Friday, April 10
I miss this place, the path around Upper Lake, where I often walk during lunch.
Today marks four weeks since we have been here, at home. We can’t call it quarantine, not really, because we are not here as a direct result of having been exposed to the virus. But shelter in place reminds us all of the active shooter situations, the drills our kids do in school, the one I’ve done at work. So at home is where it’s at.
And here we are.
Today’s screen time included an episode of Friends and one of The Middle. Also, a documentary about the Alabama-Auburn rivalry. (War Eagle, in case anyone is wondering where this family falls.)
I made white bean burgers with red sauce and cauliflower poppers for dinner. There was angel food cake and berries for dessert. We are eating well.
It’s Friday, but that doesn’t mean a whole lot to anyone but me. I do have a little work I need to do this weekend, but I can scatter it in around other things.
The weather has been pretty miserable for the past few days, and I am itching to get outside and try to take a walk. I believe the kids are planning the Backyard Olympics this weekend. I pity the person who is my partner. Hand-eye coordination is not a strength of mine.
I want to be able to write more. To be able to carry a thought forward past one short sentence or three sentence paragraph. To do that I need to sink into myself. To relax into it. It’s hard for me to get there. I am on alert all the time. Aware of where everyone is. Of what needs to be done to keep people safe and healthy and as happy as I can help them to be. I don’t resent this role. It’s one I’ve made and one I’m good at. And right now it is enough.
But once upon a time I wrote longer, deeper, more thoughtful prose. Not just spurts of play-by-play moments of a day, wondering the relevance of these words beyond recording one regular day at a time in the most irregular time of our lives.
Today, deaths worldwide surpassed 100,000. That’s more than three times the total of the town we live in. Or almost the entire capacity of the football stadium of Michigan, where my nephew will attend for college, we hope beginning in August. When I think of the numbers that way, and of how it feels to stand in a large arena, surrounded by people, there for a shared experience, a lump in my throat develops. I picture myself standing in that arena, empty of all the people who should be there but have died.
These are just the average thoughts that go through my head now, on any given day.
This is not normal. It is not a normal I want to live in. I want it to be over and behind us. I want to be sitting behind the fence at the baseball park, watching my daughter play. I want to be recalling for friends how beautiful my other daughter was on stage last weekend in her spring ballet performance. I want to be teaching my son how to drive. Now we don’t know how long before he can get his permit, the step that starts the six-month clock before he can take his road test.
This time will mark us all in some way. My family is resilient. I have every reason to believe that we will come out of this and be more who we already are. I also want to let my kids know that it’s OK to express the frustration. My youngest shared today how much she misses going out. I’m glad she told me this as she was helping me in the kitchen, chopping up the strawberries that I am allergic to so that everyone else could eat them for dessert. I had raspberries on my angel food cake. They were tart and cold and delicious.
We are here for an unknown period of time. I miss going out, too. I have become very good at saying, “I know. It’s awful.” What else is there to say?
Feel the feelings. It’s all we have right now.
Stay safe, everyone.