The Big Yard: Birdwatching in a Time of Quarantine

Or: The Evolution of a Pajama Lister

Day 561 of the Pandemic (September 30, 2021)

            The monsoon season ends with just over 16 inches of rainfall, and the turkey vultures bend their dark, Pleistocene wings toward Mexico.  Where there should be relief with the change, there is only anger.

            The unvaccinated believe it is somehow a personal decision pertaining only to themselves.  I heard this from the mouth of one when I asked her why.  She had just gotten her flu and shingles shot.  But not the Covid vaccine.  “Is it the fetal tissue thing?” I asked, knowing about her conservative religious convictions.  “No,” she said.  “It’s about my right to choose.” 

            I’m still chewing on that irony.

            I made all the arguments about loving your neighbor and community, respecting the science and the frontline workers, making sacrifices for others as Jesus would do—yes, he would get the jab (and administer it too).  But she was taking precautions.  No one would be affected, she assured me.

            I told her about my daughter’s in-laws.

            How if she got sick it would affect her husband and friends and children.  How it would affect the doctors and nurses and rescue crews in Colorado, the poor guy who carried you to your car because you were too sick to walk, the unsuspecting attendants at every gas station and grocery store and hotel you visited.  The family you wrote off because they insisted you get vaccinated, how you said God would protect you, how you told them you were okay with never seeing your grandchildren again and spending their inheritance because this was your choice. How if you died your son would clean up the fetid mess left in your car while waiting on his unresponsive father to recover from Covid and pneumonia, and how the man would never be the same again and end up in a care facility until his and his son’s money dried up.

            No, I told her, no one would be affected by your choice.  You are an island, I said.  No virus dare infect you.”

            Today, I temper my anger by consoling myself with what H.G. Wells said about the human community.  For we are both doomed and saved by the tiniest creatures that God in his wisdom put on the earth.  We do not live and die in vain.  Because by the toll of a billion deaths, we have earned our place on this planet.