Traveling as the world shut down: Covid-19 stopped the world and my dreams

I was standing in line, luggage in tow, waiting to check into a flight from Orlando International Airport (MCO) to Baltimore/Washington International Airport (BWI) when the text message alert on my smartphone vibrated.

When I checked it, I saw it was from a number not in my contacts, but I thought I recognized it.  It was one line, “Are you driving or flying?” 

I obviously was flying.  I was about to get on a plane to Maryland from Florida. Then I planned to drive from Maryland to Delaware. 

I had a busy few days scheduled in the First State.  

As I read the text message, it was Thursday night. 

On Friday night, I was headed to southern Delaware. I was slated to host a charity trivia night for a local nonprofit. Saturday and Sunday were packed with plans to reconnect with friends and family and some meetings related to my new business venture, a publishing company I launched just three weeks earlier. 

On Tuesday morning, I had a speaking engagement scheduled at a local college to discuss journalism in the modern age. Then I was due to be back on a flight to the Sunshine State.

I replied to the text, with a smiley-faced emoji, not entirely sure who it was, but thinking it was someone I expected to be in the audience for Friday night’s trivia show. I let them know I was currently standing in line waiting to check into my flight. 

I didn’t get a response. 

I had heard about this flu-like virus that was going around; and some places were starting to be called “hotspots.” I had no idea I was apparently standing in one.

It was a late-night flight. I landed after midnight, got a rental car, and headed southeast.  It was 3 a.m. when I reached my hotel and checked in — still no response from my mystery texter.  

I went straight to sleep.  When I got up the next day, did some writing and editing, drove around where I was staying in Milford, Delaware, and picked up a few toiletries I forgot.  As I was getting ready for the charity event, I put on the news and got caught up on the progression of the plague and how things were starting to change. 

This all happened the weekend before Saint Patrick’s Day 2020. 

The organizer of the charity event texted me that everything was going to go as planned despite the growing emergency. 

It hadn’t really occurred to me that the world was going to change.  For the previous two months, I’d been buried in paperwork and projects readying the launch of my new company.  The events that set me on a plane and in rooms full of people were planned in January, long before anyone really knew that COVID-19 is caused by a coronavirus called SARS-CoV-2.

During the rest of that day and during the evening around the globe, things were getting worse. 

I arrived at the event.  There was a good crowd, but less than was expected.  I used to live and work in Milford; I still have deep connections there.  That is part of the reason I was there — to host a benefit charity night. 

I am a writer and journalist, but I am also a trivia buff that has a secret ambition of being a standup comedian. (I am terrible at the standup part).  I often say that there is a reason I write for a living and not talk for a living.  A few years ago, I started hosting trivia nights for fun on the side.  I can stand with a microphone, gab about trivia, but mostly read what I am supposed to say.

There was still no response from my mystery texter from Thursday evening. The person that I suspected it was wasn’t in the audience. 

The question started to make sense; if I drove up, they may have come to the event.  There was less chance of exposure driving compared to flying.  Since I flew, they chose not to come. 

It was a good night.  Everyone seemed to have fun and a few even laughed at some of my jokes; I was happy.  Later, I realized how much it meant to me that the night went well.  It would be the last time I was in a setting like that. I have no idea when I will be able to do it again. 

Saturday, I woke up with a bit of a hangover.  As the day progressed, I started to feel worse, but it wasn’t due to the drinks I had the night before.  

The virus had really spread since I started this trip.  Government leaders were beginning to talk about shutting down states and the possibility of restricting travel. 

Then my plans for Monday were canceled.  Shortly after, Tuesday’s speaking engagement was reset to be virtual before being canceled altogether. 

I had plans to meet up with a good friend that I hadn’t seen in years, but the rest of my trip was gone. 

Saturday went well. I had a great time reconnecting with my friend, and we made plans to work together on some projects in the future.  That was exciting.  Sunday, I got to see my Mom, sister, niece, and nephew, and my brother-in-law.  That was great. 

But the rest of the world was starting to shut down. 

I couldn’t move my flight.  I decided to keep my hotel reservations and use the time to get some writing and work done.  My flight was set for 9 p.m. Tuesday night. 

Tuesday morning, I woke up, packed up, and checked out of my room.   

I had 10 hours before my flight back to Florida.  I went to the airport.  I arrived at about 1 p.m., ready to hunker down and wait. 

I have flown in and out of BWI a lot.  It’s always a busy place.  That day it was nearly empty.

It was eerie. 

The airline folks recognized my predicament and offered to put me on an earlier flight.  I quickly accepted. I was set to leave at 4:30 p.m. instead of 9 p.m.  There weren’t many people at the gate as I waited for my departure time.  I assumed there would be some kind of rush when it got closer, there wasn’t. 

The airline moved me around with little difficulty because many passengers had started canceling their bookings.  When I boarded, I quickly realized I had the row to myself.  When we got into the air, I looked around. I had a few rows to myself.  The plane was practically empty, and the booking agents spaced us out throughout the aircraft. 

Orlando is home to Mickey Mouse.  Because of that, the airport is always busy.  When we landed, and I went to fetch my bags.  It was like a ghost town.  There were only a few passengers walking around.  The airport’s cleaning crew was busy wiping everything down, but minus that, it was empty.  It was unbelievable. 

The next day I was back in Florida. I turned on the news and learned that California was shuttering its doors.  New York was doing the same.  Delaware, the place I just was standing in less than 24 hours earlier, was starting its quarantine process. 

Restaurants and bars were closing.  The economy was facing collapse.  This was real. 

I was grateful for the time I got to spend with friends and family and for the chance to give back.  I was equally thankful that I was able to get back to Florida.  Looking back on the last few days of travel, I had this sense that I had been running through a vast expanse that was collapsing in on itself behind me.

The following days and weeks hammered home the reality of this epidemic.  The little company I started the last week of February was stalled.  The businesses we planned to support and celebrate were gone.  Without customers, I couldn’t sustainably pay my company’s overhead.  I had to press pause.  I had to find a way to pivot through this. 

While I thought about what to do next, I turned to YouTube. 

It’s helped me realize that I need to get Cargoing Gone! 

I am still searching for where the sidewalk ends

When I was about ten years old, I was introduced to the poems and drawings of Shel Silverstein in his book "Where the Sidewalk Ends."  I had seen the book everywhere before and had heard some of the poems read aloud by teachers and librarians; but one day, during some free time in my school's library, I picked up the book to have something to flip through before we were herded off to our next school-day activity.  The experience of opening that book that day was truly the first significant event in my reading life.  I had been reading for some time, but the feelings that specific book brought out in me was the first time I understood the power of words and art.  Silverstein's words brought me to places I'd never imagined before. His artwork inspired me to see the world differently and taught me that art is interpreted in many different ways. 

     For a child who was called "the man of the house" for as far back as I could remember, the images and poems in "Where the Sidewalk Ends" were at first an escape and then a comfort.  Sitting in a beanbag chair in my suburban-Philadelphia school library, the poem "It's Dark in Here," along with the accompanying drawing of a boy writing a poem from inside a lion's mouth, made me chuckle before my imagination took me away from the library and into the belly of a lion.  I imagined for a moment that it was me that had got "too near" to the lion's cage and was swallowed up.  I felt that the poem was a whimsical but cautionary verse about obeying the rules, especially around lion cages.  It was also much more for me.  I wasn't alone in the library anymore; I was transported to an impossible place away from my 10-year-old reality. 

     Silverstein's poem "Love" is accompanied by a drawing of what looks like a girl, standing alone, holding a massive sign with only the letter "V" on it.  The drawing doesn't make much sense without the poem, but it still spoke to me that day.  The poem has four lines.  It describes how the girl came to be alone with a letter-V sign.  Her friends that were supposed to be with her holding the other three letters to the word "LOVE," couldn't make it.  So, as the last line of the poem says, "I'm all of the love that could make it today." Being the oldest child of a family that consisted of only my sister and mother, this one struck a chord with me.  It had a beautiful sentiment, but the simple drawing of the girl and her sign stood out.  On its own, it is a simple ink drawing.  However, when you read the poem next to it, the artwork adds a layer to the poem's message that I don't think could be conveyed with words.  Sometimes when I looked at it, I saw a defiant little girl determined to share her message of love.  It seemed that she was standing there, telling me that I was not alone.  However, then I could also see, a little girl still determined to share her message, but she was a little sad that she was by herself.  I understood both of those feelings.  That poem and drawing taught me the power that art could have. 

     On that day, which sparked my love of words and art, the book's title-poem, "Where the Sidewalk Ends," felt like a call to action.  I wanted to find the place where sidewalks ended.  I wanted to see, "where the moon-bird rests from his flight." I felt the three-stanza poem was urging me to explore.  As my relationship with reading and writing, along with my relationships with the people in my life, grew, I went back to this poem many times.  It was that poem that taught me that people at different times and places in their lives could get a different meaning from words and art that they may not have felt before.  When I was about 11 years old, someone dear to me died.  I found myself retreating into Silverstein's book, which had become my favorite book and close confidant.  While dealing with my grief, "Where the Sidewalk Ends" took a different meaning for me.  That day it didn't talk about a physical place or an adventure to undertake.  It took me to a place that made me understand that everything ends; sidewalks, people, "chalk-white arrows." Instead of a surge of excitement to explore, I felt a sadness and a realness that I had to learn to understand.  Decades after I first discovered Silverstein's book of poems, I frequently go back to his work.  Often, I've found new meanings in poems and drawings I've read and re-read throughout the years.  It is a powerful lesson to understand how art can be interpreted depending on its beholder. 

     I checked out "Where the Sidewalk Ends" from the library so much my mother bought me my own copy.  I got in trouble a few times for keeping it longer than I was allowed.  I now keep a few copies on hand.  Two, in particular, I hope to give to my nephew and niece some day in the hope that it sparks their literary development.  I hope that Silverstein's words will bring them to places they'd never imagine before, and that his artwork inspires them to see the world in a different way and that in revisiting its pages at different points their lives they learn how art can be interpreted in many different ways. 

     I am still searching for where the sidewalk ends.