The following is the opinion and analysis of the writer:
Over the years that I worked at the writing trade, I was assigned subjects about which I knew nothing. My ignorance would then force me to learn, to engage in a crash course while on deadline. This is one of those stories.
Two months ago, I couldn’t spell pandemic. Likewise, the only Corona I was familiar with came in a bottle from Mexico. In less than 45 days, a mauling virus has turned the world into a contagion cauldron potentially throttling life for every person on Earth. No soul is spared. This zealous disease turned centuries-old trusted financial networks into a biblical proportion free-fall, whipping out trillions in earned dollars all while striking white-hot fear into those that dare imagine: “What if?”
Today, there is a stillness at SaddleBrooke that is unsettling. A great heaviness surrounds the community. It’s hard to find a rhythm. When the life that you knew it is now unrecognizable, it’s dangerous to be ruled by fear.
For the 9,100 active SaddleBrooke elders who are now living under self-quarantine and spending each day the same as the last is a startling experience. All facilities are shuttered except for the golf courses. The rhapsodies of music on our patios with sunset-splashed mountains still bring out a cocktail but no refreshing conversation with neighbors and friends.
We do live in an earthly paradise, a retreat from the pressures of modern civilization. Our last years were planned to be filled with bliss, rapture, delight and joy.
Fewer than 50 days ago, this virtual Shangri-La warmed our lives with contentment. Many here enjoy charity work, helping the community feed children and families, clothing those in need, tending to the sick, and shaking hands with local government officials as volunteers.
SaddleBrookers are revolutionary in their approach to civic giving and care. Today, it is difficult to carry on that good work. We still say hi from our driveways to those who exercise our streets. Conversations are short at a distance.
Health is paramount to us older folk, followed by pocketbook issues. We don’t have the time to rebuild our financial security again. If we become ill, the chance of recovery is a slow slog filled with doctors, tests, medicine and anxiety. Compounded with logistic challenges, this adds up to a dense layer of complexity with a killer loose on the streets. We are, after all, in “God’s Waiting Room.”
At about 3,300 feet elevation, in what I call the “SaddleBurns Mountains,” there are over 5,000 homes huddled across SaddleBrooke valley. This municipality is more substantial than many small towns. Damon Williams, the executive director of the SaddleBrooke Two Homeowners Association, tells me the board and committees meet on the phone and in small groups seven days a week. “Staff is using the time to deep clean facilities and sanitize equipment. SaddleBrooke amenities will remain closed for the foreseeable future,” according to Williams.
From a medical perspective, John Daugherty, my doctor, emphatically instructed me, “Cancel, cancel, cancel! If you can live without it, don’t leave the house.” I will add that the possibility of death is always a marvelous corrective to human behavior.
Let us look forward to a cloudless summer afternoon when this virus war is over, and the world is at peace — a time when we can listen to a ballgame and the constant chatter of the play-by-play, when we watch people go about their day, and we are all subliminally driven by this magnificent energy of social well-being.
