Covid-19 Lockdown
Well, here we are. We’re in voluntary lockdown. Sort of.
A good time as any to come back to this blog. I should stop giving a crap about leaving it and coming back, because then I inevitably write a painfully self-aware paragraph about how I’m coming back to the blog. I know I’m not the only one—I suspect something like ten percent of the content on public blogging sites will be like that.
Anyway, so, Covid-19. All over the news and social media. I’m not a fan.
The kids were two days into spring break when it was announced the schools are closed indefinitely. All three were dismayed. Every day there is an update from the school district about what it’s going to look like when the two-week break is over. They’re talking about online learning and the challenges with that, such as for kids without access to the devices, social needs, and how kids being at home indefinitely will affect parents in essential services or those who simply can’t work from home. We’re pretty lucky since I work at home, although W’s job as a nurse means her planned week off next week to hang out with the kids might be cancelled—among other things. We remind the kids, and ourselves, how lucky we are, daily.
It feels weird to venture outside our boundaries. The kids have been playing outside—the trampoline is getting hours of use again—but I’ve noticed a difference going out today over a few days ago, when I last went to a store. W gets triggered seeing people wearing masks. They do nothing unless you’re sick, and if you’re sick, you should be at home. Meanwhile, they mean that when she’s dealing with a patient with a communicable airborne condition, there may not be enough masks for her and the rest of her team to administer to that patient safely.
People seem to be extra wary around eachother. With everybody I walked past in the liquor store and the hardware store, there was a sort of uncertain appraisal of eachother, like we’re assessing potential danger but not really sure what it would look like. We’re all sizing eachother up, and hoping that if there’s anything to be worried about, it’ll be really obvious, but we know that’s not going to be the case.
I rode my bike up the Galloping Goose today. It’s been beautiful all week and I want to take advantage and also get out of the house. There were more people on the trail than I would expect for midday on a Wednesday. I’m guessing a lot of folks who’d be working but aren’t, along with the retirees and parents with small children. It was a good ride.
It’s been hard to concentrate at work. I always find it difficult when the kids are all home, and spring break is especially difficult because it’s two weeks and I don’t have enough vacation to take time off. It’s harder now because of what’s going on with the world—there was enough of a news cycle before any of this new coronavirus hit, and now it’s insane. It’s easily half of the conversations happening on Slack, and since that’s my primary communication for my work, it’s pretty distracting, but it’s my fault. Slack is often a distraction which I manage by turning it off periodically, such as for Pomodoro. But I didn’t want to do that today. So I’ll have to learn to manage that better.
When I tucked my youngest in and said prayers tonight, I thought not for the first time of praying for our health, the safety and wellbeing of our community and for the world to get through this okay, but again did not, because I don’t want to scare my kids who already have to deal with enough uncertainty about climate change and the rest. The litany of things I pray for, on the other hand, isn’t getting any shorter. But that’s what we take on when we leave childhood behind.
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