for over a month i have been telling myself, “i only have to get through these two weeks. these are the most important weeks of the pandemic.” it’s always two weeks. no one ever talks about three weeks or a month. in the english language, there used to be a name for that, “fortnight.” it comes from old english for 14 days and it used to be in high use. using the unbridled authority granted to me and apparently the president by the pandemic i hereby bring back the word fortnight to examine this phenomenon.
the first fortnight: my first pandemic fortnight it was this disease can only last two weeks so if i am an infected person who is asymptomatic then at the end of two weeks of self quarantine i know that i am clean and have done my part. (of course, i really am not quarantined because i’m going back and forth to care for our 86 year old mother who is cared for by several other people as well, so actually i’m exposed potentially to the virus from 5-6 people who care for my mother, and, i guess, my mother. we’re all taking increasing precautions and no symptoms have appeared, but still. i also go to grocery stores from time to time, at the beginning without gloves or a mask so that adds another layer of risk).
the second fortnight: the first fortnight passed and then we were told here in california, this will be the peak of the pandemic, if you can just get through these two weeks we will slow the rate of the pandemic dramatically and that will allow us to let up after that.
the third fortnight: now we’re being told we’ve slowed the rate so much that it stretches out much farther into the future then we originally imagined. so how many more fortnights is that? how many fortnights can i take?
don’t get me wrong, i’m not complaining. scratch that, i probably am complaining, but i don’t imagine myself uniquely or even especially affected. quite the contrary, one of the “problems” with people like me is that although it is irritating, inconvenient and boring to conduct life like this, it is sustainable for me provided i continue to effectively pay other people to be at higher risk than i am.
what i wonder is, how many more times can we tell ourselves, we just have to get through this (endless) fortnight?
