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Five Years Later Humanity is None the Wiser
Five years ago, the COVID-19 pandemic drastically altered daily life. Cities went into lockdown, social distancing, and Zoom meetings were fragile moral tethers. I had gallbladder surgery at Mount Sinai West in Midtown Manhattan. On my pre-dawn subway ride to the hospital from Bay Ridge, Brooklyn where I lived at the time, the overnight workers were touching the poles and laughing, when it was reported that the highly contagious coronavirus was spread by touching common surfaces like subway poles and could also be transmitted by coughing.
My surgery was supposed to be an outpatient procedure, but there were unforeseen complications, so I was still in the hospital when New York City went into lockdown. When it became painfully clear that society had ground to a screeching halt, my brother hired movers to clear out my Bay Ridge apartment and brought my earthly possessions to our childhood home on Long Island. I had lived in Brooklyn for over 25 years — in Greenpoint for six years, Park Slope for 17 years, then Bay Ridge for two-and-a-half years. My friends and my life were in the city, so I felt devastated.
I took the opportunity to recover from surgery and focus on my writing. The W-2 SEO contract role I’d been hired for in December of 2019 abruptly ended. The agency that hired me cited the pandemic as the cause…
