Day 229

My current “lunch” break — aka stepping away from the computer midday — is spent doing dishes.

We haven’t turned on the heat yet. I am bundled in fleece and wool and new Ugg slippers.

Writing is hard these days.

I am not generally a binge watcher.

For the past nine days I have been watching two or more episodes of ER daily.

Last weekend I sorted through bins of the kids’ old school papers, photos, report cards, etc. I lost track of hoe many episodes of ER went by on the TV while I was doing this.

The kids’ days are spent on Zoom. From “classroom” to “classroom.” Breakout rooms. Sometimes Google meet instead. The girls have designated “school blankets” that they wrap up in, especially first thing in the morning, as they stumble out of bed and onto chairs, logging on for attendance at 8 a.m.

I have a work blanket that I wrap myself up in, too.

Election Day is in less than a week. More than 70 million people have already voted.

Deaths in this country due to Covid-19 exceed 226,000.

Daily cases are at their highest levels. Ever.

We are heading into cooler and colder weather. We are heading toward the holidays. We are heading toward disaster.

I spilled white vinegar all over the bathroom floor last weekend.

I went for a walk around a local pond with a friend last week.

I made dinner with my sister over FaceTime. Tofu tikka masala and homemade naan. To say that it was delicious is not sufficient.

I’m 4-3 in our family fantasy football league. My son’s team is undefeated. This is to be expected and as it should be.

The house is always cluttered and often filthy.

When I sit in front of the computer screen, after work, with evening stretching before me and no where to go because no one has anywhere to be, I can’t seem to formulate any narrative anymore. Is it because it’s been six weeks since I’ve been here on a regular basis and I feel like I should fill in on everything that has happened (impossible). Is it because after more than 200 days of pandemic survival I’ve lost the ability for my brain to function in a way that feels so challenging? Is it because by the end of the day I’m just so fatigued by staring at a computer that I have an aversion, physically, toward moving my fingers over the keys? Am I depressed? Blocked? Just disinterested? Have I developed pandemic-onset attention deficit?

Am I just surviving?

By meal planning and cooking. By TV binging. By doomscrolling. By texting with my sister and my mom. By seeing my kids midday and walking as much as I can and reading when my mind will allow and sitting on the couch and drinking tea and looking out the window at the leaves on the trees and on the ground and getting out the winter clothes and trying not to turn on the heat yet.

The days continue, which is what we all want. And yet the days continue in a way that we don’t want them to.

This is why I haven’t been here. I don’t know what I know anymore. But you wouldn’t know it by looking at me. Or being with me. Or working with me. You can only know it if I say it. Maybe I’m saying it. I don’t know what I know anymore.

Right now writing doesn’t feel like writing, which I guess is consistent with where we are. Nothing feels like it used to feel. Meals are more than meals and just a way to mark the end of another day. Nothing is the same or familiar. Work. School. Co-curriculars. Even family. Everything is very close or from afar and we are all awaiting a time when we can get to safety. Without any certainty.

It’s like the unfinished novels or the memoir drafts I have in files on my computer, in folders under my bed. It feels like limbo.

And yet, when I name it (limbo). When I’m here. When I open the computer, put in my AirPods and listen to music, ignore the energy and movement of the people who also live in this small house, I feel better.

Stay safe, everyone.