Being an accounting of the recent and continuing pandemic and its various circumstances, from the perspective of an inhabitant of the regions lately called the Lost Quarter. Dates unknown.

Day Twenty Two

How this enforced confinement brings the urge to wander. And so I do, ignoring the miserable weather as best I can. Spring in the Lost Quarter is so often miserable, vanishing into winter at a moment’s notice, before finally relenting into summer. I long for that day to come.

Every chance encounter with a stranger contains within it a fraught moment where you wonder if they have their letters of transit about them, if they will chance to pass too near, or what their purpose is in being about. You pass each other, careful to keep your distance, sharing an uneasy smile, and go about your business feeling a wash of relief that you hate.

Being an accounting of the recent and continuing pandemic and its various circumstances, from the perspective of an inhabitant of the regions lately called the Lost Quarter. Dates unknown.

Day Twenty One

It is a day for a drink, as many days are now. We have passed a milestone of sorts, three weeks in quarantine in the Lost Quarter. Those weeks have seemed both unending and have passed in a sort of blur, each day bleeding into the next so that it has just been one long day marching every closer to the darkest night.

Being an accounting of the recent and continuing pandemic and its various circumstances, from the perspective of an inhabitant of the regions lately called the Lost Quarter. Dates unknown.

Day Twenty

The week that followed the building of the nest was snowy and cold, winter returning, if only briefly to the habitation. Bess having laid her eggs, they both stayed close to the nest during this time. But after a seemingly endless string of overcast and snowy days there came a bright and cheerful dawn that promised that spring might in fact truly be near.

Being an accounting of the recent and continuing pandemic and its various circumstances, from the perspective of an inhabitant of the regions lately called the Lost Quarter. Dates unknown.

Day Nineteen

This day is one I dare not forget. Life goes on even amidst these strange and unfamiliar days and it is still my love’s birthday.

How to celebrate when so much is forbidden us in these trying times? I think of all we have done in years past with a keen jealousy. We shall find a way of course. How could we not. We – all of us – must find ways to endure and we can only do that together.

I shall not waste time at writing today. I will be with her instead. I cannot imagine getting through this without her at my side.

Being an accounting of the recent and continuing pandemic and its various circumstances, from the perspective of an inhabitant of the regions lately called the Lost Quarter. Dates unknown.

Day Eighteen

The snow and cold continue. The sky is overcast and grey. Outside my window I can see the flakes dancing in the air as they make their steady descent to the ground. Going outside yesterday it felt like a day in mid-January, the wind with a hard edge and the snow implacable. April is the cruelest month, so they say, and there is nothing crueler than a winter that has overstayed its welcome.

I recall some years ago that the winter dragged on through most of April and even into May. It was an exhausting ordeal mentally. All you want is an end to the cold, to the snow, for the sun to shine and it actually to be warm.

That is what I want more than anything now as well. Winter can feel isolating enough, everyone bundled up and hurrying to a place where they can find warmth, but in our current predicament it is enough to make the strongest despair. My love curses the snow every time she looks out a window. That seems to give her some satisfaction, at least, even if the snow continues unabated.

The sight of barren fields is too much now. I long to see leaves on trees, for green grass and crops. In this time of devastation and death, the smallest signs of life can give hope.

Being an accounting of the recent and continuing pandemic and its various circumstances, from the perspective of an inhabitant of the regions lately called the Lost Quarter. Dates unknown.

Day Seventeen

Sleep refuses to come. Outside it is cold and snowing.

Mercifully there are no thoughts in my head, though I suspect they are there lurking and waiting for their moment to emerge. A strange emptiness has seized me, a blankness that is sometimes freeing, sometimes paralyzing. The future is an undrawn map, an unsurveyed domain, particularly now. That is both hopeful and terrifying in equal measure.

Being an accounting of the recent and continuing pandemic and its various circumstances, from the perspective of an inhabitant of the regions lately called the Lost Quarter. Dates unknown.

Day Sixteen

Every time I allow myself to think that sense of normalcy has arrived at last, that the days can go on like this now, something happens to jar and remind me of how provisional all this. The earth is shifting at our feet. Is it an earthquake, an aftershock, or something new born into this strange new existence?

There are no earthquakes in the Lost Quarter, though we sometimes feel the tremors of other distant eruptions. It is always so strange to think that something that has happened in another realm, far away and unreachable, can touch those of us here in this secluded place. Even those of us here, who both curse and bless our isolation, are forced to admit we are a part of the greater world, for better or worse.

Being an accounting of the recent and continuing pandemic and its various circumstances, from the perspective of an inhabitant of the regions lately called the Lost Quarter. Dates unknown.

Day Fifteen

I awake to snow on the ground and a chill to the air. Winter holds sway for another few days at least. There are years when it slinks away without notice, surrendering its dominion to spring without issue, the cold evaporating away leaving warmth and rain showers in its absence. This year it seems to be entrenching itself, setting up barricades and daring whoever might come to dislodge it from its place.

Being an accounting of the recent and continuing pandemic and its various circumstances, from the perspective of an inhabitant of the regions lately called the Lost Quarter. Dates unknown.

Day Fourteen

The days along the river passed with an incredible kind of bliss, one they had never experienced before. They would wander down the river, caterwauling through the water at friends, both old and new, eventually making their way deeper into the habitation, which still remained blessedly empty. Nights they would spend atop one of the edifices, surveying their new domain and calling out to whoever passed by, be they fellow geese, magpies, or crows and robins freshly arrived from the south as well.

Being an accounting of the recent and continuing pandemic and its various circumstances, from the perspective of an inhabitant of the regions lately called the Lost Quarter. Dates unknown.

Day Thirteen

The morning arrives with fog and a chill to the air. The sky is cloudy with the promise of rain or snow. I have stopped looking at weather forecasts so that each morning there is something new to greet me, something to distract from all the noise that seems to be constantly going in my head. Instead, I can look out my window and see the day as it is and follow its changes through the course of the day.

There is something satisfying in deliberately not knowing, in just accepting whatever the day will bring. It is necessary in this time of tumult, where nothing seems solid at all and each hour brings some fresh horror that we must find the strength to face. I do not have the strength to face it all – none of us do. We have to measure ourselves and find those moments of solitude for our minds where we can turn off the thinking that plagues us as much as the grippe.

And so I will sit here looking out my window to start the day. It is gloomy now, perhaps soon to become miserable. But the weather here is unstable as my thoughts and a day – an hour – from now it is impossible to say what it will bring.