Quarantine Bloglette: Madness

I'm enjoying reading A Gentleman in Moscow, by Amor Towles. (For those who missed my earlier mention of this book, it is the story of Count Rostov who is under house arrest in Moscow in the 1920's.) The Count wakes up, his first morning in confinement, to thoughts of his daily routine. The flapping of a pigeon outside the one small window his new room has brings him back to reality. He cannot leave the hotel to buy the day's paper nor stop at the cafe for his favorite pastry and admire the young women gathered there talking. He ceases the thoughts, thinking that to entertain what might be if his situation were different would only serve to make him crazy. (I wish I could quote Mr. Towles, but I don't think it's legal, and I don't want to wind up in the pokey for admiring a writer so much that I just had to share a bit of his writing. My current confinement is quite enough.)

I'm all in favor of fantasy, if it doesn't detract from reality. I was married once before, and fantasized every day about a different life, different husband, living elsewhere because I was so unhappy. That was not good fantasy.

In my twenties, I fantasized about travelling the world as a professional singer. This (the singing) might be the only way I get to see the world. I told myself. That was good fantasy, because it got me to practice.

As a writer, I read most often about people who want to write, but don't have the time. I don't dare let myself sit here and imagine being back home in Vladivostok, lest I lose this perfect opportunity to make serious progress on my novel.

I want to be fully present here and now for Douglas as he works under difficult circumstances, so I won't allow myself pine over the fact that we cannot get out and explore Moscow. Instead, I'm trying to be creative with our pastimes and have a good balance of healthy meals and snacks and comfort food and treats.

In people's efforts to attempt to understand this pandemic, many have created this idea that the Chinese concocted this strain of coronavirus as a biological weapon in order to take over the world's finances. Hmm. Sounds like a good idea for a conspiracy theory movie, except that it doesn't make any sense to me. (Why attack your own people? How, exactly, could they take charge of the world's finances with a virus?) Others claim the virus actually started in the US. Just plain ridiculous, no evidence.

Okay, folks, can we all just settle down and look at the facts? The human race is being attacked by a virus. People in the countries not initially affected (like the United States) were warned and told what to do to prevent or slow its spread. The leaders in some countries (like New Zealand) took that advice.

I think that, just like it's difficult for some people to isolate themselves because they can't see the virus (the enemy), they can't resist blaming a group of people whom they can see. They are unable to insult, yell at or curse the virus itself, so they lash out at those who were first affected, the Chinese. Imagining our circumstances different from what they are might not make us crazy, but it could further alienate us from the rest of the world.

This is a popular indoor mall in Moscow, one the Count himself might have walked past or into. Earlier, it contained around 1,200 stores. It's called GUM (pronounced with a long U).