Day 81 in 2020, isolation blog day 6

I know some people are on a different day of isolation. With a distinct and rather serious lack of leadership on the federal level, and local government taking up the slack, we're all in different places, either because recommendations were different, or because we were all allowed to decide more clearly for ourselves. Several weeks ago I made what I called at the time a panic shopping trip, stocking up on shelf stables and some cleaning supplies. It took a week or two for that to seem even sane, then it went from barely sane almost straight to incredibly insightful. I've never been so sorry, yet so thankful.

When did our isolation start? Did it start when we bid our family goodbye for the last time two weeks ago? When schools closed on Thursday, or after our gathering with friends that night? When Jon officially started working from home on Monday? How about after our supposed very last trip to the grocery stores on Friday? Or was it this morning after the next very last trip to the stores when we realized we still needed a prescription, salt for the softener, and dog food. WHO FORGOT THE DOG FOOD??? (Actually, I ordered it over a week ago and promptly forgot to be concerned, but they ran out and canceled the order without warning me. Good thing I checked today, because we got the very last bag of his food on the local shelves this morning). How does one meaure isolation? 

So I'll probably stop counting days of isolation. It is, after all, a state of mind, and for as long as I have these two people I enjoy (and the dog, DON'T FORGET THE DOG or his lunch!!!), and the ability to connect virtually, how could one really call this isolation? Today, after our last trip (the last trip!) into the peril of public, and after setting up Jon's new home office and our new basement pantry and carrying in 300 pounds of salt, all four of us (DOG, TOO) went for a long hike in the chilly sunshine. We saw a lot of other family walking, all of us carefully pressing to opposite sides of the path to create social distance (except the DOGS, they met in the middle for sure), and we laughed, and griped about the misbehaving dog (DOG). Then we came home, got cozy, built a Tinker Crate printing press, and watched an Agatha Christie show while making dinner together. 

I hate this time. I love this time. I hate it. I love it.

Day 80 in 2020, isolation blog day 5

It is a new world when one doesn't feel safe going to the grocery store. That was our adventure for the day today. Do you know how hard it is to social distance in a grocery store?

But Calvin socially distanced by attending a book club, an art class, and a choir practice all from the safety of his own home. Chat apps for the win! I actually had to schedule the day, he had so many activities to attend. In some way it feels like our new normal is becoming...well...normal?

Day 79 in 2020: isolation blog day 4

Some days are good, some days are bad. Today was bad. 

Nearly two weeks ago we had a birthday party for my mom and we said goodbye with no extra umph. Last week we were concerned, but still hanging out with friends marking the closure of the schools (while the kids celebrated). A few days ago even we were helping out at the farm and making plans for our weekly beer date coming up on Friday (tomorrow). All of these events were unique, but the same in one way: they were all, unbeknownst to us, the last of their kind for at least a long while. We have not seen my parents, our friends, or my brother since those moments, no matter what plans we thought we were making at the time.

As a mother I have often lamented the sneaky finality special moments. When was the last time Calvin blew me a kiss when getting out of the car at any one of his solo activities? I can't remember. The act was so constant for what seemed like so many years I took it for granted, and it's disappearance went strangely unnoted in the moment until, one day, I realized he wasn't doing it anymore, and then I missed it horribly. If I had known the last time was to be the last time, I would have marked it somehow, savored it, committed it to memory.

This is an overly macabre reaction. With adherence to social distancing or isolating recommendations the effect we can have on the terror that is gripping our country right now can be managed, and with that luck in hand and "an abundance of caution", we will have lots more together moments in our future. But hopes (no, expectations!) for the future did not make me feel better today when I was feeling isolated and bored, plus I'd spent too much time reading the news, and the news was going in the wrong direction. 

It's only been four days, but the situation's far-reaching reality is finally hitting home. Will we be okay? Yes! Resounding yes. In fact, in the last few days we, the collective we, have adapted wonderfully. Online bassoon and piano lessons, and even Calvin's choir and book groups are going to start meeting online tomorrow. We take daily art lessons online, and we've moved our weekly wine tasting and beer dates to online chats. Then Tonight my neighborhood mom group texted to set up a "mom's night in", and it was exactly what I needed. I needed to hear that we weren't alone, but all experiencing the same things. 

My son doesn't blow me kisses anymore when I drop him off somewhere, some day he'll stop calling his affectionate goodnights, too, and right now we can't sit around a table with our extended family or friends, but these connections will replaced with something else as circumstances change, because we will find a way. 

Day 78 in 2020: isolation blog day 3

I had that moment today.

Calvin and I took Gimli out for an hour-long walk along our community trail where we saw more people than I have ever seen out on the trail in the past year of weekly walks there, and they were all either smiling and laughing or talking with great energy, no real moderation, no between. Gimli, of course, doesn't understand the difference. In our home, uniquely prepared for this time of isolation by our basic lifestyle and personalities, Gimli is the only one who has really suffered. He's confused when Jon doesn't go to work and expects continued playtime, not understanding when it is denied. His afternoon walk or hike has been shifted daily thus far, now that I don't have to drop a kid off at school at the same time daily, and yesterday we completely forgot to feed him lunch. Too many cooks. But we will eventually settle in to a new normal, and so will he.

But my moment today was bigger than that. I took pictures today and thought about what I wanted to write about how this isolation was changing things, affecting us, and there were so many things I thought I could say, all of them positive, or just informative. Then I sat down and edited pictures and the heaviness and extent of what we are facing finally hit me. The length of time, the extent of the loss. Months just gone from each other's lives. 

I snapped shots of Calvin practicing for dance down today, down in our basement where we created a mini studio for him a few years ago. He was working with videos sent home by his dance instructors, not unlike the remote learning he did with his bassoon teacher last weekend, or that Jon is doing with his piano students, but actually this was a little different. These are steps to dances prepared for a competition that may or may not happen (more likely not). That made it seem so sad, and I thought what a terrible, terrible loss this is for people at pivotal moments in outward life. These are his formative years, and he could spend some of them in veritable lock-down. 

But that still wasn't my moment. My actual moment came when I sat down to talk to him about it just before bed, to listen to his stresses, his sadness, and his uncertainty, and try to provide guidance or comfort. Then I realized that in the end, time will go on. Certain moments may be lost, but others will replace them and these will be what make up his formative years. Will they look like what I expected them to? No, but then this generation was never going to look like ours, or like what ours expected it to, either. They will make their own way and it will form them and the future may be better for it.

But honestly, that doesn't make it any less sad to me right now.

Day 77 in 2020: isolation blog day 2

Sometimes reality hits you like a rake handle to the face.

We've been floating along absorbing rapidly changing realities without batting an eye. Schools closed? No problem. Work from home? No problem. Stay in? Eh, we're introverts anyhow. Looking forward we've done very well accepting first postponements, then reschedulings, then even cancellations. But looking back can be jarring.

Today we got a package. I saw it on our mail list for the day and wasn't sure what it was, couldn't remember ordering anything as of late. But it wasn't something I'd ordered as of late, it was something I ordered almost two weeks ago with the idea of having it to enjoy over this coming weekend, which was to be a busy time for all three of us with Jon away at a conference and Calvin performing in both a big band to-do and his first ever dance competition. I had been so excited when I placed the order, not even two weeks ago, yet now here it is, a rather sudden reminder of all we have lost, and how quickly we lost it.

We are still here floating along, taking the punches as they roll, but it's important I think, too, to note the changes that are thrust at us, and sometimes to mourn them. This is not life as usual, and it, too, shall pass, but it will take oh so much with it. Let's just hope that, by giving up so much, the majority of what it takes will be moments of the past, not moments of the future.

(Jon teaching piano from home via Skype while I keep Gimli quiet in his favorite perch, the front window, or take him out and about...just part of our new reality)