Pandemic isolation reproduced the exact preconditions for collective shock.

Evidence

Controlling the virus forced on many of us, including me, the very conditions that make humans most vulnerable to states of shock: prolonged stress and isolation. My own isolation grew more extreme when, four months into the pandemic, we returned to Canada. It was supposed to be a temporary trip to be close to my parents. But, like so many others, we got stuck. We now live full-time up on a rock at the dead end of a street that is three hours, including a less than dependable ferryboat, from the closest city. Only occasionally do I regret giving up restaurant delivery, reliable electrical power, and subways in favor of a reliably open country school, easy access to forest trails, and the slim but nonetheless real chance of glimpsing the black dorsal fin of an orca slice the steely waters of the Salish Sea. It’s good here—when it isn’t choked by heat and wildfire smoke or lashed by storms for which we keep having to learn new names (“bomb cyclone,” “atmospheric river,” and “pineapple express” all in one long, wet winter). But it is isolated. So maybe that’s what finally pushed me to (or is it “over”?) the edge. The months and months without humans in bodies to feel and think with. — Naomi Klein, Doppelganger, 22

Categorization

• XREF: The ‘bomb cyclone / atmospheric river / pineapple express’ new-weather-names detail connects to her climate writing and to the narrative-vacuum theme — naming new extreme events is itself story-building.
• SHARE: The specific ‘pineapple express’ storm name detail would land with someone interested in how weather terminology is adapting to climate change.