Let me explain. I watched a documentary on Nora Ephron, produced and written by her son. It was fascinating. She was fascinating. Several things coalesced in my head as I watched it.
I am watching this documentary because it's on my list for viewing during the course of the world wide lockdown. The documentary mentions something she wrote about death. Death is that which society seems to be trying to eliminate, at least in so far as this one pandemic is concerned. Nora Ephron wrote a little book called, "I Feel Bad About My Neck", musings about what it is like to get older. The scarf I favor when I go outdoors to cover my face reminds me of that book. Somehow it all feels oddly related.
I remember when the book came out. I had just bought it at Barnes and Noble in the still fairly new Grove in Los Angeles. I took it to an outdoor table near the Fountain, picked up a refreshment and began to read. I guffawed as she described the reality of the wizened loose skin that betrays a woman of a certain age and the efforts inevitably and futilely taken to hide it. I was just over 50 at that point but my neck had not yet sagged. Still, I recognized something not far in the future and I was appreciative of a fellow traveller just ahead of me in the road. These days, some 16 years after I read the book, it is I who now feels bad about my neck. My jaw is no longer firm, and unless I smile all the time, a practical impossibility, the jaw line merges into my neck and a scar from a 2007 surgery impinges on the flesh in such a way as to make the effect even more gathered. I can't stand wearing one of the pre-made masks, which cut off fresh air, and while a scarf isn't ideal either, it is less constraining and I manage it. On the bright side, it covers my now flaccid neck. I have to consider whether neck scarves will once again become a fashion accessory (they were when I was young in New York, and it was a matter of fashion, not a matter of disguise) after it stops being personal protective equipment. I am thinking it will be so.
Nora Ephron died of leukemia in 2012. She hid her illness from family and friends for several years. I resonate more than a little with that aspect of her life. When my own mother was diagnosed with terminal breast cancer in 1973, we were advised by her doctors not to share her diagnosis either with her, or her family. Even then I thought that was idiocy, and cruel. And ultimately I found out that my mother knew full well what was happening to her. She just never discussed it. I had no choice in the matter, but it always felt wrong. Some people in the Ephron documentary said it was her business, her life. Others said finding out when she was dying in a hospital was like being ambushed. As the person who called a couple of relatives from the hospital right after my own mother died, I tend to relate to those who would feel ambushed.
Back to the scarf. There it is. The only thing between me, and death. Well, not really.
When Ms. Ephron was in I think the early stages of the illness which developed into the leukemia that killed her at age 71, she might not have told anyone directly, but she was surely thinking and writing about life and death. I always love her titles, this one, "Buy More Bath Oil".
She wrote some things I think are on point during this phase of American, of World, history, of the reality of being human.
"We are a generation that has learned to believe we can do something about almost everything. We are active--hell, we are proactive. We are positive thinkers. We have the power. We will take any suggestion seriously. If a pill will help, we will take it. IF being in the Zone will help, we will enter the Zone. When we hear about the latest ludicrously expensive face cream that is alleged to turn back the clock, we will go out and buy it even though we know that the last five face creams we fell for were completely ineffectual. We will do crossword puzzles to ward off Alzheimer's and eat six almonds a day to ward off cancer; we will scan ourselves to find whatever can be nipped in the bud. We are in control. Behind the wheel. On the cutting edge. We make lists. We seek out the options. We surf the net. But there are some things that are absolutely, definitely, entirely uncontrollable.
I am dancing around the D word, but I don't mean to be coy. When you cross into your 60s, your odds of dying--or of merely getting horribly sick on the way to dying--spike. Death is a sniper. It strikes people you love, people you like, people you know. It's everywhere. You could be next. But then you turn out not to be. But then again you could be. And meanwhile, your friends die, and you're left not just bereft, not just grieving, not just guilty, but utterly helpless. There is nothing you can do. Nothing. Everybody dies. "
Today, someone sent me the CDC numbers on Coronavirus deaths in the United States. There is no doubt that the loss of 37,308 individuals is terrible, and yes, as I have said, as others have said since the beginning of the focus on this particular potential cause of death, it was prudent to take precautions for the elderly, the infirm, those with co-morbidity, and even remind the healthy to wash their hands, so that each would have more days of life. But 682,438 other people have died of many other causes in the period in which the society has literally crippled itself. Those who say it is good will continue to say it is good. Others will ask why not all these other causes? What makes us able to eradicate death by coronavirus when we cannot eradicate in any other forum?
If I were to say, "There's something else going on," I would be accused of being a conspiracy theorist. But, you know what, something else is going on. Perhaps it is what Ms. Ephron said (and for all I know she would be on the side of keeping the society shut down, I certainly can't say) that our leaders, and many of our citizens really believe that we are in ultimate control.
I don't know. Maybe Governor Newsom has found the secret to eternal life. Meanwhile I can't wait to be wearing scarves on my neck, and not on my face.
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