Local park. Closed to cars.
Tuesday, March 17
Today I decided to migrate my pandemic posts (catchy!) over to this site, which I built ages and ages ago and never made live. More on that later, maybe? But, I’m glad it was ready to go, and so this is where I’ll be continuing my Pandemic Posts. (Just gonna own that now, even though it is horrifying.)
I’m feeling all out of sorts, honestly, writing Day 4 ON Day 5, and yet I don’t want to skip a day. So here’s a quick recap of yesterday, for my own interest in remembering the banal than for anyone out there reading.
Precursor to Day 4 recap: I am an armchair infectious disease junkie. For instance, I’m so interested in and have read so much abou the 1918 flu that when I became editor of my college’s alumnae magazine I assigned a story about how the flu affected the campus then. That said, I would prefer not to be living through a pandemic. Also, yesterday started with an email from a colleague that included the following:
“Just wanted to say that you are my go-to person the next time there is a global pandemic as you are clearly ahead of the curve.”
Never have I wanted to be more wrong.
Other stuff that happened yesterday:
Snow on the ground in the morning. Sun in the afternoon.
I woke up to an email from Amazon that I have a $20 credit, because I listened to three books already this year. Happy news!
Our orange-faced leader shared that July or August seems “rather optimistic” as an endpoint. Yeah. Also, see above.
Vaccine is phase 1.
The girls have been regularly practicing their instruments.
We are now low on half-and-half for coffee.
Lots of emails from teachers and administrators for the kids. We had to pick up a packet at the youngest’s school yesterday. I got her all set up on a new math website.
So many Zoom meetings for work.
The ENTIRE New York Times news app is stories about coronavirus.
More deaths. More famous people sharing diagnoses.
At 11:11 a.m. I jotted down: IS THIS F***ING REAL? (Except I didn’t use asterisks.)
At 4 p.m. I went for my daily walk. 4.2 miles. The park is now closed to all cars, playgrounds are blocked off by orange construction fencing, lots of people were walking dogs very far away from each other. I’m grateful for this nearby park and walking loop, but it is very surreal seeing no “normal” activity there. This is the park we’ve gone to since our own kids were babies. They spent hours playing on those playgrounds, playing T-ball and soccer, riding bikes, running through the water park. As I walked through I found myself imagining the possibility of the park never opening to those activities again.
Dang it’s hard to be emotionally honest with myself about all of this. It’s HARD. And I am not good about making myself vulnerable. And yet, I’m pushing publish. My sister is holding me accountable. You can read her daily Pandemic Posts here.
Stay safe, everyone.