Monday, March 23
No tofu in the stores, but plenty of veggie burgers in my fridge!
I finished reading Glennon Doyle’s “Untamed.” Much of it was read between the hours of 4 a.m. and 5 a.m. — the new witching hour of fear and desperation and insomnia. It was a good book to read during such times. The quality I most admire in Doyle’s work is her ability to literally expose herself on the page. To throw herself into the vulnerability. To claim her uncertainties and embrace her place in the world and her responsibilities to herself and her family and, through her larger work, to so many who need her help. Those things are all difficult for me to do. Exposing, claiming, embracing. I do OK. I get through. I’m successful enough, happy enough, luckier than most. I have “achieved” what I most wanted to with my life, which was to become a mother. I have a great family. Together, my partner and I have built our lives around our three kids, and it is the work that I am most proud of. I wouldn’t change that structure or that devotion. I won’t. And also, I really, really wish I’d been able to finish my MFA.
“Untamed” is the 20th book I’ve finished this year. I’ve read significantly less than usual over the last few weeks. It’s been difficult to focus, to say the least. But reading, for me, is like this daily writing. It is therapeutic. Words and sentences, pages in books, the craft and the art and the magic that goes into it all … it never gets old for me. I don’t know where that all comes from, though I credit my parents and the home I grew up in, with books lining shelves in rooms throughout. I have many memories of my mother reading a book in the hammock during her summer break from teaching. Of my father sitting in his home office, law volumes lining the walls, with a book propped open on the huge, oak desk. Our house now has a similar vibe, I think. About 18 months ago, the girls counted the number of books we own. The total was somewhere around 3,000 then. I suspect, even without accounting for the significant number of ebooks and audiobooks, the number has grown not insignificantly.
At work, my office is on the third floor. I walk up the stairs from the basement to my office many times a day. Five? Ten? More? In our house, we have one very old, very narrow set of stairs that I ascend a few times a day. Although I have been walking miles each day, I find I miss those stairs and wonder how my body will feel when I get back to that building, when those stairs once again become part of the pathway of my days.
I didn’t get out to walk. It snowed all day long, and at 4:00 or so, the time I’ve been plugging in my audiobook and setting out, it was miserable and cold.
I’m so much in my head. I want to look at the news and then I do, and I begin to wonder if I am experiencing symptoms. I check my sense of smell. My breathing. The tickle in the back of my throat.
Total cases in the U.S.: More than 46,000. Some sources estimate that the number is actually 10 times that. We have only recently started testing, and not widely, and some communities report still not having tests available.
Other estimates I’ve seen: Up to 80% of all Americans will likely contract COVID-19 at some point during this pandemic. Most cases will be mild. That last sentence is not much of a comfort.
Stay safe, everyone.