Best of 2020: Marital relationship in the time of coronavirus

Our 2020 retrospective continues with this essay embeded in Seattle’s very first outbreak, in the early days of the pandemic

( Picture illustration by Salon/Ilana Lidagoster)

This essay was initially published in Hair Salon on March 14,2020 We’re reviewing Hair salon’s Finest Life Stories of 2020 now through the end of the year. Read more Finest of 2020 here

When the first news of the unique coronavirus COVID-19 came out from China, I was concerned but not excessively worried, although I’m immune-compromised. “Oh, it’s no worse than the influenza,” I keep in mind stating to my husband. Even then, I started considering the supply chain of medications from China, how fragile those chains can be, and started checking the refill dates on my prescriptions. We had breakfast and talked about the issue from a scientific point of view; I have a biology degree and my husband one in chemical engineering. “New infections almost always mutate when they start passing from human to human,” I mused to my spouse, “Typically to a milder form.” We returned to consuming fruit and yogurt, my husband drove into his work.

Six weeks later and it’s another story entirely. Schools are closing for not days, but weeks, after students test positive.

Since I have a hereditary immune shortage and several sclerosis, I’m fairly young but still thought about a “susceptible population,” so Glenn has actually taken over all errands that involve other people.

I was a tech author before I ended up being a poet, and both careers lend themselves to loneliness, confinement. Many well-known writers spent a lot of time on their own. A pal of mine tweets: “What would Emily Dickinson Do?” in response to how to pass the time while we’re informed to “shelter in place,” a phrase I have actually heard for weather emergency situations, however never ever something like this.

My partner is a fantastic cook, and misses going to the markets every day to get what’s fresh and available. He makes soothing dishes from his midwestern training like beef stew and potatoes au gratin. He drinks a great deal of coffee. I am anxious, feeling housebound. I haven’t remained in the company of other people besides my other half for a week now. The last other person I was available in contact with was a medical professional; we were both wearing paper masks then.

Throughout times of crisis, relationships are tested. I check out stacks of books at a time.

I become snippy with my spouse for minor mistakes, breaking a meal while putting them away or leaving a stack of his laundry in the path I have to navigate around your house. He is not getting adequate sleep. He views me, takes my temperature level, worries about my cough and stomachaches. He makes me tea with honey a minimum of 10 times a day. He is really sweet. We are hardly touching, much less kissing or anything else. You would believe it would be romantic, being trapped together, but we’ve been married 25 years, and Glenn is more concerned about getting me ill, because he’s the one still going out and interacting with the world– picking up supplies, prescriptions, dropping things off at the post office.

We find other ways to take our mind off the anxiety. We deep-clean your home. We do our taxes. I make an application for a hard, complex grant. My good friends in other parts of the country desire “reports from the hotspot” and “reports from the epicenter.” The death count in my area, county, city goes from one, to 4, to six, to nine in a matter of days. My ER physician friend in Alaska mentions the whole state of Alaska only has 50 tests for the coronavirus the day I tell her I can’t get evaluated. She likewise says she can’t find masks to purchase, that her hospital hasn’t received any. At least we’re getting international press, so the federal government can’t disregard us forever. Can they?

On an uncommon bright day, we walk outside under flowering plum trees, letting the scent wash over us, stepping on wet pink petals, looking up at the corona of sun behind the pink branches of flowers. The brightest points in our marital relationship, the things that brought us closer, were often emergency situation health center trips or other crises.

My husband and I discuss the power of nature, the idea of a stabilizing hand, the idea that the earth itself is pissed off at us. We talk about films by Hayao Miyazaki, like “Nausicaä of the Valley of the Wind,” “Princess Mononoke,” even “Ponyo”; all loaded with warnings that the earth will poison and eliminate mankind when we harm it excessive. I am happy my other half and I like the exact same movies, that we can talk about music without combating too much.

I think of the coronavirus as an avenging angel, a goddess of death. I still keep that the goddess will end up being more gentle over time.

The pair of us attempt to sleep without waking each other. I wake up in the middle of the night with an asthma attack, he wakes up early to take a phone conference from work.

The appeal of our marriage is in the knowledge of its fragility, its absolute absence of assurances, security– like the coronavirus itself, no one understands how it will end, and it is ultimately out of our control. Health problem, death and the pressures of a possible pandemic aside, I feel fortunate as I take a look at his rumpled blonde hair in the early morning, the rather odd angles of his face when he sleeps. I switch on the news on mute, see that the federal government is assuring more tests “quickly.” The school a community away is closing for three weeks. The price of gasoline is down. My hubby wakes up, makes me a cup of tea, and we return to the regimen of eating, talking news, trying to believe up a method to sidetrack ourselves from the apocalyptic conditions around us. I position an order on Amazon for another bunch of electrolyte beverages and off-brand paper towels (all that’s left) and bathroom cleaner.

Neither of us have actually contracted the coronavirus yet, however if we do, we have a strategy to divide the house into “his” and “her” zones. Outside, in the garden, we will still be able to stand together, watch as the cherry blooms begin to unfurl.

Jeannine Hall Gailey

Jeannine Hall Gailey served as the 2nd Poet Laureate of Redmond, Washington. Her work has appeared in Poetry Publication and American Poetry Evaluation.

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