Another chilly Spring morning. I'm not surprised. All Winter long, while everyone delighted in the fact that we hadn't any snow, that our days were relatively mild and that the Winter wasn't at all as bad as New England Winters have been, I warned. I smiled my cat smile and predicted as if I had a crystal ball right there in my palms. "Just wait until Spring, then Winter will hit". My belief in the balance of nature was validated when snow fell not once, but twice, since the arrival of Spring. We still need heat on in the house and it's too cold some days to stay outdoors. Those early morning walks to which I had looked so forward, are still not a part of my day. But then, every single part of my day, every single day, since early March (what was the exact date, anyway?) have not been what I could have anticipated or predicted. Had I gazed into the best crystal ball in the world, I would not have seen one iota of what I see, hear and experience now, every day of my life in the New World that was handed over to us by a Coronavirus, now known to all as Covid-19.
The Boston Globe newspaper on Sunday, April 19th held fifteen pages of obituaries. Fifteen. As of yesterday, there were 2,432,092 reported cases (God knows how many more have been unreported), and 166.256 reported deaths (here again, God knows). In my county of Barnstable, as of yesterday there were 632 cases and 21 deaths and two hospitals. The peak, we are told, has not been seen here.
A reminder here. This is not a history book in the making. Nor is it a medical journal. Rather, I look upon what I write as a memoir in the making. I cannot capture all that surrounds me. it is far too overwhelming. I cannot expect that more than a few faithful readers will get a glimpse at what is embedded in the hearts and minds of everyone, near or far. But, this is my space and I can use it, and will use it, to say a few, out of the million words that I could say, about life churned up and resources re-allocated and the complete and utter lack of control that resides in my own brain.
So, for the sake of posterity. The days? They lack distinction. Might as well just remove the prefixes. Mon, Tue, Wed, Thur, Fri, Sat, Sun. They're all just "Day". But still,we try to give each of them a place in our lives. Monday, Wednesday and Friday mornings, weather-permitting, are assigned to group exercising on our tennis courts, led by my husband. From a social distance, we bond as a group and each of our sessions is ended with an invocation, led by a member.
We're playing by the new rules. Social distancing while out of the house. Trips away from the house, for necessities if we will be exiting the car and entering any type of the limited retail places, are limited. Face masks. Thorough hand washing each and EVERY time we return to the house. Hand sanitizing, when we haven't reached our home destination. Raw hands. Sanitizing. Constant allergy symptoms that include itchy eyes, a rash on my face and some kind of a weird feeling under my bottom lip, from all of the bleach in the air. More laundry than ever. No touchy, no feely. We get it. I always did get "infection control" but rarely had to practice it outside of my workplaces.
So, daily life, played by the rules, so far, is not all that difficult. Other than suiting up as if we were going to be taking on the Battle of the Buldge every time we must go to a store, we are rolling through those "days" with ease. We're never bored. I'm rarely tired. We probably get on each other's nerves but we have had lots of practice with being together in confined spaces and taking on new challenges. I think upon our last Italian vacation as Boot Camp now. I think upon it also as a gift, unmatched and precious. While we have already made reservations for Christmas at the B&B owned by friends in Umbria, we're still unsure of the plans that were in the making for an extended stay this year. I pray a lot every day. Always have. But now, the prayer list is extensive. I pray that I can escape if only for ninety days, following the next election. I know that the same people who claim responsibility for having elected the current president, will repeat their performance and I don't think I can bear the resulting anger and grief.
Television viewing has, of course, become a staple in many homes during the days of confinement. I have friends who spend the entire day watching the news and they say that they want to break the habit but are finding it difficult. We are not having that problem. We tune into CNN maybe once a day and avoid anything related to FOX News. We think Anthony Fauci is a fearless warrior but he is not alone. Andrew Cuomo in New York is also a warrior and a fearless leader. Leadership. We're lacking it from our "leader". I think he may finally get it. It's early in my day at the moment and I don't want to ruin the rest of the "day" by reminiscing about the actions of Donald Trump so here's a quick review for those of you who want to acknowledge the truth:
https://www.washingtonpost.com/graphics/2020/politics/trump-coronavirus-statements/
You can't make this stuff up.
And please, don't tell me that this news is "fake". It's not.
So, we spend time, real time, because that's all we have. The moments. We get lots of fresh air and exercise, feeling a sense of relief and joy when we hit the beaches for walks or use the trails and bike paths that surround us in multitude. While so many are sitting at home watching T.V., these places are wide-open and never crowded so keeping a safe distance is not a problem. Bad weather, we have both a cardio stepper and a cardio stationary bike and YouTubes by the gazillion so our needs are met and we're constantly learning new fitness routines. I often bend down and kiss my beloved
Keen hiking shoes. Best birthday present I ever bought myself. We've had some remarkable adventures together.
Everyone is cooking and baking. Hard to find flour and yeast on the shelves. Almost as difficult as finding toilet paper and paper towels. That's going to be a funny story for readers of the future. Of all the damned things to be talking about. But, if nothing else, it's a distraction from the horror of the numbers and the insensitivity of our president that worsens with each hour. The true story of the disappearance of toilet paper? It's two-fold (sorry about that). Number one, it has to do with the production and distribution of the product. It's bulky. Hard to store in manufacturing sites and in the markets, so it's not produced in the same volume as, let's say,
Handiwipes. Number two, greed and lack of respect for other people on the planet. When it does appear on the shelves, or, rather, when it
did appear as per usual, people were grabbing in large quantities, never thinking that perhaps there might be other people who also needed some. Stores started putting limits on quantities per shopper but the shortfall has resulted in less and less being shipped to the markets. And, there are those same greedy folk who get up and out with the chickens and pull their allotted two packs off the shelves on a regular basis. The new status marker is how many you have stored in your basement. Unbelievable.
I cook. I bake. I try to bake. It's not a strong point. I make a lot of soup. Soups are shared. I make deliveries in my condo community. Soup is warm. Warmth is what we need. I am a frustrated nurse. Frustrated, because my age and my distance from the technical world of nursing have kept me from helping in ways that would validate me. I renewed my license. I joined the Medical Reserve Corps. My assignment has been a pick up of face masks and a delivery to a designated site in Hyannis. I used to be an Occupational Health nurse. I built wellness programs and ran small emergency departments. I nursed nurses. I wrote volumes on bio-terrorism response and emergency evacuations after working through two World Trade Center disasters and one big Summer blackout of the world's leading city. But, delivering face masks I did with honor and pride. I am proud of my colleagues. I pray for them, knowing what their lives are like, knowing their frustrations and heartbreaks. I wish that I could be there, if only in the capacity of nurse to the nurses again. I've seen meltdowns over far less than their tribulations.
Communication has taken on a whole new life. Sick and tired of playing with the new technologies, many of us have taken to using the old, tried and true forms of communication. Telephone calls have become very popular. I have heard from some old and dear friends and some newer ones. What a treat a phone conversation is. What blessings friends are.
I can hardly bear to think about the changes that our two granddaughters are now forced to endure. Their lives have come to a halt, abruptly, for reasons that they are trying to understand. Teen-age-hood is filled with rights of passage and now, those rites have been altered beyond the beyond. They are restless and sad, especially the fourteen year old who had visions and dreams of Eighth Grade. Eighth Grade, what an important rite that is. And now, as of yesterday, the year is officially ended. No graduation, no social events, no sharing with friends, no time to finish what Kindergarten started. No place of honor in the hierarchy of the grade school world. No time to shift the gears and gain the traction needed to enter the lowest rungs of the high school world. Sad, and there is nothing we can do to soothe the pain, to lessen the blow, to make it all re-appear as the hormone-fueled, crazy but wonderful time that once was. My heart breaks for her and for her younger sister who also is feeling the pain. Sixth Grade had its own virtues, its own set of rituals. Dashed. And then, there is Summer camp. Will it happen? Most likely not.
It's hard to come to a conclusion of what I am writing here. I wish I could conclude. I wish I could say that the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel will soon shine, but I fear not. I look for words from the wise, not from the politicians. I pray, meditate, work out and ponder. Not much more I or anybody else can do right now as we watch the destruction of our civilization and the nauseating bile that our president spits forth on and on and on. In a few days, we will see more death and more destruction of our society, more insubordination, more shocking disregard of what has been our attempt to stem the tide, as we see states loosening their Stay Home policies and "
re-opening".
I've treated many a wound in my day. My parting words to the people who I have tended, after a review of the signs of infection, were "t
his should be improving every day, not getting worse, so if you don't see the improvement, come back. Maybe we will have to try something different or have your doctor take a look at it"
But then, what did I know? I wasn't the President of the United States. I was just a healthcare worker. I was doing what I had been taught to do and allowing someone who had more wisdom to weigh in for the benefit of my patient. Hmmmmm.
