A favorite time of mine is the last hour before dawn. The earliest hints of the new day include a light that is mostly imagined, and some very specific sounds, like the muffled groan of a passenger jet lifting itself as quietly as possible out of the sleeping Bay Area to points east, west, north and south.
That same airplane, taking off a few hours later, would have roared unapologetically as it climbed more steeply through the same airspace, maybe clear, maybe foggy. But that won't be happening today; that plane is already gone.
Besides, at this early hour, that's still part of the future. Here, something new is stirring -- a brand new day is stretching and shaking off the stiffness of the night.
This day, as it turns out, is a Friday, which I only discovered late yesterday courtesy of a neighbor's random comment. I'd spent yesterday convinced that it was Friday, but it wasn't as I'd supposed.
A group of my daughter's friends and neighbors had gathered outside, sitting on chairs in a wide circle toasting yesterday away. At 7 PM, we hailed the first responders and health-care workers who man the front lines of this war.
Media reports and clueless politicians have started suggesting that the worst is over.
I fear the worst is far from over.
As I came back inside, since I'd already lived Friday though it hadn't started yet, my thoughts veered inevitably toward the future.
The one thing we all hold in common is that we are suspended in time. This must be what it feels like when you are given a jail sentence or what happens to a baseball player when he tests positive for steroids. "You're suspended without pay until 2021."
Most of us didn't knowingly take steroids but maybe we were living on them anyway.
My own small life is literally on suspension. Down in my abandoned apartment in Millbrae, my effects lay scattered, awaiting my return, which will never happen. A box of journals spills out half its guts on the floor next to a coffee table covered with notices, bills, tax files and scribbled notes. The journals outside of the box are the ones I've reread recently; the others have not been opened in 10, 20, 30, 40, or 50 years.
All kinds of secrets inhabit those pages, though I feel oddly disconnected from them now. Those belonged to a man who was moving carelessly through the world. He didn't give the passing of time much of a thought.
That was then. Now, everything in me aches. I'm creaky like the tin man without his oil can. I wonder when Dorothy is going to show up. And who the hell is Dorothy anyway?
The lady from the eye surgeon's office called to say my second eye operation has been delayed until late summer, "if then." The first one never happened, but I guess, formally, we're now onto the second one. All I know is I can't see anything clearly any longer.
But it was a reminder that there still is a health-care system somewhere out there and I'm apparently a part of it, though it feels very much out of my reach. Everyone I know if afraid to get sick, afraid to go to a hospital. Women are having babies at home. Others, if they get ill, choose to go untreated. No wants to call a doctor.
Who my own doctors actually are also is a question. Since I was in the process of moving out of San Francisco, and my old doctors were retiring, I was in the process of finding new care-givers when this all came down.
Years ago I knew a man who was a bit older than me who had recently retired. Over coffee one morning, he told me that on most weekdays he would still rise early, get ready, and take the train downtown. H'd go to the same coffee shop where he'd always get a takeout, but now he'd order one to stay.
After reading the morning paper, left behind by a stranger, he'd return home, off for the rest of the day.
***
I swear I'll never figure out what Facebook is about. Maybe I'll ask one of my friends who used to work there, but they seem pretty secretive about it. I do know this much: Sometimes, when you are writing or watching the news or a movie streaming on your laptop, a loud pinging sound echoes through your headphones.
It's Facebook calling: "Hi David. You have a new friend request." Or, "Hi David, someone has reacted to your post." Or, "Hi David, you have a new notification."
It's like when someone talks during your visit to a movie theatre (the one that is closed now). It's a reminder that much of our lives we live out as a fantasy, while actually we are sitting in a darkened room filled with strangers. Facebook must have my best interests in mind because it refuses to allow me to sink, uninterrupted, into one of those dangerous worlds of fantasy any longer.
***
Unemployment surges toward Depression-era levels. The stories my grandparents told are revisiting me now. Food-chain disruptions are common; I wonder how many urban people even knew what a food chain was until recently?
About 17 years ago, when I was a visiting professor at Stanford, I accepted an invitation to be a guest editor for the summer from a magazine called Business 2.0. The first day I went there the staff sat in a big circle and we went around speaking about what we thought the biggest issues were at that time.
I remember exactly what I said; it was neither creative nor original. "The biggest issues of our time are globalization and technology." I also mumbled something about climate change
I suppose I should have been more dramatic. "We're living on steroids. And one day we're going to get a suspended sentence. The good news is we'll be able to serve it at home."
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