In this year of our Lord 2020, I feel as if I’ve been in hand-to-hand combat with Mother Nature. Currently, I am covered in poison ivy. I have blisters on my body in places I heretofore did not know existed. The worst spots are the fleshy creases: toes, elbows, knees. Any time I move, those creases protest. How did I contract the rash? It’s a mystery. My quarantine life has been spent on a couch watching Netflix or on a wooden chair attempting to write a best seller or walking on an asphalt road dragging a badly-behaved Golden Doodle. Most likely, I am the first case of Poison Ivy Acquired by Immaculate Conception, hurled from heaven by the gods of Infelicitous Botanical Afflictions.

Yesterday, I jumped in the pool in an attempt to quell the incessant itching. As I finished my last lap, I realized I hadn’t felt the urge to scratch in over a half hour. No sooner than I allowed joy to flood my heart, a large insect landed in my hair. When I swatted it away, I felt a stab of pain, unlike any sting I’d ever experienced. Gone were the happy pheromones swimming had engendered. Was it a Murder Hornet? Doubtful. They don’t seem to have arrived in Virginia. Most likely it was a Mayhem Wasp, an apt animate metaphor for pandemic life.

And, of course, Mother Nature’s 2020 sucker punch is the coronavirus. My husband is a glaucoma surgeon who spends his workdays six inches from the faces of his patients, many of whom have not mastered the proper placement of a mask. (“Under the nose, doesn’t count, Mr. McGloin!”) Several of Bruce’s colleagues have gotten sick; a few have died. Years ago, I used to play a banjo tune called Some Little Bug is Going to Get You. You can still find it on YouTube.  A memorable verse is, “Each microbe and bacillus has a different way to kill us; And in the end, they always claim us as their own.” That line has new meaning for me right now.

Since March, I find myself in a constant state of agita.  Agita is the Italian term for the indigestion one feels when agitated by circumstances. For example, my Italian grandmother might have said, “Whatsamatter for you? You givva me agita when you whack you brother with bocce ball!”

Today, while skimming the newspaper, I read about global warming, hurricanes, tornados, the upcoming flu and the ever-present coronavirus. Has Mother Nature turned on us? I can’t bear that thought. Maybe I’m wrong. Perhaps it’s not Mother Nature who has it in for us, instead it’s her malevolent, butt-ugly distant cousin, Villainous Vince. If so, I have a message for him. “Vince, you vengeful varlet, you nefarious knave, cease and desist. You’re giving us agita!”