Postcards from the Rogue Valley

As I sat down to write this coronavirus update, I looked again at the post I wrote a little over two weeks ago, ”Wellness in the Time of COVID-19.” It began:

As COVID-19 stalks the globe, the term ‘wellness’ has narrowed its focus to not (yet) infected. Psychologically, of course, we are all already infected.

So far, the West Coast has borne the brunt of the U.S. coronavirus toll, though the East Coast is catching up. As of March 7, Washington State had recorded the most COVID-19 cases, more than 80, and the highest number of deaths, 14. Most of the fatal cases emerged from a Seattle-area nursing home. 

California has treated 70 people for the virus, one of whom has died, and new cases continue to emerge at a quickening rate. A handful of cases have appeared in Seattle, leading Starbucks to ban re-use containers and Microsoft to advise employees to work from home if possible.

By the time you read this, all of these numbers will have no doubt increased.

Although Oregon was one of the first states to report the coronavirus, the incidence has held steady at two cases—neither in Southern Oregon where the population density is 30 people per square mile and the only transportation hub is a small regional airport. 

Still, mirroring the rest of the nation, our local Costco has run out of toilet paper and bottled water. Last night’s local news featured hand washing techniques (demonstrated by a female newscaster dressed in red and pearls) and a recipe for making hand sanitizer (mix rubbing alcohol with aloe vera). When it comes to face masks, we’re in luck: thanks to summers thick with wildfire smoke, most Southern Oregonians have a face mask tucked away for safe keeping.

Like people worldwide, we live in suspended animation, swinging between the dread of unprecedented quarantines and the hope of an epidemic that never arrives. 

Five days later, the COVID-19 epidemic—now a pandemic—was at our doorstep (or so it seemed), an invisible beast unlike the earthquakes and forest fires for which communities in the Pacific Northwest prepare perennially. 

First to fall were Ashland’s two cultural icons. On March 12th, The Oregon Shakespeare Festival, which draws more than 300,000 visitors a year, suspended its 2020 season, which had just opened the week before. The announcement came hours after Oregon Gov. Kate Brown cancelled all gatherings of 250 people or more statewide. A day later, the Ashland Independent Film Festival, which gathers over 7,000 film lovers for five days, darkened its screens.  

Local restaurants and businesses held on for another couple of days, then shuttered. Some restaurants quickly returned with large takeout and free delivery signs. “Pick me, no, pick me!” they seemed to shout. When Tony and I recently ordered dinner to go—a veggie quesadilla and a Reuben—from the ever popular Greenleaf Restaurant, we were the only customers. The laid-back Ruby’s (a summer favorite of Pacific Coast Trail hikers), however, seems to be doing a brisk takeout business with its breakfast burritos and organic sandwiches.

For Tony and me, the hardest hit has been giving up our early morning coffee date that has been our daily ritual for more than 15 years. When Starbucks barricaded its seating area, our six a.m. conversations about the state of the world ended. We continued to head out for a takeout java fix, until our sons pulled the plug. “Which are you addicted to more,” they asked, “the coffee or the conversation?” Both, we said. “Have them at home,” they ordered. (The same morning the New Yorker had published an article about adult children convincing their boomer parents to take the coronavirus seriously.)

As for the grocery stores, there was a modest rush for a few days which then settled. Pasta, tomato sauce, dried beans, and rotisserie chicken remain in short supply—along, of course, with toilet paper and hand sanitizer—but otherwise the shelves are stocked. Before COVID 19, packing your groceries in your own cloth tote was de rigueur in environmentally conscious Oregon. Now, cloth sacks are banned (for the contagions they may carry) and paper bags are back, with the cashiers doing the bagging. 

Predictably, all is not well with Ashland’s expansive alternative medicine scene—though Western medicine has yet to offer convincing tools against the coronavirus. An Executive Order from the Governor allows chiropractic and acupuncture clinics to practice with caution, but closes non-medical massage therapy services, spas, yoga studios, and “natural healing“ centers of all persuasions. Cannabis dispensaries argue that they should be exempt, since some of their business involves doctor-prescribed marijuana. 

The gyms are locked, too. The Ashland YMCA, with its 9,000 members, is open for emergency day care only.

When it comes to social distancing, though, it’s hard to imagine a better place to be than Southern Oregon.

(A side note: I had to laugh yesterday morning when my Ethiopian daughter-in-law told me that in Addis Ababa, patrons at the city’s public baths were observing six feet of separation as they stood in line to enter—but once inside, jumped in, skin-to-skin. Like the teenagers who flooded Florida’s beaches showed the world, there’s a learning curve when it comes to social distancing.)

Here, we are surrounded by spaciousness: a long and open valley, ringed with mountains and forests; hiking trails that stretch for miles; wild rivers and cattle ranches; empty back roads. Folks have been socially distancing themselves across this landscape for years—and like it that way. 

As you might expect, the forests and views beckon. When the schools first closed and the weather was unusually warm, young families spread through the woods behind our house. One mother asked her grade school-aged kids to identify plants using a cell phone. Another had supplied her kids with sketch pads. One drew the stately curves of a madrone tree as I looked over her shoulder. “I like this better than school,” she said.

When Tony and I pulled into the large parking lot at our favorite hike last Thursday morning— which would normally be empty at this time—cars spilled onto the roadway. The view from the top, a plateau of vernal pools and wild flowers, reveals the Rogue River winding its way through the valley and the Siskiyou Mountains in the distance. It’s not an easy trail: 4.3 miles roundtrip with an elevation gain of 900 feet. Undaunted, hikers of all sizes and ages filled the narrow dirt path including parents pushing strollers (carrying them over the rocky spots), teen girls showing their curves, and septuagenarians like us.

Yesterday, public health officials warned that the rules of social distancing apply to the trails, too.

The dislocation these days is immense. I wake up each morning feeling normal before remembering how much our world has changed.

Another poem for our times:

Keeping Quiet — by Pablo Neruda

Now we will count to twelve
and we will all keep still
for once on the face of the earth,
let’s not speak in any language;
let’s stop for a second,
and not move our arms so much.

It would be an exotic moment
without rush, without engines;
we would all be together
in a sudden strangeness.

Fishermen in the cold sea
would not harm whales
and the man gathering salt
would look at his hurt hands.

Those who prepare green wars,
wars with gas, wars with fire,
victories with no survivors,
would put on clean clothes
and walk about with their brothers
in the shade, doing nothing.

What I want should not be confused
with total inactivity.
Life is what it is about;
I want no truck with death.

If we were not so single-minded
about keeping our lives moving,
and for once could do nothing,
perhaps a huge silence
might interrupt this sadness
of never understanding ourselves
and of threatening ourselves with death.

Perhaps the earth can teach us
as when everything seems dead
and later proves to be alive.

Now I’ll count up to twelve
and you keep quiet and I will go.

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