I was informed several years ago that my earliest conscious memory took place around 1971.

For what’s it’s worth, I’ve started this Saturday morning foray into the bloggened word a little late.  I’ve already consumed my requisite breakfast which has become a daily routine thanks to various stay-at-home orders.  Gone are the days of taking a leisurely stroll with my colleagues to the café at the office on weekday mornings in order to obtain a lemon poppy seed muffin.

I sure do miss that false positive.

Here’s a little thought experiment to tickle any deep seated fears you may possess of being left out of the equation.

What if the whole world, out of a sense of dislike for you, has entered into an elaborate scheme to keep you from interacting with society for a while?

They’ve made up this fantastic line of bullshit about some rogue virus born of nefarious means which has escaped a lab and is now engaged in some pretty twisted shenanigans.  The only way to avoid it is to stay home.

The only catch is that you’re the only one who’s being told to stay at home.  All of your media streams and other sources of information have been tailored just to impress upon you that you need to hunker in the bunker for the time being.  In the meantime, life goes on.

The bath houses are open.

There’s no shortage of Everything bagels, ground chuck, or hand sanitizer at the grocery store.

Only people in the far east wear masks wherever they go.

The world continues to spin as it did a mere three months ago and you’re locked away for reasons unknown.

Is it your personality?

Is it the jokes you will and will not laugh at?

Is it that odor of smug self-righteousness you emit?

You will never know.

All you really know is that you have to batten down the hatches for an indeterminate amount of time, and if you and what you believe to be the rest of society will behave, you can go back to regular life when the higher-up muckity-mucks offer you a dispensation of grace sufficient enough to visit the local megaplex in order to take in the latest flick featuring the lovely and talented Scarlett Johansson in skin tight attire and loaded for bear (or bare).

I’ll let you simmer on that one for another moment or two whilst I view yet another video featuring various rock bands performing one of their own songs or a covered tune in the new format born of the pandemic.  That’s where each member or friend of the band is performing their own part of the song in their own abode in front of a webcam.  All of the different footage is then melded into a split screen view in order to perpetuate all of the catch phrases which have been woven into the fabric of society since mid-March.  Alone together, stay healthy, wear a mask, wash your hands, and me duele mucho are the more prevalent battle cries these days.

I’m guessing these videos are relatively cheap to put together, and they don’t strike me as a vehicle to exercise the profit center.

I perceive there will be a day years in the future when we’ll happen upon these videos and see a key indicator or two of what life was like during the spring of 2020.

I’m pretty sure there was a theme for this post in mind when I first started it.  At the time, I had been reading a book sample where the author discussed the first time he engaged in physical congress with his wife.  Just on background, understand that I’m looking for my next book to read. 

I finished one the other day, and immediately bought another one for my digital reader.  In the last few days of reading that thing, I just couldn’t stand it anymore.  The author is a well-known pundit, and I generally agree with him.  At the same time, I learned by attempting to read his book that I can only tolerate him in abbreviated clips.

So for the first time since October where I’ve endeavored to read more, I returned the book and relegated it’s author to just beyond that ten foot pole saw in the garage.

Back to the sample I’m reading now, I had heard the author’s story about relations with his wife before and was exercising aggressive levels of attention deficit as I skimmed the details of the event for any plot incidents I wasn’t familiar with.  At the same time, I pondered if that is something I would ever write about.  I decided I wouldn’t, then wondered if I would ever write a memoir.

Thus, the recollection of my earliest memory.

I believe it was the eve in which my one year old brother and I were swept up in the middle of the night and whisked away to a point up north where the weather was cold, the water was hard, and the homogeny was eerily prevalent.  There we would live patiently in exile while developing neutral accents until the time was ripe for us to return to our ancestral homelands where we would experience culture shock and a strange twang in the local dialect.  

Having committed that particular memory to the ages, it occurs to me that the premise of writing a memoir should be relegated to just beyond the pole saw.

Okay, let’s get back to the “quarantine”.