A bit of a shot past my usual equinox publishing target this time. The culmination of an untimely and tragic series of events in my extended family over the last couple of months finally took the wind out of my sails. There doesn't seem to be any respite.
In the 'real' tangible world.
Or online.
These days I feel like I'm trapped in an auditorium that's slowly filling up with smoke, with no apparent exits.
What to do?
Panic?
Run around, 'hair ablaze' and squander my remaining time and oxygen in a futile attempt to get out?
Resign myself to whatever the fates have in store for me?
Retreat inward, and try to find a place of peace, calm and acceptance, and just let the cards fall where they may?
Farewell and adieu to the summer that wasn't.
I mean, what can really be said about 2020 that hasn't been said already? A 'dumpster fire' of a year.
Hard to believe we're into the third quarter already.
For us, summer consisted of cancellations, and essentially none of the typical hallmarks of a summer even somewhat enjoyed.
Just our little section of deadbeat Olde Nagoyaland, and a steady, calculated routine...with each day (and week) ultimately merging into the next. A grey monotony, punctuated by fluctuations in the weather, and an occasional take-out meal from the marginal 'Italian' restaurant across the road.
Now that the sun has crossed the celestial equator and headed south, I can't help but think that this is actually a reasonable metaphor for the entire 2020 experience.
"Headed south".
On with the fourth quarter, and a steady slide toward our second annual dose of cold, dark winter.
I dread it.
Winter is the only season we get to experience twice a year. It's always looming.
Some people love autumn. I always hated it. Growing up in Canada, it meant back-to-school, runny noses and raking leaves. Japanese autumn is decidedly more appealing, though. Things can remain pretty nice straight through to the second week of November. In the pre-COVID era, Mina and I would plan some kind of short getaway. Three or four days out on the road, to recharge, and ostensibly shake off the Deadbeat City grunge. Last year we did Universal Studios Japan for the first time in a decade, then spent a day dodging gaggles of annoying selfie stick waving touristas in Kyoto.
Good times.
Little did we realize that things would be so absolutely different a scant 12 months later. These October escapes had become kind of a big deal to us.
Needless to say, there'll be none of that this year. Or likely next.
As with our summer plans, everything is off the table. That isn't to say that making domestic trips is in any way forbidden here on Planet Japan. Quite the contrary. Restrictions here are by no means as 'draconian' as they are in some places around our vast, infected world, and the Japanese government has even been pushing a controversial travel subsidy scheme ('Go To') to encourage people to shake off the fear that's been so effectively instilled in everyone, and get out and about. To 'throw the dice', risk picking up and spreading the virus even further afield, and take advantage of some discounts - all in one go. The hypocrisy is more than a little remarkable. In one breath they're telling everyone to 'stay home', and avoid un-necessary outings. In the next, they're dangling discounts and encouraging people to spread themselves around. As infection rates ebb and flow, a lot of people have been doing just this, and 'attempting' normal. Yet COVID casts a long shadow. Viral spread, which had been down for about a month, spiked seriously from mid-July, and is only just now starting to come back down again.
Okinawa and the Yaeyama Islands (our aborted summer vacation destination) were hit particularly hard during July and August...no doubt due to a predicted influx of mainland travelers looking to blow off steam (being unable to travel abroad); spurred on by said short-sighted discount travel scheme. While rates of infection skyrocketed, and the limited medical facilities on these outlying islands were quickly over whelmed...the largely 'mask-less' mainland tourists just kept pouring in, looking to get their pandemic party on...with little regard for the locals, or the aftermath of their own out-of-town merrymaking.
I have no interest in a 'vacation' that endangers my wife, myself, or the local population...in which everything we do is monitored, and our temperatures have to be taken wherever we go; where we're herded too and fro like infected cattle, and table-timed at socially distanced meal services...constantly worrying about people wandering around without masks, crowding and grouping like everything's 'normal'. About who touched what...and where a potentially fatal dose of 'the virus' may be just waiting for us to happen into. Yeah. No, thanks. That isn't relaxing. It's not an escape. it's a dystopian shit show. Just more stress, in a different locale.
Bugger the shitty 30% discount.
We'll wait.
This summer was an odd creature. In fact, it was singular amongst the twenty six I've spent here in Losersville. The weather was gnarly. It must have rained almost non-stop from the writing of my solstice blog, right up to the first week of August. I've never experienced a July over here that was so dark, depressing, wet and relentless. Real 'hang yourself' weather.
Come the first week of August, the oddly stationary seasonal rain front quite suddenly shifted north, giving way to a late coming, powerful five week run of relentlessly scorching, cloudless days.
I love sunshine and hot weather...but this was a bit of different creature. The glaring, 'take no prisoners' sunshine in these parts was this year accompanied by an unusually dry and aggressive hot wind. Something more akin to what you'd experience in the Californian high desert, than the steamy, sweaty melange that usually characterizes peak summer here in the industrial armpit of Central Japan.
For a time, the heatwave and its consequent wrath actually superseded the ubiquitous 'second wave of COVID' headlines on the daily TV 'wide programs'. No mean feat, to be sure.
Heat stroke is a big seasonal killer over here; people were dropping like flies. Sirens were wailing day and night. For a couple of weeks, the weather was knocking more people off than the virus.
I recall back in April, it had actually been suggested that COVID might take a hiatus during the year's hottest, most humid months, as viruses typically favour cool and dry conditions...
No such luck. If anything, the extreme heat seemed to provoke and aggravate it. It was almost as if someone had taken a bamboo rod to a hornet's nest.
Concerning this summer's real nastiness...it all started off unassumingly enough. Some of this was touched on in the equinox blog. We'll scroll back a bit, to get the narrative up to speed.
As if by some miracle, I had actually managed to successfully secure the first Tuesday of July off over at the kindergarten, without having to engage in any 'take-no-prisoners' drama, or last minute scheduling gambits with gas-lighting Mr. Insecthead . The one day that I had requested 'off' back in late February had been granted.
Pity that we couldn't make the most of this rarest stroke of luck. Lord knows we wanted to get the fuck out of here.
After months of watching the virus shit all over everything, and ultimately bring life as everyone knows it to a surreal semi-standstill, we finally decided to pull the plug on the whole affair back in May, effectively scuttling all of our carefully made plans. We basically knew that we wouldn't end up going; but kept hanging on anyways...because that's kind of what people in denial do.
Of course, we were heartbroken when the deed was done...but that's kind of the running theme of 2020, isn't it?
(post script - it was some consolation that the weather in the Yaeyama Islands on the days that we had planned to be frolicking on the pristine lovely beaches of Miyakojima turned out to be total crap. Just as well that we bailed and got the refund).
I didn't have the nerve to say anything to the man-sized praying mantis, or his wife. As the end of June approached, no one said anything to me, either. No, "How about your plans?", or anything of the sort. Did they even remember? For the massive amount of hassle I have to go through to secure this ONE DAY OFF every year - and 2020 being what it is (an incomparable pandemic shit show) - one might think that this might prompt even a passing enquiry.
(i.e. - "Are you still going on your trip?")
Nope.
If it did, they weren't biting. Maybe they were waiting for me to say something?
I wasn't biting, either.
No matter.
After we cancelled, my wife managed to re-shift her schedule, so she could secure six consecutive holidays in mid-August. We had made 'tentative' reservations in Nagahama, and planned to spend a couple of days with her Mum (COVID permitting), to observe her late father's memorial, and do the usual Obon ceremonies with the local Buddhist priest at their family altar.
Mina's older sister and her husband, who always show up with their 'tribe' for these proceedings, had initially planned to make the trip out to Shiga solo this year, leaving the extended family (two middle aged sons, one with a wife and two kids in tow) back in Nagoya... to cut the risk of anyone 'maybe' packing 'a virus' over there, and putting grandmother in danger.
So, the tentative plans were all set.
(COVID permitting)
What's that they say about, "the best laid schemes of mice and men" ?
Alas, I'm getting ahead of myself.
Anyways, back to July, and the story at hand. I had a schedule clear of obligations for the entire first week of the month...so, the first Friday in, I promptly came down with a mysterious, and rather severe case of 'something' gastro-intestinal related.
The timing on this was interesting...it was almost exactly a year after a suspected errant raw oyster consumed at dinner our last evening out on Ishigaki Island had me turning my guts inside out for 12 hours our first night back in Olde Nagoyaland.
What started with fatigue and listlessness shortly after lunch that Friday, rather rapidly evolved into sharp abdominal pains, explosive diarrhea, and a fever of 38.7 C by late that night. Sleep was not had. My guts were churning, my arse squirting, and cold chills had set in.
In my delirium, I couldn't figure out what it was.
I had grilled a lovely side of high grade Japanese beef the night before I started feeling bad, and had done it rare. Maybe too rare?
Mina was fine though.
Maybe it was that slightly expired French cheese that we had eaten? Sometimes cheese that's turned will get you. Nobody wants a case of listeria...but it happens. Things spoil exceptionally fast during the wet and humid season over here. There had been stories on the TV news about people getting deathly ill from bento boxes that had turned, or take-out dishes that restaurants had mis-handled.
Again... Mina was fine.
Could it be...? No.
But of course, my mind was already there.
Down the COVID rabbit hole.
Every thing seemed to match up with select symptoms of the virus...minus the respiratory issues...which could come later? I suffer from chronic asthma, and use two medications daily. The inhaler I use is Orbesco, the only drug of its kind that has been found to have any efficacy against the latter day plague.
Perhaps that's what was holding off the respiratory symptoms?
My mind was racing. Where on earth could I have picked this up? Was it at the kindergarten last week? One of those teachers wasn't masked up properly. What about the supermarket last Sunday? Maybe it was at the used record store last Saturday? There was a guy in there coughing...and so on. I started getting myself into a panic, running through a myriad of feverish, doomy scenarios. Mina went off to work; but I couldn't get much rest. Of course, I had to cancel my single, incoming morning class. After that, a bit of light napping, and the ubiquitous creepy fever dreams. Hourly trips to the toilet, and a few litres of sports drink later, my temperature gradually started to ease off a little. From over 38 down to around 37 .5 C. Still... the recognized borderline for a COVID diagnosis. Mina got home from work, and brought some regular strength Tylenol, more rehydrating sports drinks, and some probiotic diarrhea medicine that the pharmacist near her hospital had recommended. The Tylenol managed to bring my temperature down; but the probiotic seemed to aggravate the situation in my guts to the point that I decided to stop taking it. By Sunday morning, my temperature was back in more of a normal-ish range....but my guts were still in terrible shape. Destroyed.
Mina took me to the hospital to get checked out on Monday morning, and after hanging around there for three hours, I ended up getting another seemingly useless probiotic from a less than helpful or attentive gastroenterologist. He didn't so much as venture to entertain that my symptoms 'might' be COVID related, or even suggest that I go ahead and get a PCR test -at least as a precautionary measure. (more on this troubling point later)
I ended up missing my first day back at the kindergarten that Tuesday. I called in early, and told Mr. Insecthead that I was suffering from 'an upset stomach'. I wonder if he thought that I had simply overdone it on vacation? Regardless, he didn't ask. Losing income sucks, but I absolutely didn't have the energy to make the trek over there and back in the on-going hellish dump down of rain and misery that had come to characterize the entire month of July. I was drained.
I felt like the tail end of an arse squirting, destroyed guts hurricane for about ten days. While it essentially rained non stop every day, I spent most of the remainder of the month on the stationary training bike in here, listening to David Bowie, and trying to get my stamina back. Truth be told, it took almost three weeks before I really started feeling normal again. Happily, Mina remained un afflicted. Just like the flu virus that hit her so hard last Christmas, and totally bypassed me. Curious.
As I mentioned earlier on, from mid-July, infection numbers started shooting up all over the country. The virus seemed to be on the move again.
Here, as elsewhere, it was now hitting younger people, particularly individuals in their 20's and 30's. The good (?) news here was that the majority of these cases seemed to be either mild-moderate, or asymptomatic, with fewer serious cases than at the height of the first wave, in the springtime.
Additionally, a lot the spreading seemed to be happening in families this time around. This troubling if there are older, or more vulnerable people in the household, with issues like diabetes, etc. Of course, in relatively short order, our prefecture's 'threat level' was raised back to 'RED' (maximum), and the government went about requesting that food and drink service businesses shorten their opening hours, and curtail alcohol sales. Most of these 'gestures' are of a token nature, and amount to little more than virtue signaling. After the spring 'lockdown', there doesn't seem to be much of an appetite among the general population to shut everything down, and go back into voluntary quarantine. Too many people have lost too much.
Still, the numbers were starting to get high, finally exceeding those seen at the peak of the first wave. Concerning the per capita number of daily infections in relation to overall population ratios, Nagoya was second only to Naha, Okinawa. Much worse than Tokyo or Osaka.
Naturally, this provoked a conversation concerning what to do about the Obon business in August.
It was not looking like the original plan was going to be a good idea, as far as keeping the risk level low for my wife's Mum. We'd got her through the spring wave, encouraging her to stay home, and refrain from hanging around with her sisters or religious group friends. Even bought her a tablet, so we could keep tabs on her, and she could chat with Mina every evening.
Now this.
At the height of the first wave, her village had implemented a rule about locals going out, or outsiders coming in, simply put...
"No Visitors, No Visiting".
A lot of the people up there are pensioners. Vulnerable. If COVID got a foothold in Kajiya, it would be a disaster. Small villages like this were completely wiped off the map during the Spanish Influenza pandemic of 1918-21.
So, time for a rethink.
Mina called her sister, and Mayumi announced that they'd finally 'given up' on the idea of driving in for Obon this year; but would instead be staying 'safe' at home - and sending money for Mum to cover the priest's visit, and services. After some discussion, we decided that it would ultimately be best if we cancelled, too...to avoid even the possibility of tracking anything up there.
Mina called the hotel, and nixed our reservations.
Finally, there was the matter of the priest. Old people and religion. Whatever the faith, that stuff is like a buglamp to the oldsters. I suppose it's the same everywhere.
Normally, Buddhist priests go from house to house during Obon, chanting the Namu Myoho Renge Kyo sutra at family Butsudan altars, giving little chats, collecting cash and sweets, and then pissing off to the next house. It's prime time money raking season for that lot, and a big deal for the old folks. Add COVID to equation, and it really doesn't seem like a good idea at all. More like a major spreading event in the making. Hence, our concern, and ultimate insistence that, in the interest of safety, she forgo the priest's visit this year, and be satisfied with a 'remote prayer'. Given the situation, we were sure that her late husband and ancestors would naturally concur.
Safety first.
After a bit of arm twisting on my wife's part, her Mum ceded, and ultimately agreed to go along with our idea - which was to send the priest his fee in exchange for a *promise* that, on the designated day, he perform a remote sutra chant on behalf of the family at the local temple.
Whether this actually went down is anybody's guess. We'll never know.
In any case, we breathed a collective sigh of relief, at another bullet dodged...at least for now. If we can all work together to at least minimize the chances of her mother getting taken out by this, that's something. Losing her would break my wife's heart.
So there we were...rain pissing down, third week of July, totally plan-less, going into the four day holiday weekend (set aside a few years ago for the opening celebrations of a postponed Tokyo Olympic Games that will likely never happen), now toying with the idea of masking up and maybe driving down to the seaside for a day in August, seeing as we'll both have a week off, with nothing to do. It might be our singular chance to salvage anything of the dwindling summer.
Little did we know that likely, right around then, some unknown wheels were in motion that would insure that even if the sun did finally emerge in August, there would be no escaping the shade of 2020.
TO BE CONTINUED...
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