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I left NIP vaccinated and masked tonight. Pulling my door too hard, it slammed and the hallway made that hollow, heavy, thud I’ve heard often since March 2020. “Pretty soon you’ll have to be more careful about that Konstantine, there are gonna be people here again.”
Covid-19 is my second epidemic. It’s my plague redux, and everything about it brings me back to the first. I can’t call this a “reactivation of trauma”—this trauma was never inactive. It’s a re-memory of the life and feelings of a younger man, standing at the center of concentric circles that close in on him as he wonders if it’s going to be him next. A young friend asked me last April “does now feel like then?” Painfully I said “yes, except this time people care.” Rushing reminiscences cascaded in my mind, condoms became masks, a laughing
Hollywood actor-president morphed into a reality-TV-show-host-president. All recalled how isolated and left I felt back then, until I found activism and agency.
In 1995 viable treatment arrived, after 15 years of social, political and personal warfare. The FDA buckled to our pressure and created a rapid approval process. The same one used today. Medicine got to millions and like Lazarus they rose from their beds. Reentry felt then like a miracle. I fantasize reentering now will feel like foundling moments. Gradual, silent, incremental units built at a pace, with moment upon moment of accumulating reenterings. Room after room will be re-filled with story and care. I love my office, it’s my safe haven. I love my institute, it’s my safe haven. Over this past year of loss, it’s where I re-found myself.