A Woman Escaping Corona
Inspired by "To the End of the Land" by David Grossman
The Corona virus did not surprise me. For many years, I worked as a biologist, and it was clear to me that a disease of some type would one day be the cause of a global pandemic. So, it never occurred to me that I would be stressed and anxious. But I was. And not by the virus, but by the political situation. As someone who has never been interested in politics, and who hadn’t watched the news as a matter of principle, I found myself hooked on apps that blurted out alerts nonstop. From the outset, I understood that Corona has become a survival mechanism for politicians that could lead us to a dictatorship. I felt trapped. Helpless. Angry.
When the pandemic took hold, my daughter and her husband returned from abroad to the home we shared. My fear that she might have been infected led me to take a trip to my other daughter who lives in Sasa, a kibbutz on Israel’s northern border. For two weeks I stayed on a kibbutz that closed itself off from outsiders and put into place distancing measures within its own community. The dining hall was closed, group activities were halted, and the local grocery was shuttered. Every time I walked the dog, I was conscious of the need for social distancing. I returned home to a lockdown with a young grandchild and three adults who began to work at home and were forced to share their workspaces and their time.
The project that posted on Facebook begun in mid-March and concluded in mid-May 2020 with the announcement that the COVID virus was behind us.