COVID be Damned!

     

Stepping gingerly off the curb at Esmond and 33^rd streets (yes, I’m still babying my tender thigh muscle), I glance toward the setting sun, shading my eyes in the golden haze. Liv is out in front of her cute house, putting out the green gardening can, her tall form haloed by the sunshine.

            “Hey, Liv!” How’s it goin?” I holler, walking toward her, stopping well before the 6 feet of mandatory social distance. I have my ladybug mask, but I'm sick of it. 

            “Oh, hello, Carol. I’m fine. Just fine.” She wipes a stray curl out of her face, smiles at me, waiting for me to say something. I think of the typical banalities of the weather and the not so typical banalities of the news. Instead opt for the cat. “How’s Madonna?”

            She laughs, “Oh, she’s fine. Just fine.”

            I nod. “Did you see the email from the Y? They’re set to reopen on July 1^st?”

            “Yes, well, we shall see. I don’t really know about that. What kinds of restrictions they’ll have in place and so forth. But I will wait. I don’t want to risk it.”

            “I am so swim starved!” I exclaim. “I know I should be more concerned about restrictions, but I really need to swim.” Part of me knows that this is the wrong attitude, but another part of me just doesn’t care. I want to swim I want to swim I want to swim! COVID be damned! Though, I’d just seen on the news how cases of the virus in the Bay Area are spiking again. From all the protests over George Floyd? People all packed together. Shouting and shouldering against each other. Police tossing tear gas into the crowds causing coughing and shouting. More droplets going out of people onto people.

            So, my hunger for swimming seems so trivial, right? And, yet, it’s all I want. It’s how I cope. I know that my mental state would be better equipped to handle all that’s going on with the demonstrations and COVID pandemics if I could swim.

            Yet, I can’t. And, Liv, she doesn’t seem too eager to dive back in. Which surprises me. She did swim regularly. Yet, she’s right, I know.  We don’t want to get the virus.

            “If they let us in through the back door,” she continues, “maybe it would work out.”

            “Yes! I emailed them! Of course, I never heard back.”

            She harrumphs.

            “I suggested exactly this! That they just let us in through the back door, only allow 1 swimmer per lane, keep the locker rooms off-limits. I think this would all work….”

            My voice trails off as she continues to stare at me. Am I nuts? Probably. I think my brain is so swim starved that it’s not functioning clearly at this point. No water on the brain makes me brainless!

            “Yes, well….” She glances over at her yard.

            “Your garden looks beautiful,” I try another subject.

            “Oh, thank you…I don’t know….”

            I get the sense that she wants to be left alone. Maybe she really is upset about the pool? Or the COVID? Or just the world in general?

            At least Madonna is fine.

            “Well, I guess I’ll be off. I have to take it easy cuz I hurt my leg. My thigh muscle is strained from too much walking.”

            “You’re kidding. It’s not like you’re running.”

            “Yeah, I know. Blame it on old age and cement I guess.”

            She chuckles.

            “I’ll head down this way,” I smile, turn toward 34^th street.

            “Yes, take a different route. See new sights.”

            “Yeah, I have a tendency to just walk the same way every day.”

            “Oh, me too….”

            I wave goodbye. "Have a great rest of your afternoon," I call back to her. "Eat some ice cream!"

         "Oh, I shall." She turns to pick up a stray bit of garden detritus. I glance up at the umbrella of the avocado tree at the corner, a hummingbird buzzing in its shade as I continue my walk. I think about Liv and Madonna and ice cream and pools as I turn down 34th street, the afternoon sun behind me now.