Siri in Isolation

🥀 There’s a word in Portuguese “ murchar ”, which means to wither, wilt, lose force. Like many words in the Brazilian language it is pronounced with lips pushed out softly, as if for a kiss. It is how I feel after 107 quarantine days, minus the kissing part. An  el a n  – energy, style, enthusiasm – is missing, replaced by a slow draining of determination and initiative. It’s a dry feeling, if you will, of one’s resources trickling away.  “Ever to confess you’re bored / means you have no // Inner Resources”  wrote John Berryman in his “Dreamsong #14”. The quotation has followed me from my early twenties and served as a reminder to never let go of those inner resources – I am rarely bored as a result – but now, I don’t know, now there’s a new feeling, like teetering on the edge of something beyond my will. 🙁 Unable to finish the four or six books I’ve started, I busy myself with shorter tasks, like baking and cooking. I exercise, although much less than two months a...

After more than 100 days in isolation it’s the little things that throw you off your stride. The other morning, as I was marching on my treadmill, headphones on and enjoying a music clip, the phone rang. A   gas   meter man waited outside to be let in. I scanned my surroundings – husband in the shower and son not yet up – and concluded I would have to get the door. I turned off everything and ran downstairs to get my mask and gloves. I had just opened the door when my 90lb German Shepherd, appearing from nowhere – I had   assumed  she was with my son - raced past me, fur and tail aggressively lifted and barking ferociously, forcing the young man across the pavement into the middle of the street. Unable to get hold of her, for in our quarantine she does not wear a collar, I screamed for her to come back, until my son came running in his underpants to help me get the situation under control. He vanished with Zaffy while I checked the state of the meter man, who was now...