Quarantined in Paradise
By Renate Victor
Any way you look at it, “quarantine,” “self-isolation,” and “shelter-in-place,” are terms that translate to an imposition of one’s freedoms no matter how rational, how right the cause for the survival of humanity, how appropriate in terms of the situation; a force, individually and collectively, beyond our control.
Ron and I actually do well in mutual isolation in our roomy Sparks home. We each have our separate activity areas of interest—computers, books, music—but come together frequently to share information, observations, humor, movies, and food. I consider the kitchen my personal domain and have a passion for cooking. Ron is a trained cook and pastry baker, but is for the most part, indifferent to cooking. Occasionally he very artfully stir-fries vegetables and Asian noodles for a delectable dinner.
But when Ron gets the notion to bake bread, although it can be years since his last baking, I retreat and leave the kitchen to some serious activity that is entirely out of my realm. He is totally focused for hours, days, and as he frets over imagined baking disasters. I watch as he pulls out two beautiful golden round crusty loaves of bread. When it has cooled, Ron cuts two slices; I admire the ciabatta-like openness of the crumb and relish the wonderful flavor on my tongue. This may have been the best loaf yet.
So there are many pleasures in “self isolation” and admittedly, it is much more pleasant with another companionable and compatible human. It is especially less difficult for Ron to maintain self distancing. He is naturally hermetic and doesn’t care too much about social interaction, and with spring “busting out all over,” he is moved to work outside, preparing beds for planting, pulling up clumps of weeds and new dandelions, and cleaning up debris brought into the enclosed back-yard by the winter winds.
Although I share some of Ron’s introverted inclinations, I have a greater desire for community and a concern for others, which may have been fostered by my childhood as a “preacher’s daughter” and my adult life in nursing. I enjoy working for the “greater good’” and being useful (like Thomas the Tank Engine in the kids’ tales, whose greatest achievement was being useful).
Silver City, Nevada, is the home of my heart. When Ron and I began our life together in 1985, we were living in the Bay Area, and we had met through mutual friends in Nevada. He was studying culinary arts at the Cordon Rouge in Sausilito; I was nursing at the Aldersly Danish Home in San Rafael. One day he took me to Silver City, about 35 miles from Sparks in the Comstock area, and three miles south of Virginia City, a historic mining town and tourist destination.
I was immediately taken by the high desert landscapes of mountains, sage brush, pinon trees, deep blue skies, narrow winding roads, and remnants of the historic decay of wooden shacks and crumbling mills. As we swooped down from Griner’s Bend (where Mark Twain once ambled) through Gold Hill Canyon and into the narrow road through Devil’s Gate, (once a toll road for horse-drawn vehicles and the site of many stage-coach robberies), we found ourselves in Silver City.
Silver City, a town of 180 humans and a large community of dogs, was once a thriving mining town of 1,200 that declined for decades after the mining boom went bust. It wasn’t until the younger generation of the 1960’s and 70’s that the town was brought to new life. They found a beautiful spot surrounded by mountains and hills that offered cheap homes to rent and to buy—a place to raise families, work on their occupations and arts, and make music.
The town was absolutely quiet at high noon when I noticed a cluster of dogs in a loose circle, as though they were holding a meeting, in the park across the street by the old schoolhouse (now the Community Center). Some of them were jumping around, wrestling with each other, sniffing butts, chewing on twigs. Then it seemed that all at once, they got up, stopped romping, went off in different directions, and everything was still as a stone. I wanted to live there, and since the woman who was renting the little house from Ron had decided to move to Carson City, we moved to Silver City in June of 1986.
Ron built wooden planter boxes, we amended the rubble of alkaline soil and planted vegetables, herbs, and flowers. We attended the monthly town meetings where the dogs sat at their owner’s feet or wandered around greeting everyone and growling at each other. We got to know townsfolk at potlucks, walks around town, through their dogs, and when we picked up our mail at the old post office. There was a wall of ancient bronze boxes with combination locks, and Bea Williamson, our Postmaster, (“Don’t say Postmistress!”) stood in her funky office behind a small barred window, greeting us with a smile. She was perfect in her job. She was consistently friendly and helpful to all, was native to the Comstock, and her family were miners.
When I retired from Psych Nursing in 2009, I set out to do everything I always wanted to do while working full-time jobs, and no time to do it. So, in Silver City we organized a group of women to start a community garden, and in spite of obstacles and with the assistance of Silver City citizens who donated land, loads of soil, set straw-bales with a front-loader, put up fences, the outcome was swift and miraculous. That same summer with the support of the Healthy Communities Coalition, I led cooking classes for kids. We incorporated garden work and photo-journaling into that program. Each year there weremore women involved in the garden, and those associations expanded the dimensions of town interactions and functions. It’s like we make up reasons to celebrate! Now we even have a music pavilion and a stage for music events for Silver City musicians and outside performers in good weather.
Unfortunately, for me, a series of medical issues and surgeries for the past year and a half have clipped my wings for flying off to Silver City once or twice a week. My established health care providers are in Reno/Sparks, and I’ve had two unanticipated cardiac problems for which I was hospitalized, so I’ve been a bit reticent. So now I feel pretty ‘normal’ and ready to return to my life in Silver City, but wait!
Now there’s another problem: The Quarantine! Could I go back and forth? Could I self-distance in Silver City? Would Ron be lonely and isolated in Sparks? Would I be lonely in isolation in Silver City and no internet? Did I have enough food stored in my pantry to avoid shopping? I recalled all the canned goods and frozen foods I kept on hand for my use and pot-lucks. I finally went up the mountain for a few days.
Snapshots of the Impact of COVID-19 on Silver City, Nevada, April 2020
As I drove south on C Street, I was aware that Virginia City looked like the ghost town it once was before it became a tourist attraction. Even in the 60’s and 70’s. Ron tells me that the town was practically closed in the winter except for some of the bars and the Sharon House restaurant (where quite a few friends from Silver City waited tables in the day, and had many stories to tell). Normally, as the weather warms, the shops with T-shirts, polished rocks, and tourist gadgets are busy; tourists walk the board-walks, licking ice cream cones, and toting colorful plastic bags. Cars are parked on both sides of C Street, from the gas station north to the new fitness center at the south end before it hits the bend. But today, a few old trucks parked here and there and one solitary dog walks past the closed barbecue store with his head down.
Rolling through Devils Gate into Silver City I see there are no cars parked at the post office, which is usually my first stop, but I see the door is standing open and Suzie, our current postal clerk is behind the counter, her smile covered by her mask, although I can see her eyes smiling. It reminds me of the nurse interviewed on PBS news, who regretted that she couldn't comfort her patients with a smile because it was covered by her mask. But smiles involve the eyes, too, and it shows. I hope she knows.
As I was getting my mail from the box, I saw Cat W. striding in the door, heading straight for her mailbox, wearing a mask, and carrying a tall walking stick. After greeting each other she pointed the stick between us and told me the stick was a six foot measure for distancing. She was using special precautions since her husband was recovering from throat cancer. She waved to Suzie and me and her eyes were smiling.
Soon someone else came in, got their mail, waved to Suzie, and left. Then another, and another. No one stopped to chat as everyone always does. It’s always the gathering spot where we leave with a Hershey’s kiss and the dogs wait for their treat. Everyone loves Suzie, and she talks with all the curmudgeons in town that most people ignore.
But I lingered in my six foot distance and got caught up with the news. On the bulletin board was a large notice:
On Fridays, at 6 pm (weather permitting), go outside your house
and play music or some noise. Make it loud!
It was Friday, and at 6:00 pm I went out with my flute and started tooting. My neighbor Sheri, came out with two large cow bells. My musician neighbors came out on their porch with percussion instruments. In the distance we could hear faint noises. The flute sounds got lost. So the next Friday I went out with two copper pot lids and a wooden spoon, which gave a more satisfying sound. The next Friday also had more noise because a group of about eight to ten women gathered by the park for a drum circle facing away from each other. Someone brought a bottle of wine.
Silver Citians and the dogs are great outdoor people, and there are always weekly hiking groups. Some of them go on big hikes of seven to ten miles. I go with a more sedate group of elders who hike the hills around town, the back roads to Dayton, or just the local neighborhood. We bring a lunch, sit on tree stumps and rocks, and have great conversations all while maintaining self-distancing.
At home it is peaceful, and I am content to read, write in my journal, jot real letters, listen to music from my collection of CDs and cassette tapes, and finally sort through the closet full of photos, old letters, and news clippings, put things in albums, reminisce about my good life, and recognize my good fortune. No internet, no regular TV, just movies and radio. Through every window I see the distant Sierras, the Como mountains to the southeast, my garden with the flowers beginning to bud, and tiny leaves appearing on the Russian olive and elm tree. The wild horses roam the town like they own it and leave their manure all over the place, which we shovel into wheelbarrows for our gardens and the community garden. I am content in my isolation and talk to Ron on the phone many times a day. And when the weather is good, the outdoors is my home, too.
Although I feel for the plight of those who are devastated by this terrible virus; the sickness and death, the financial ruin, the poverty and fear, I am forever grateful that this has also opened my eyes to my own good fortune and for my ability to adapt, and, not least of all, to be quarantined in paradise.
Photo/Renate Victor.
Renate Victor has enjoyed writing poems, stories, journals, and letters since the age of seven, and she has the good fortune of a rich and interesting life. Originally from Pennsylvania, she has lived in New York City, New Jersey, London, Fuengirola, Spain; northern California, and since 1986, in northern Nevada where she has found the home of her heart.
In recent years, the stories of her life, and more than 50 years of nursing, have been inspired by the Sparks Lifescapes Memoir Writing Program, the leadership of Lois Smyres and Julie Machado, and the pleasures of stories written and read by her fellow memoirists.
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