a daily account of history in the making.

The Covid emergency is over, according to a declaration today by the WHO and the US government, so it felt fitting to formally close the chapter on this blog. And as the apocalypse officially ends, I am writing this final dispatch from an airplane — which is kind of amazing since it was not so long ago that the thought of getting close to 250 strangers in a metal tube of recirculated air became anathema to me. Yet here we are. Nobody is wearing a mask and the airline didn’t even give us alcohol wipes when we boarded. I forgot to turn on the overhead vent to keep the air near my face clear of plague because… for sure that’s a thing, right? Ah, the little lies we have learned to tell ourselves over the past three years. I think they exist to fill in the blanks between certainties. And there are a lot of those these days. I mean, I just said it’s “over” but there’s no ending here, just this messy epilogue.

It’s been nearly a month since I’ve updated my “daily” journal, which I have taken as a sign that my life under the threat of Covid 19 has achieved an accepted, new-normal status. My urge to document every day waned as the increasing numbers of the infected and the ratcheting up of lockdowns around the world faded into the background noise of my day-to-day. Like I said at the beginning of all of this: it is amazing how adaptable we are. Today, the US has recorded 1,771,631 cases and 103,418 deaths. We appear to have battled back from the overwhelming case load that pushed into New York hospitals to the brink, and while the infection counts are still rising, it would appear we have managed to “flatten the curve” at this point and the country is re-opening.

I am exhausted. I haven’t had a hug since March and it’s taking everything I have just to keep from falling off this emotional seesaw. After finding myself dozing on the couch at 9:30 p.m. on Friday still watching some terrible crime show that was nonetheless a little better than the terrible news show that has been on TV for the past two months, I gave up on the week and decided to drag myself to bed. Even though it was too early, I pulled on my pyjamas and tucked myself under the covers, ready for the black relief of a dreamless sleep. As I leaned over to make sure my phone was on do-not-disturb mode before shutting the light out, I noticed a text from a friend who lives about a block away — in a home with an ocean view. “Have you seen the bioluminescence?!”

As another month begins, Covid-19 induced stay-at-home orders expire across a patchwork of US states, which means people are slowly getting back to business. It feels disoriented, like waking up after an afternoon nap that went a little too long. You’re still tired and you just want to stay asleep but the sun is shining and it feels like it’s time. The re-opening is happening under a set of disjointed conditions similar to those that guided the closures nearly two months ago. Governors across the company are implementing different rules by state, with various local area officials recommending their own modifications.

The USA hit the million-case mark – just shy of 60,000 recorded deaths. The comparative figure that’s being brought out at the moment is that in 20 years of the Vietnam war, there were 47,424 American combat casualties. Meanwhile, nearly lost among Coronavirus counts and disastrous economic reports, there was a headline yesterday in the New York Times about UFOs. Seriously. Evidently the Pentagon chose this moment in history to declassify a pair of tapes made back in 2004 and 2015 that had been circulating for years among alien hunters. Why the DOD chose to let the footage fly escapes me but, when even UFO headlines didn’t make much of an impact, that’s as much an indicator as anything that things have generally gone awry.

As the first few hot days of the year arrived in Los Angeles, Covid-19 cabin fever hit full peak. I went for a socially distanced walk with friends last week and found a busy Venice boardwalk at 7 a.m. After a 20-something neighbor headed out Friday night to watch sunset by the pier, I was surprised to hear his skateboard back in the yard a few minutes later. I went out to find out what happened. “There were so many people,” he called up to my balcony. “I didn’t feel safe.” All day on Saturday, a parade of mostly young people made their way through the alleyways and streets of my neighborhood — so many that it felt almost like any normal beach day. There was an air of teenaged defiance about many of the people who passed my window onto those prohibited sidewalks -- like kids playing hooky from school.

I woke up at 12:03 this morning to an earthquake. I have always found my apartment creepy at night. There’s just enough light from the streetlights outside to highlight the dark shapes that seem to shift and slither in the shadows of my bedroom. By day, mine is a neighborhood typically packed with tourists and beachgoers. But, after dark, a dense stillness smothers the streets, the only sound is the crash of waves, punctuated by the occasional sharp yelp of a seal. The quarantine pause has only compounded the disquiet of nighttime. But all of that is OK because I can pretend not to notice when I’m asleep. And I’m a good sleeper. I went to boarding school from 9th-12th grade and learned the hard way how to sleep through anything. When I’m out, I’m out.

Things are starting to get better. In New York, officials say the case count has begun to plateau. California hasn’t seen the spike it feared was coming. Antibody testing that will help to identify those who are no longer at risk is starting to roll out. Back at home in Toronto, friends tell me health officials are talking about a successful “flattening” of the curve. It feels like we’re slowly starting to bring this ship around. And I’ve got mixed feelings about that. There is a part of me that has become comfortable with parts of this new normal.

So this thing got weirdly close today. I’ve had a few people in my outer circle who have had run-ins with Covid-19. A work acquaintance got very sick at home in the UK, and was presumed positive. She is now on the road to recovery after a brutal two-week illness, having narrowly avoided hospitalization. Another woman I know wound up in quarantine at the start of all of this, isolated for weeks in a foreign hospital after getting a positive test result but few symptoms. Another friend who is a celebrity posted his whole movement history to Instagram to help alert people who might have been in contact with him while he was asymptomatic. He is on the mend now. But today my mother called with family news about one of the rare patients who got put on a ventilator and survived.

I haven’t been able to listen to music since all of this started. I have been telling myself it’s because I’m enjoying the temporary new quiet of the world, but that’s not the whole truth. I’m not sure I understand fully why I’m struggling, but it has something to do with the power music has to transport you through time and space. Just a chord or two can turn you into the person you were the last time you heard a song and bring to life a memory you forgot you ever had. And maybe some of it is that I don’t want to connect good music to the memories I’m making right now. Like: what is the right soundtrack for the plague?

Maybe don’t read this if you’re looking for a boost today. It’s possible that pessimism is as infectious as this virus, so feel free to back yourself quietly into your personal bubble of hope. No, really. You probably should: I’ve been thinking about the end of democracy. Growing up, I figured Americans and Canadians were pretty much the same... And then I moved here. I don’t want to be defined by my politics so I don’t share my views all that widely. But I like to joke among friends that our right-wing Conservative party in my native Canada sits to the left of American Democrats. So, it’s safe to say I fall somewhere on the left-hand side of the political spectrum in the USA.

The perfume of a rosebush hit me with a wallop this morning. During this moment of the Great Pause, as everything has slowed, I’m starting to notice all kinds of new things. It’s so quiet, with few cars on the roads and planes in the sky, no gas powered leaf blowers or construction clamor, and people mostly at home. There’s space for subtlety, now. It’s like how a spotlight only seems to catch the glitter of dust in its beam when there’s nothing else to see on the stage.

So, it has been a few days since I’ve posted one of my daily entries. A couple of you have reached out and asked how I am and thank you for that. Seriously. Thank you. I’m OK. I’m just mired in the existential weariness of stress and uncertainty. My body is healthy in quarantine, but my mind is sick and tired. I don’t think I need to rehash the reasons we all share, right? The Dow has dropped 30-plus per cent, millions are rushing to file unemployment claims, there are more than half a million cases of this virus in the USA… But life goes on and I have a first-world problem right now that has less to do with this global crisis and more to do with working from home. And that is the meetings. Alllll the meetings. I know I’m not alone in this.

A guy walking his dog on the sidewalk this morning called out, “thank you” to me as I dodged into the street to keep six-feet of distance between us. I was returning from my weekly laundry fluff-n-fold excursion, so I was carrying my laundry bag on my back and wearing a mask. I started wearing a mask last week, before the CDC guidance came through to recommend it. I had been looking at photos from the 1918 pandemic and realized if it did my grandparents some good, it couldn’t hurt me. It became an evening craft project as I cut up an old Space X tee-shirt I had, and hand sewed ear loops out of elastic headbands I purchased online.

I woke up at 4 a.m. to a hiss of raindrops on the pavement in the alley outside my window. Rainfall is unusual enough in Los Angeles that it usually disturbs my sleep when it comes at night. And, like a distant gunshot or the wail of a cat, it unsettles me until I can shake off my dreams enough to make sense of the sound. The Stallion tells a story about the first time he took his young daughter back east to Buffalo to visit her extended family. She was barely talking, but had enough words to make herself understood. As they stepped outside together one morning, the California-raised toddler froze, deeply concerned, and looked up at the gathering storm. “Why is the sky broken, daddy?” she asked.

There have been a lot of words in this space. Today, the journey so far from my iPhone photo roll.

I had some welcome company on my walk around the neighborhood this morning: the pair of squirrels that sometimes scamper along behind me atop the hedges and fences that line the sidewalk. I know them pretty well, so I wasn’t particularly surprised. And the sight of them usually makes me smile. Others, too, since I’m sure it looks like I’m taking them for a walk. The Senior Neighbor started feeding the little guys about a year ago when they became orphaned in a high-wire accident. I know you’re not supposed to feed wildlife, but our furry pals know their place. They have learned through trial and error that we humans startle easily and definitely prefer that rodents stay outside.

A good friend hit me up on FaceTime yesterday evening. It was dark and I could barely see her. She had escaped to her porch for a moment away from her spouse and teenager. “I started drinking at 2 p.m.,” she announced. She took a breath to steady herself, lowered her voice, and leaned in so close that all I could see were her nose and mouth. “Can I kill them?” she breathed. “Please tell me I can kill them.” Of course she would never kill them. This is a woman who would stand in front of a train for the people she loves. Hell, she shops for groceries in a coronavirus infected world for the people she loves; that’s the definition of a selfless caregiver right now.

I’m tired. I had thought this weekend that maybe I was settling into a sort of acceptance, that I was experiencing the astonishing human capability for adaptation and coming to terms with all of this as my new normal. I was wrong; I can’t accept this yet. There is a long expanse of unknown in front of all of us right now and it’s hard for me to take. In a Presidential address in the Rose Garden on Sunday, where media members were spaced out a chair’s width apart from one and other on the grass, Trump extended the social distancing guidelines until April 30 – more than a month away. Many experts agree that even this is optimistic.

Over the past few years there has been a “slow” trend bubbling into the mainstream. We’ve seen slow food; a maker movement; slow TV; the minimalism of fewer, better, things; #Vanlife and hipsters all making their way into the zeitgeist. It has all felt to me like a reaction to an increasingly frantic pace of life. But now, facing the challenges of an enforced slowdown spurred by a global health threat, it almost seems prescient. Forced to adapt to our new normal, we’re all switching gears. And everybody is baking.

Turning the blog over today to the writing of retired teacher and chaplain Kitty O’Meara of Madison, Wisconsin. Her poem “And the people stayed home” has been making the rounds on social media, passed along by the likes of Deepak Chopra and Oprah. It resonates, so I’m sharing it on this quarantine Sunday as an optimistic meditation on our moment in history.

Grocery shopping has become a whole new adventure. I’m shopping for three at the moment, even though I’m living alone while the Stallion cares for his mother in another city. It’s a simple thing to buy a few extra groceries for the immunocompromised friend and senior neighbor, but it makes a big difference in helping them to minimize their personal risk. Experts remind us daily at this point that the fewer excursions we all need to make into public space, the less likely we are to come into contact with the virus. But at some point, somebody has to go get food.

Nobody knows what day it is anymore. I woke up Thursday morning disappointed that it was only Tuesday. Today, a colleague tried to schedule a meeting for yesterday. There is so much happening right now — and so little at the same time, as we all find ourselves confined to our homes — that it’s hard to keep track. I only figured out what day it was this morning when my phone’s calendar alerted shortly after I woke up to remind me to leave some cash out for the housekeeper. The notification gave me a jolt: it was a time machine back to life before… this.

While I’m over here social distancing in Los Angeles today, I wanted to turn the blog over to a nurse friend in Toronto who has some practical advice on how to actually do the social distancing and quarantine recommendations we’re getting. She writes: This is hardcore, people! But we can do this. You can do this! We have the internet! Books! Games! Toys! Social isolation is seriously how we fight this invisible enemy. We have to do better and Lord knows, if I can do it, you can do it.

Canadians, as a people, follow the rules. The Stallion likes to tell a joke about it. I don’t happen to think it’s very funny, but that’s one of the things that makes it so hilarious to him. Q. How do you get 100 Canadians out of a swimming pool on a hot summer day? A. You say, “Please get out of the swimming pool....” [Ba-dum-CH!'] The first time he told it, it took me a few beats past the punch line to realize I was expected to laugh. I heard it as a simple statement of fact, not a dig by a proudly individualistic American at the deferential character of his northern neighbors.

It’s so quiet. Los Angeles has around 4 million people in the area strictly defined by the borders of the city. But this is a region of urban sprawl that goes for miles and miles, until it is forced to terminate at an insurmountable feature -- like the ocean or mountains or desert. Los Angeles County tops 10 million. Add the OC to our south and you’ve got another 3 million. Yet as I drifted off last night, there was just… quiet. No thrum of traffic, no rumbling planes, no clinking of glasses from a dinner party down the street. Even the neighborhood dogs are quiet, since they’re now at home with their masters fulltime and have fewer things to bark about.

“Not far,” my guide said when I asked him for the thousandth time in four miles whether we were close to our camp yet. “We’re nearly there.” I put my head down and continued slogging forward, counting each labored breath in and out. One, two, three... The air is thin at 17,000 feet in elevation. Each gasp delivers only about half the oxygen of sea level. It’s like being on the edge of space, with so little oxygen above you in the atmosphere that the sky stays deep, indigo blue all day, even as the sun hits its bright white peak. You have keep your sunglasses on so your eyes don’t burn.

They say the five stages of grief are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Based on my unofficial survey of friends on FaceTime, people on social media, colleagues on conference calls, and television news, Americans are still working their way through the first four stages. I’m not sure anybody has come to accept this yet.

I accidentally hit the wrong button on a group text yesterday and wound up on a three-way FaceTime call with two of my closest girlfriends. We all live within 60 miles of each other, but we’re physically divided by the ocean of social distancing. I didn’t realize how much I needed them until I saw their faces and it felt really good to connect. As we talked together, our collective brows furrowed while we exchanged the latest from CNN on quarantines and economic fall-out, we were joined on the call by one of the girls’ young daughters.

I can’t stop thinking about my grandmother. I didn’t much care for visits from Grandma when I was a kid. She would arrive by plane from remote Western Canada with her boring news of relatives I didn’t know, and an energy that thoroughly disrupted the lazy peace of my existence. She was constantly busy, attempting to enlist me for all kinds of projects: deep cleaning the kitchen, darning socks, knitting, gardening, and baking tough little rhubarb muffins. I found none of it even remotely appealing. I was a child of the 80s. I had an Atari.