PANDEMIC PANIC: A VICTIM OF LOCKDOWN

After a whirwind of two days, drenching ourselves with the artistic energy of New York City, Lisa Naugle returned to California on March 10, as the virus that Fauci claimed was "not a threat" appeared to spiral out of control. All business and activity in New York City came to a halt, and within days a lockdown was in effect. All that artistic energy vanished as though it never was.

From the confines of my apartment I would venture out every 10 to 12 days to buy supplies from the market.

At first, I thought this was a wonderful time to get work done, and for a while I was able to convince myself that this was not much different from my life as a loner.  But I was discovering that I had so many friends that I could see, have dinner or brunch with, or go to a coffee house to write in the presence of very creative people who were using places like Reggio's as a haven for creative work and stimulating discussions...or pop into the Morgan Library, the Whitney, The Russian Tea Room, or see a show or opera almost spontaneously when I needed a boost to my perspective on life.

That creative milieu was removed overnight, and it appeared that no one had calculated the consequences of such an unprecedented, catastrophic compromise.

I began to understand that I was in a state of shock, withdrawal, and depression. The day lost its shape, and I lost all sense of day and night. I could not sleep. All sense of a sleep cycle was lost. I was becoming more and more depressed because all this luxury of time on my hands was not being converted into any productive activity. I was starting to lose it...

I was in LOCKDOWN... I was in SOLITARY CONFINEMENT, UNDER HOUSE ARREST, with all these talking heads on television who seemed to bicker back and forth on nothing of consequence whatsoever, except to remind us of what we could NOT do... that we were being watched... KEEP YOUR DISTANCE... WEAR YOUR FACEMASK! STAY INSIDE!... THEY seemed to be making "lists of whose naughty and nice" ... but it wasn't Santa... it was Governors and Mayors and bureaucrats who believed they had the power to make laws and conduct invasive surveillance without our consent... and then there emerged a sense of despair of media in collusion with so-called government... so that it seemed there was no end in sight... there appeared to be some perverted delight that lockdown was essential and must continue for "because it's good for you."

April tumbled end-over-end, out of control... my lack of sleep had filled my brain with the fog of despair. Easter loomed and passed as a non-event. Early spring days were filled with sunlight, with passing storms and sometimes very strong winds, even a tornado warning for NYC.

As May approached, my lack of sleep had become alarming. I was a victim of LOCKDOWN. And I knew I was not alone. Every email and message proclaimed everything was OK... and so did I also put on an air of survival mode mentality. But we all knew and know that everything was not well. The globe has entered an unprecedented era, far worse than the GREAT DEPRESSION...Worse because it has been a government-imposed shutdown based on faulty data and flawed projections.

Night and day merged without distinctive boundaries. With all this personal freedom of time on my hands, nothing was being accomplished. The end of April fizzled into May and I experienced PANDEMIC PANIC--- the LOCKDOWN has become an insurmountable hurdle... all imposed from within through the destructive energy of isolation.

I had nowhere to go. "Don't bother us unless you have COV-19--- we can't be distracted unless you are essential... " You see, some some of us are essential, but the rest are not, so those lives don't really matter.  "Since you're not essential, don't bother us until we say it's okay to come out."

I realized that I had begun to see myself as a victim, and there appeared to be no way out. I needed to find THE WAY.... and I thought of Neil Diamond's song THE WAY... and his plaintiff face out: "I need to find...I need to find...I need to find..."
                                                            FADE OUT