Days 42 & 43 and a little flashback to day 40

Making dinner on Wednesday night, a very easy baked ziti, salad, rolls warmed in the oven, I was acutely aware of time. Just how much of it I was spending making this meal. The means to the end was direct. I was cooking. So that we could eat. There was no time frame. No need for a meal before something else. Or squeezed between two activities. It wasn’t a meal that would be eaten by different members of the family depending on when they were home from basketball, ballet, baseball, meetings, work. It was just Wednesday night dinner. I was cooking it. We would eat it when it was finished. That is all.

That was Wednesday. Now it’s Saturday.

The kids have been creating Jeopardy! games for each other. It’s as fabulous as it sounds. One makes a game, complete with categories, points, questions to be answered. The other two play. There is final Jeopardy! Wagers. It’s fabulous. Truly.

We had a family Coke-Pepsi taste test. Only one of us got it right! And it wasn’t a parent. There are people in this family who had never tasted either, so that’s not really fair, of course, but I was certain I could tell, and I got it wrong. Huh.

It was GG’s birthday yesterday. The kids FaceTimed her, and several times since then they have recounted the conversation. We all miss being together. April is a big birthday month in our family, and for years we all gathered mid-month to celebrate all of the April babies, the matriarch of the family among them. Now the matriarch is GG, and we all wish we could be gathering to celebrate her. But for years, and until two years ago, the matriarch was GG’s mother, Nanny. A force settled on the couch and surrounded by her six children, many, many grandchildren, and many, many more great-grandchildren. We miss her. We are also glad she is not living through this.

I keep starting books and then putting them aside. I read a few paragraphs, chapters, maybe even get halfway through, and then I switch to something else. When I stumble to the end of one I feel victorious, even as I’m also confused about why I was able to finish one book over another.

Today’s headlines included a warning from the World Health Organization that there is no certainty that one becomes immune to COVID-19 after infection. Followed by, if one can be reinfected, like with the common cold (also a coronavirus) then a vaccine is “unlikely.”

How are we supposed to digest this information?

Other headlines: The leader of North Korea is MIA, anticipated to be gravely ill.

So, we have a global pandemic. Climate change (have I mentioned the absurd weather lately?). Nuclear weapons under unknown control.

Is this it? I said to J earlier today. Is this really the end? I don’t know if I really meant it, but maybe I did. Maybe it was a real question. A question of how we would survive threat after threat after threat. More questions: If we do survive and life goes on, will it ever be as before? Will it be better? Will we forever mourn the pre-March 13, 2020, world that we lived in, full of unknown contentment and hopes and dreams that seemed possible, that we encouraged in our kids.

Today’s numbers: 2.7 million cases worldwide. Nearly 1 million in the U.S. More than 50,000 in Massachusetts.

I’m here just to record things I don’t want to forget. On the days I feel less than inspired to capture the days I have to remind myself that if we do make it through then I will want, at some point, to be able to look back and remember the sunny day in April when I took a 4.5-mile walk on the bike path wearing a face mask, returned and played three games of corn hole with members of my family, did four loads of laundry and hung three on the line. I made pesto for lunch. Showered. Got in bed around dinner time and declared I wasn’t making dinner. J made dinner. We ate outside. I did the dishes. I folded the laundry. I retreated to the bedroom to pound away on the keyboard.

The kids are eating ice cream in the other room. It’s 9:30 p.m. I am looking forward to watching a few episodes of Schitt’s Creek tonight and hope I sleep through the night without waking up and reading on my Kindle for an hour between 2 and 4 a.m.

Stay safe, everyone.