Everything is shutting down. Almost. But not memory, and not love.
This story of a quarantine is not from the 1930s or the quarantines social-distancing of 2020. It happened in 1950, but, in some respects, it feels the same.
THE ROOM WITH NO LIGHT
Live & Learn‘s post quoting Pat Schneider’s “Blessing of a Writer” (see below) brought back the memory of a two-week quarantine as an eight year-old diagnosed with Scarlet Fever.
For the next 14 days, the second floor bedroom of the 120 year-old house on Church Lane was dark. Pulled shades and extra drapes blocked the light. Fourteen dark days and nights of enforced solitude.
May you hear in your own stories
– Pat Schneider, from “Blessing for a Writer”
the moan of wind around the corners
of half-forgotten houses
and the silence in rooms you remember…
“DURATION OF THE INFECTION IN SCARLET FEVER,” JANUARY 1, 1950, ANNALS OF INTERNAL MEDICINE
Abstract In Illinois after the diagnosis of scarlet fever and other hemolytic streptococcal infections of the upper respiratory tract is made, "Isolation is required for a minimum period of 14 days after onset and thereafter until the nose, throat, glands, and ears are normal on inspection or until the physician reports complete clinical recovery."1 Other states have essentially the same regulation except that the minimum quarantine period is 21 days instead of 14.
SILENCE IN THE HALF-FORGOTTEN HOUSE
The house on Church Lane was in Pennsylvania, not in Illinois, but the Scarlet Fever and the quarantines were the same. No baseball. No backyard games of hide-and-seek or tag. No evenings with the fireflies. No school. Not everything felt like a curse.
To prevent blindness, the room was dark. Other than Mom delivering meals, checking the fever, and reminding me not to scratch, the room was empty and quiet with one exception: the purring of Buddy, the cross-eyed cat with the crooked tail. Even a cat needs company sometimes. I like silence. A lot! But not that much. We’re not meant to be alone. Everyone needs a friend like Buddy.
FINDING OURSELVES IN SOLITUDE
Old memories return in times that awaken them. Live & Learn’s gift of a “Blessing for a Writer” came at just the right time. I fancy myself a writer, but words worth writing have been hiding during the spread of the latest pandemic when the fever and isolation are everywhere..
Might the solitude lead us to find each other?
“Only in solitude do we find ourselves;
— Miguel de Unamuno, “Solitude,” Essays and Soliloquies (1924), tr. J.E. Crawford Finch.
and in finding ourselves,
we find in ourselves
all our [neighbors] in solitude.”
- Gordon C. Stewart, Chaska, MN, March 16, 2020.
Views from the Edge 
I remember a long, hot summer when polio epidemic was raging. I don’t know if anything was officially shut down, but people all stayed away anyway, so they might as well have been… especially for kids. No movies, no going to the park, no county fair, and we all stayed in our own yards, no playing with other kids. It was a long, hot, scary summer. At the time I thought that if a kid got polio he/she would spend the rest of life in an Iron Lung. There were pictures of Iron Lungs everywhere. Only later did I learn that most people got out of Iron Lungs, even if somewhat crippled. Took me years to come to terms with the fears of that time.
LikeLike
I remember it, too. We were all scared. But the fear was nothing like this.
LikeLike