Monthly Archives: March 2020

About the Pandemic Life

Posted on by

What day is it? Is it still 2020? Is that spring out there or a thermonuclear thaw? Did Elon Musk go to outer space and bring home a virus souvenir? Did Sarah Palin really show up on The Masked Singer? Am I dreaming or did somebody just tell the whole world to #stayhome?

This thing is actually pretty weird for me and not for the reasons you may think. I love being at home, I love being able to work from home. When this first went down, I did a fist-bump with myself and thought, “I got this.” I mean, if I got a day to #stayhome #allday pre-March 2020, I was thrilled. I am, do not forget, an introvert.

But I find myself strangely moody that I’m suddenly without the freedom to just go.

What is that thing inside human beings that says don’t tell me what to do even if I want exactly what you are suggesting? And also, there’s that spooky admonition: Be careful what you wish for…

I don’t know about you, but I don’t like to be so figure-out-able. Like when I take some quiz from a magazine and think my answers are so avant-garde, so against the tide of the rest of humanity? And then I flip to the answer page, tally up my score and find that I am incredibly average, one of the herd, just a human being after all.

And so I find myself analyzing myself: what is it I’m really missing?

Well, contrary to my introvert-self, I miss people. Sure, I have Rick and Gil and Simon in the house with me. And bonus: I actually like all of them. And I text and I talk and I read a lot, which to me is like someone usually way smarter talking to me. But I am missing the impromptu chats around town and at work or even the usual kind of shopping at Co-op here in town where you have to budget twice as much time as you think because People Gonna Talk To You.

Not no more. Earlier this week, as I shopped for a few things, everyone was leaning away as we passed by one another in the aisles. It wasn’t nice. It was sad.

And I find myself asking the question: How long is this gonna last?

Cue the crickets. Because nobody really knows. Smart people on the news say annoying things like: It’s going to get worse before it gets better. Well, that helps. Not. Because Newsflash: Smart people sometimes don’t have answers. And in this case, if they do have answers, they’re probably not that smart.

*Sigh.*

There’s a part of me that knows it’s gonna be (sort of) okay, that it will be over eventually and we’ll all look back and say: whoa, that was something. But I don’t want to just look ahead to when it’s over because that could be wishing a lot of time away. And it’s never a good thing to do that.

So I will remember that I’m human and I will just do the next thing and be thankful for the time, no matter how hard it is to watch it go by.

About Right Now

Posted on by

Sometimes I like to take a page or two in my journal and use the phrase “right now” as a prompt to note everything that is happening in my life…right now. Real, ordinary life passes us by so quickly and we rarely take note of it. I have found it so interesting when I look back on these entries that document what was going on at a specific time in my life – for me, for Rick, for my kids, in our town, in our country, in our world. Because we often don’t remember how things were unless we wrote them down, took pictures or posted it on social media.

Throwback 2020 is gonna be interesting in a year or twenty from now.

Besides the oft-told stories of people hoarding toilet paper and antiseptic-wipe scalpers making a killing, we are seeing unprecedented full-stops to travel, to working, to shopping, even going to church, to funerals or weddings. As each day we watch the news and hear the latest stats and mandated shutdowns, it all feels like everything is sloooowly coming to a halt.

I was rifling through my mind to identify what this whole experience reminded me of and I landed on a scene from the movie Apollo 13. In order to save power, the astronauts had to shut everything down. The lights went low, the heat went off, the constant whirring of machines quit, not unlike the eeriness of a power outage when you realize all the regular noise is absent.

In some ways, we are heading into the dark side of the moon. We don’t know exactly when we are going emerge from pandemic status, but the optimistic view is: we will. Yes, Houston, we have a problem but there are amazing people everywhere doing everything they can to land this spaceship called COVID-19.

For some of us, it may feel like we’ve lost the moon, as Jim Lovell stated as soon as he realized they had malfunctioned. Epic trips have been cancelled, stocks have plummeted, savings are being depleted. But it might be too soon to tell. Ken Mattingly, the astronaut who was banned from Apollo 13, lost the moon first, but was instrumental in getting that ship back to earth. And later, on Apollo 16, he did get to walk on the moon.

I don’t want to come off glib or cheezy. I don’t want to make light of this global event that is life- threatening (for some), stress-inducing, schedule-challenging and even, boring for those who are finding social-distancing and just staying at home difficult. Plus, no sports, no graduations, no festivals, no parties, not even any green beer in the pub.

As we emerge in a month or two from the shadow, remember to look for the bright side. I have faith that it’s there. It will always be there.

About Toilet Paper and Disappointment

Posted on by

Until further notice, hockey has been cancelled. And basketball. And probably other stuff, but I’m trying not to listen/look at the news anymore than is reasonable. And with those beeping devices at our fingertips 24/7, that is not easy. It’s all so, well…disappointing. And sobering.

And let’s face it: things change mighty fast. Two months ago, we heard about an escalating health crisis in Asia, two weeks ago Italy – Italy! – got shut down, two days ago we were joking in my exercise class about all the panick-ers emptying the store shelves of toilet paper. And two hours ago, I began to take stock of my pantry shelves – including toilet paper. And thinking maybe we should stop recycling our newspapers for awhile. Just, you know, in case.

And then this morning I heard that Tom Hanks and Rita Wilson have become Hollywood’s first couple of COVID-19. How very Forrest Gump of him, getting in on it. Don’t get me wrong, I love Tom. And I love his Twitter-ing reassurance that protocol is being followed and all will be well.

Although we haven’t come in contact personally with anyone who has contracted the coronavirus, it’s starting to get closer to home, both geographically and other ways, too. Rick and I had a trip planned for early April. Cancelled. The conference I was going to go to? Cancelled. Hockey game tomorrow night? Cancelled.

Sooooo, none of those things are life-changing for us. But when everything starts to get cancelled, it starts to look grim. Just think about all the other people affected by those cancellations: not just hockey players and other professional athletes, but everybody who works for those organizations. Everyone who works in hotels and restaurants. And then there are the schools facing closures. Hospitals responding to this pandemic.

It’s pretty obvious that there’s soon not going to be any six degrees of separation.

Maybe if we just knew how long it was all going to last, it would be easier to take. Oh, but, yeah...nobody knows that. That’s why everyone is trying to corner the toilet paper market. And, full disclosure: I bought some yesterday. Just, you know, in case.

But if we really think about it, we don’t EVER really know what is going to happen or how long something is going to last. Our family has had our lives turn on a dime many times with events that were life-changing for us, times when you drop everything to attend to what really matters.

When my conference got cancelled a couple a days ago, I had a moment of despair: what if we never get to travel again? Chalk it up to a healthy imagination and a recent reading of Emily St. John Mandel’s pandemic-themed book Station Eleven. (Trust me: this is not a good time to take note of one of my book recommendations.) If we couldn’t travel again, if we had to rearrange our lives, if we had to bunker down – we would survive. Well, hopefully, since most people who contract the virus recover just fine, if it just takes a little time.

And outside my window today, the sun is shining. It will probably come up again tomorrow. The couple who bought our last house had a baby yesterday and I was sent the news on my iPhone this morning, complete with a picture of the miracle. Another friend sent a message that her dad who is on life support, has taken a turn for the better. And my kids are sending Homer Simpson gifs to our family conversation because a sense of humor really helps. And because: Homer Simpson.

So, my phone can be the bearer of good news as well as bad. Life is not all disappointing and sobering. And let’s hope that if it really does get crazy, we can all spare a square if someone needs it.

About Retrospective Parenting

Posted on by

(When my adult children sometimes take days to answer my texts, it’s helpful to remember what it was like before they had cell phones – heck, before I had a cell phone – and I couldn’t stop them talking to me. Here: another trip in the time machine back to 2002.)

            Parenting can be such a negative experience. The words “no”, “don’t”, “stop it”, “quit that” and “never” become indispensable to a parents’ repertoire as soon as a child discovers that they are independent beings with the capacity to jump on couches, bite hands and other appendages that don’t belong to them, spill their food all over the new carpet, careen through the house at the speed of light, slam doors with explosive force and test the sound barrier with that weapon of weapons, their voice. It’s usually the voice that gets them in the most trouble. All the other acts can be attributed to normal childhood behavior, no matter how nerve wracking it is. But the power of speech can singularly drive a parent up the proverbial wall.

            Take for instance the average trip to the grocery store. Thirty minutes, fourteen aisles and the whole experience should be a piece of cake for the seasoned parent of a child old enough to talk. However, each shopping trip provides at least 1543 opportunities for your child to ask for something. (This statistic must be multiplied accordingly by the number of children you are blessed to have along on grocery day.) Correspondingly, there are an equal number of times that a parent can practice the most repeated word in their vocabulary. As the child moves from item to item, the parent is subjected to a well-known interrogation technique: ask enough times and you will break down all defenses. Even with strategic moves on the part of the parent to avoid high-density candy and toy areas, children have an innate tendency to ask if they can have everything from dog food to Tylenol to oranges. The unsuspecting parent will automatically respond “no!” to every request even if it is healthy, on sale and on the shopping list. But after resolving to yourself not to give in to any of the child’s queries along with the ultimatum that you will not buy anything they ask for, you find yourself between the rock and hard place of giving in or leaving the store without half the items you came for. 

            Current parenting lore will encourage you to: a) ponder the question before the “no” reflex occurs, and b) think of ways to respond to your children in a positive manner. Considering the question first may result with a happier dog, a migraine-free mom and a chance for the family to ward off scurvy. Positive responses can be worded like, “Of course you can pierce your belly button over my dead body,” or “My, your leaping-off-the-couch-distance has improved since last week.”

            Such strategies can be a real help to all parents. At any rate, you’ll have plenty of Tylenol in case you do break down. And at least the dog will be happy.