I only know how long I have
been self -isolating at home because I remember that my last day of being
physically present at the Wayside Country Store was St. Patrick’s Day. Since
then, I’ve been lovingly side-tracked by my family due to my age and underlying
immune issues.
A few days in, I started making
slash marks on my calendar but that felt curiously like being a prisoner
scratching out days of a sentence served on the cell wall. I did not yet feel like a prisoner and there
was no end in sight -- then or now.
Tending to be an optimist, I
cast around for productive uses of time.
A mountain of old photos needed to be sorted and I got down to the Jurassic
layer (see the photo of a five-year-old me at the top of this post) pretty
quickly. I kept dozens of images and
threw away hundreds – most of the latter blurry or duplicates. When I die --
hopefully no time soon and not because of Covid-19 -- I want my children to
know that whatever they have to sort out is now a good one tenth of what it
would have been before the isolating circumstances of the 2020 pandemic.
I’ve sorted out bits and pieces
of metal and all things shiny accumulated through my jewelry-collecting hobby
(and even managed to construct a few jewelry Christmas trees along the way). I’ve
gardened -- pulling miles of mint roots that zippered out of the thawing soil,
I’ve spent too much time on Facebook (checking Getty Images is entertaining –
and illustrates the kind of ingenuity that has resulted from this quarantine). I’ve learned to use new technology (hello
Apple TV!) to get more stimulating programming (not to mention distance myself
from the ubiquitous and often confusing “information” about the very virus that
landed me here) as well as connect with friends and family in ways I hadn’t thought
possible (hello Zoom video-conferencing!).
I’ve texted and emailed and cleaned my cupboards, snacked way too much, played
game after game of solitaire and I’ve prayed. Oddly – given how voracious a reader I am – I have
not read very much. I have stacks of books within reach but have not been able to
concentrate. I used to be able to
retreat into the fantasy of fiction but right now the welfare of my family (both
near and far), the welfare of my business and my concerns about the future of the
country seem to lurk just below the surface.
And, truth be told, I started
thinking too much. Case in point: Not
being particularly musical, I was surprised to be visited with an “ear worm” of
the Bee Gees singing “Stayin’ Alive” from the “Saturday Night Fever” soundtrack.
The subtext of the song is about staying
alive – and perhaps even thriving -- on the mean streets of New York, which is
currently the U.S. epicenter of the pandemic and frighteningly close to my
corner of the world (less than 175 miles as the crow flies).
It is no wonder
that we are is obsessed with how to stay alive and to thrive; are we
politically and individually doing the right thing, the best thing? Only
history will tell. We can only do what
we think is right for us so we can look ourselves in the mirror, realize that our
instinct to live and protect those around us is alive and well, however we
manifest it. In many ways, I feel like I’ve
been through Elisabeth Kübler-Ross’ five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and
acceptance.
I am beyond grateful that my multi-stage
grief processing is not for a departed loved one. Rather I grieve for the normal that was here and
no longer is. What a “new normal” will look like is as uncertain as the path of
the novel coronavirus itself. I accept
that.
So, for now, I am stayin’
home – and stayin’ alive.
