There’s nothing like a pandemic to make you question your most cherished values.

I’ve just returned from the grocery store, in a car, toting more than a dozen plastic bags full of stuff into the kitchen, where it will be wiped down and put away. Gone are the days of “European shopping,” when I wandered around town on foot, bus or bicycle, stopping here and there for a loaf of bread or a bottle of wine or something for supper. We had been making a dent in our plastic bag collection, but now bags of bags sit on the shelf, next to the reusable ones we’re not allowed to re-use.

Regular readers know I’m one of the most ardent advocates for public transportation in the greater Bangor area, but I haven’t been on a bus in over a month. It’s nice to see fewer cars on the streets, and to ride the bicycle on warm days, un-harassed by impatient drivers. But I wonder when I’ll next feel comfortable sitting beside a stranger on a public bus.

Every one of my writer friends seems to be keeping a quarantine journal of sorts. Many of my musical friends are posting videos of themselves making music and holding electronic gatherings. I’m writing less and reading more. I’ve picked up the dense history of the Balkans that I started reading last spring in Bulgaria (I’m up to the beginning of the end of the Ottoman Empire). I’m listening to a great deal of Bob Dylan.

Maybe I just don’t have a lot to say that hasn’t been said already. Perhaps the break from public life is a good reason to go full-bore introvert, which is often my first impulse anyway. This intermission might be an opportune time for observation, reflection, perhaps even reassessment.

We’ve been taking Sunday drives, from Bangor to the rockbound coast, two weeks in a row now. Aside from strategic trips to the grocery store, it’s almost the only time Lisa’s car leaves the house. The drives are therapeutic. We pack a picnic lunch and stay away from people. We eat on the shore if it’s warm enough. There are worse places than Maine to be marooned in.

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I was raised in the country by parents who fled the city. Most of my adult life has been a rapprochement with in-town life. I’ve lived in burgs of a few hundred and a few million, and now I’ve settled into a middle ground in the tens of thousands. It seems counter-intuitive but it’s true: cities are better for the environment. One’s carbon footprint is smaller in Philadelphia than in Passadumkeag, smaller in Bangor than in Blue Hill. But these days the idea of a cabin in the woods looks pretty good.

I think I first realized the virus was serious when the sports leagues shut down. There’s a ton of money in professional sports, and its owners wouldn’t close up shop for nothing. Ditto the concert venues, bowling alleys, restaurants and bars and on and on. Somebody knew what was happening here, Mr. Jones.

 I’m a little surprised by this, but I don’t miss professional sports. Though I’ve drifted away from basketball and made a conscious decision not to watch football, I’ll watch a baseball or hockey game on TV. I’ll check in on the Red Sox and dip into the Stanley Cup playoffs. Before the virus hit, we’d been planning a weekend trip, by bus and/or train, to Boston. I’ve never been to a Bruins game. Tickets were two hundred bucks per person in the cheap seats. Who is going to these games, I wondered, at $200 a pop? I passed. I can see the Maine Black Bears for a tenth the cost and 90 percent of the value. Some of those kids will turn pro, and I can say I knew them when.

So I’m already a little soured on professional sports for pricing themselves out of the budget of the average person – and then along comes the coronavirus to show us all how unessential the whole show is. Don’t get me wrong – I’m glad I lived to see the Red Sox win (and I fear I’ve lived to see the Cubs usher in the apocalypse) but I don’t miss baseball as much as I thought I would. If this sounds like heresy, well, I guess I’m still miffed about the Mookie Betts trade.

I don’t miss the frantic way of life that greeted me when I returned from abroad last year. Until I lived outside the United States, I never noticed how hurried the average American life is. We’re obsessed with work, and when we’re not working, we have to be doing something. Although it can’t last, the respite from all the rushing around is welcome.

The Earth thinks so, too. Pollution levels are down in urban areas around the world. Much of that is due to reduced driving. The irony is that people are using their cars less but need them more: for that trip to the store, to the hospital, or down a country road. Cars are the ultimate in social distancing. Mainers were doing it long before the coronavirus, carrying on window-to-window conversations at rural crossroads.

But I still don’t want to own a car. Public transportation will bounce back and expand, even in Maine. Car rental places will re-open. Taxis will become trustworthy again. The weather is getting better for bicycling.

Still, it’s alarming to see how fragile the whole infrastructure is. A car and a full tank of gas can be a comfort when it all comes crashing down.

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