for his first. 

About 90 minutes before dinner Friend 1 texts: “I am thinking that we are not sure what the seating options are going to be like. Each of us should feel free to speak up if we are not comfortable with whatever they can offer us.” 

Me: “Agreed. Anyone should be able to bail, or change plans (find another restaurant, get food to go, sit in a park, etc.).” 

Friend 1: “Yes, flexibility and appreciation for the ability to be healthy enough to spend time with friends should be the order of the evening. See you soon.” 

As I ride south on 5th Avenue, a Park Slope commercial strip, I figure we’re going to have to bail. Restaurant after restaurant has claimed sidewalk territory, crammed in as many tables as possible, block after block of strangers drinking and eating, if not shoulder to shoulder, certainly not 6 feet apart. Outdoors is safer than in, and heaven knows we’d all enjoy a night out, but I have no interest in threatening our health for the sake of a restaurant meal. 

I turn west on Union Street, ride to the restaurant, see The Girlfriend has secured a spot; my worries melt. She’s sitting at two small circular tables set in what used to be street parking, set off from Union’s two-way traffic by planters, a three-wheeled bike holding a black barrel (a heating oil canister?). The space sits a good 15 feet from other diners (another table on the street, four or five on the sidewalk), affording more privacy than would an indoor booth. Tables are small but more than 6 feet across; we can chat without fear. 

The restaurant, Palo Santo, has for 14 years served pan-Latin cuisine in the middle of a block of brownstone row houses. (The building had been a ravioli shop, grandfathering in its commercial use.) Our friends recommended it. The food, in the event, is terrific (roasted asparagus, ceviche, tuna, skirt steak, key lime pie, strawberry/rhubarb tart); they have a $45, three-course prix fixe menu that makes it reasonable. We order a lovely Argentinian Malbec, then a second. The evening is sticky but not impossible; occasionally a loud vehicle (delivery van, garbage truck, motorcycle) interrupts; but the service is friendly; the proprietor (Jacques Gautier) circulates unobtrusively; we are free to enjoy food, wine, conversation. 

All this would have felt routine Before CoronaWorld; it’s remarkable how restorative it feels now. 

The Girlfriend and our friends compare notes on their college-aged children, all of whom are set in August to head to campus (in New Jersey, Massachusetts, Vermont). Everyone’s worried about their health, worried the campuses will close mid-semester. But they’re also worried about the passing months of inactivity; the kids are home, not working, spending hours with their screens. (Our friends’ daughter, The Girlfriend’s son had spring jobs that disappeared in CoronaWorld.) The kids are all eager to go, though both older ones struggled in their last semesters. 

The parents of these young adults struggle to set limits, to check impulses to hover and helicopter. The kids, independent thinkers, struggle to manage adversity. 

The Girlfriend had a screaming match this week with her son about his inability to sign up for remote summer school classes at a City University of New York college. To his credit, he’s been trying; the bureaucracy is near impossible to navigate. To ensure the credits transfer to his university he needs to get course syllabi, needs to get hold of the instructors, adjuncts who aren’t responsive to their college email accounts. To pay for the courses he needs to take care of a hold placed on his account for reasons unfathomable; he needs to contact a bursar. The Son’s disinclination to use telephones to speak to other human beings puts him in a bind here. It all drives The Girlfriend crazy. But she backed down; ultimately, he managed. 

For her part, our friends’ daughter was doing fine until a head injury (playing soccer) upended her last semester. Her parents then took turns shuttling from Brooklyn to central Massachusetts, renting cars every week, staying in a local hotel, taking her home every weekend, making sure she was healthy, eating well, getting to class on time. 

Friend 2 tells a story of her last final exam, in French. The daughter’s been unusually anxious for a few days, but the two spend a relaxed evening in her dorm room, watching Dolly Parton in something or other, pot smoke wafting under the door. He goes back to his hotel, then texts her next morning, about an hour before her 8 a.m. exam. 

No answer. 

He texts again a few minutes later. No answer. 

A few minutes later he texts again. Nothing. 

He calls. Straight to voice mail.

It’s a 20-minute walk across campus to her classroom. Now it’s 7:45, and his mind reels. Has he misread last night’s signals? Has she freaked out, shut down, derailed? Could she have harmed herself? He drives to school, sprints from parking lot to dorm, pounds on her door. 

She answers, sleepy, phone in hand. Its battery is dead; she heard nothing. She dresses in a trice, runs to class, missing almost a quarter of her two-hour exam, on which she does well enough to pass the course. 

“We’re not doing that again,” Friend 2 says ruefully. 

“Our main parenting task this year is letting go,” says his husband. 

We finish our coffee, say our goodbyes. It’s almost 10:30 p.m. — we’ve been at the restaurant for almost three hours. (I’d have guessed two, max.) The Girlfriend and I bike home on quiet streets.  

Plague Journal, Day 111: Fall School Flux: Administrators Flail, Parents Fret

The Kid’s public-school principal sent an end-of-year message indicating that, if the New York City Department Of Education declines to provide reopening guidance by mid-July, he’ll survey parents to determine our priorities for safe reopening. 

That such decisions could be left up to individual administrators is insane, but that’s CoronaWorld. 

The DOE already surveyed 300,000 families; three in four said they’d prefer kids in school buildings in the fall if virus protections are taken. Most don’t feel great about it (only one in four said they’d be “very comfortable”). 

But parents have to go back to work; for one thing, federal unemployment benefits are set to run out this month. Some are convinced by news that corona-consequences for kids don’t seem that bad; the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends getting kids back in school, too. For families facing this dilemma, which will disproportionately affect the poor, families of color, and women — well, sending kids back seems OK, I guess, fingers crossed, don’t step on any sidewalk cracks.  

Mayor de Blasio said any family will be able to do remote learning full-time; that might help wealthy families who can keep a parent home or hire a tutor, but for most it’s not a solution. (For one thing, it’s an educational disaster for most.)

Following Centers for Disease Control and Prevention guidelines, the DOE said many NYC school buildings can keep students physically distanced only by holding a third of classroom capacity — 10 students instead of 30. Does that mean one week at school, two weeks at home? One day, two days? No one knows. 

De Blasio’s plan (“we’re going to hope and pray in the meantime that the scientific community makes progress on this disease”) sounds not much different from the president’s (“I think that at some point that's going to sort of just disappear. I hope”). Meanwhile, Gov. Cuomo, never missing a chance to big-foot the mayor, reminds us all that school buildings will open only if he approves. 

Meanwhile, one in five New York City teachers could seek medical accommodations requiring them to stay home to teach. With city budgets crunched, the DOE will face a hiring freeze this year; hiring more aides or teachers is off the table. 

A friend with a child at The Kid’s K-8 public school posted on social media a column decrying the situation, not just in New York but nationally; my friend wrote, “My heart is breaking.” Herewith, the ensuing conversation: 

Friend 1: “I am just sitting and waiting for guidance. I am trying to prepare for something, but we have no idea what that is. I have to prepare for everything, just in case that’s what is chosen. I can’t even think what all the possibilities are, never mind prepare for them. And the school and district have been silent.”

Friend 2: “We just wrote to our school district basically saying this. We are in the suburbs. What’s the plan? Can we get some tents and some volunteers to supervise kids?”

Friend 3: “Great idea except they are untrained, unvetted, unfingerprinted. You cannot just plug in warm bodies when you are talking about children. I can already see the NYPost article when some kid is sexually violated behind a tent or some child with behavioral challenges is harmed by a frustrated college student who does not know how to handle. Teachers are not babysitters and tents with ‘camp counselors’ will not cut it.”

Original poster: “I respectfully disagree. They can background check, and kids having social time with their peers during school hours is hugely preferable to them sitting at home alone while their parents are working all day.” 

Friend 3: “I am a DOE employee. Background checks take 6-8 weeks. Training in management of children's social emotional needs and how to lead a group of children safely is a sequence of 2-3 classes. How much are they paying these college students in tents? What benefits do they get? What liability insurance will cover them if a child is injured or dies in their care? All it takes is one kid with a peanut allergy. This is never going to happen in a system with 1.1 million kids: I am not sure it would even be legal. Also, students with special needs have to be given the same access to this tent: blind children, autistic children, children in wheelchairs, children who bite when agitated, children who are oppositional and defiant. Which volunteer is going to be in that tent?”

Original poster:  “I don't discount everything you're saying, but I do think this type of thinking is what is paralyzing the DOE from coming up with solutions. Every solution is going to have obstacles, but to spend all the time focusing on the obstacles is going to result in 1.1 million children losing another year of education. That should be way more horrifying to contemplate than a peanut allergy or a lawsuit.”

Friend 4: “Where there is a will and funding there is a way. We don’t actually care about finding a solution. If this was a problem for rich white guys, we would have solved it months ago.”

Friend 3: “The challenges in a large urban public school system are myriad. From a disabilities rights perspective, you cannot offer a half day of school that fails to apply to a significant percentage of every school's population. These are not dismissable obstacles. The sense that the DOE is throwing up its hands does not do justice to the complexity.”

Original poster: “It is a perfectly legitimate utilitarian argument to say I would prefer one child die of a nut allergy so that 1.1 million students, 70 percent of whom are impoverished, receive a year of education. Politicians are making these judgements all the time, especially right now. And to pretend that for education’s sake we can’t tolerate a single child dying, but for capitalism’s sake thousands can die—that’s lunacy. But it’s what is happening right now in FL and TX, who seemed to think bars are worth lives, but educated children aren’t.”

Friend 3: “I am just saying college kids in tents are not going to achieve the goal of educating impoverished kids.”

Friend 4: “What this would allow is for kids to attend school only part time so that social distancing measures could be maintained, and then have the ‘camp’ be used as sort of an after-school program to support online learning and socialization. More importantly, it would provide full-time childcare so parents can get back to work.”