What has happened here??
The earth has hit the pause-button. Her outside space has not been so empty of our kind for decades. People nearly everywhere obey their leaders in that, so far.
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Just over a hundred years ago, people found themselves in a similar situation. The feeling during lockdown must have been a lot more confusing. So far many of us have our isolation softened by contacts with family and friends by not only Skype, Zoom, Face time, Whatsapp. Even the telephone has made a comeback, as it turns out to maybe be the best way to have proper deep undisturbed conversations with one another in serious times. We can be entertained in our own homes by Netflix, any course on anything one could think of wanting to learn is available, one can prepare meals by copying what the screens show you.
And, best of all , so far we’re able to buy anything, from food, to furniture to clothes, or even a new electronic plaything to continue all these activities and contacts with the world outside, staying safe inside our own homes.
The other favourite activity in times of lockdown is not as devastating as it used to be for women. The result does not have to be a child born into illness or economic destitution because of the virus. Less suffering for women is the ultimate progress.
Outside our homes the world has gone very quiet indeed. Gone are the ever present sounds of the motorcar. Also, olfactorily, things are now quite different. The sharp pungent ultimately life threatening smell of exhaust fumes has all but disappeared. Farming seems to continue, causing the smell that has been often spoiling my enjoyment of spring. Remember the intoxicating smell of the opening leaf buds, the smell of thousands of flowers , the blossoms everywhere, unadulterated by exhaust fumes of not only the millions of deadly boy toys named cars but maybe even more disturbingly, of intensive farming. The latter brings a sort of dryness that hits the nostrils or causes the heavy poisonous smell of ammonia in our little country with far far more pigs than people. Together they destroy the feeling of spring, one of the best and deepest feelings we have in our latitude. Puts you right in your place if you’re thinking spring really is spring still. The feelings of spring are still there, so many poets and painters bore witness to it….
I imagine a hundred years ago, the smells and noises were different in normal times.
The noises were probably people talking, shouting to sell their wares on the markets and in the streets. One would hear hoofs trampling, the rattling of carts and carriages, the barking of dogs. Although sewage systems were common now, possibly the smell was still a bit shitty because of all the horses and maybe muck being used in gardens….
When their plague came, people self isolated just like they do now. An eery quiet must have fallen over their world too. The difference to before and after the outbreak outside was as spectacular I believe for somebody walking outside as it is for us. The life, the noise gone, everything changed and gone completely quiet, impresses us all equally I believe even if it is ‘just’ the disappearence of the horses and the carts, one immediately realizes life of humans, our society, has changed.
But what about life indoors? There one was. This is your family, this is you, young man, living by yourself. Even the radio was not there yet. Telephones were known, but definitely not present in the majority of households. No ordering of food, so one of you had to get the food in. Food you couln’t pop into your fridge or freezer to last either….
Did people play games? People were literate then, was it usual to have many books in the house? Of course for women a lot did not change: washing had to painstakenly be done taking up so much of your time, cleaning never ever stops…. In that pandemic life indoors was maybe quite silent too. There was no music like we have now with the possibility of perpetual music of any kind. The news about the epidemic, the news about the world outside did not get into your house. There were papers, but apparently news about the epidemic was banned. Were there irrational flare-ups, reactions to rumours and fake news? Anything like our attacks straight from the dark ages on the Chinese virus spreading from 5G masts? There must have been. Or not? It would not surprise me at all if things like that did not happen much during that pandemic. I believe respect for science, standing of teachers was much greater then than it is now. Fights and conflicts because of spending all your time with your nearest would have occurred like it does now….
The isolation must have been devastating, people were stuck in their houses, outside all was silent, inside one had contact with one another and that was it. Maybe one exchanged some words with a neighbour. What one did hear, and hear relentlessly and one heard it every day, were the church bells for the dead.
We may hear an ambulance close or far away and think ; that wouldn’t be a corona victim, would it? Or, if one is unlucky enough to be stuck in one of the BAD places , one KNOWS that the continuing blearing of sirens is it, you are in the middle of history…..
Basically fundamentally I believe the experience is the same. The hope of a vaccine is not essentially different from the praying and hoping this terrible thing will pass. I bet wonder cures flourished then as they do now. The deep deep fears are the same.
Read Daniel Defoe’s “A Journal of the Plague Year” and you realize that life in an even older plague is totally familiar …
Sophia in times of Corona 