I watched a sitcom the other night. People were visiting one another in their homes, going out to movies, bars, and restaurants, and I felt a stab of nostalgia for our lost way of life. When this social distancing thing started in earnest, only about a week ago, I thought it was a temporary hardship. You probably did, too. A couple of weeks and things would get back to normal.
Some of our so-called leaders now say we’ll be sheltering in place until July or August. Others predict 12-18 months. However long it lasts, the one thing I’m pretty sure about is that we will not simply return to our previous lives. They’re gone forever.
There’s a lovely meme going around that starts “And the people stayed home. And read books, and listened, and rested, and exercised, and made art, and played games, and learned new ways of being, and were still.” This seems to mirror the popular Anne Lamott quote, “Almost everythingwill work again if you unplug it for a few minutes, including you.”
Except in the first meme, “the people healed” but things don’t just magically begin to work again. “When the danger passed, and the people joined together again, they grieved their losses, and made new choices, and dreamed new images, and created new ways to live.”
I suppose this radical disruption may heal some of us, and I hope that includes me. But it will destroy others because that’s what disruption does.
As I fumble and struggle to create my new normal, I grieve my losses. Life was so easy back then—a week ago. I wish I’d appreciated it more.
As an introvert, I’ve been practicing social distance all my life, so you’d think this forced isolation would be a piece of cake for me. It’s that other part of my personality—the part that doesn’t like being told what to do—that wants to rebel.
You don’t need me to tell you that last week was crazy. As people hoarded toilet paper, schools closed, sports, entertainment, and other events were cancelled, and the world went mad, I tried to lead my normal life with increased hand washing.
I went out to breakfast three times and lunch once plus to a drive thru and takeout once. I went to the gym at my regular times, and when people said, “See you next week,” I said I wouldn’t bet on it. I felt pretty sure the recreation centers would be closed next week. I was right.
On Saturday, I ran a few errands—picked up an online order at Michael’s, bought a few things at the Dollar Tree, and filled my tank with gas because, well, you never know.
And that was that. I came home to hunker down.
Sunday morning, I attended my first virtual church service. Our staff did a terrific job of making it as inspiring as possible. When the first hymn started, I burst into tears thinking of all my friends sitting at their computers all over town singing Come Thou Font of Every Blessing, making a joyful noise alone.
That was the first time I cried for our lost way of life, but it won’t be the last.
The truth is that I am just bewildered. I have no idea what to do in this unprecedented global disaster. In my 72 years, I have never experienced anything even a little bit like this.
Maybe in a week or so, when this becomes our new normal, we will all adjust. Meanwhile, I’m sad and scared and wondering which friends and family I may lose. Or maybe I’m the one who’ll be gone. I’m dazed and confused, but soldiering on.
“Do
you live at church?” a friend asked. It felt like it last week. As
of yesterday, I had attended seven church functions in eight days.
The
week was bookended by a Tuesday night class studying the book, Make
a Difference: Following Your Passion and Finding Your Place to Serve
by James A Harshish. I sign up for most of the classes offered
because even if I’m not crazy about the book, I always find our
discussions rewarding. We’re halfway through the six-week class and I
still have no inkling about my place to serve.
Last
Wednesday, Jad Davenport, a church member and National Geographic
photographer, told us about his search for the Garden of Eden in the
Seychelle Islands. While his photos are stunning, my favorite part of
his talks are the stories about his travels.
Skip
ahead to Saturday and I went with a group of 13 church people to see
how Denver Art Glass is restoring our 100-year-old stained-glass
windows, a fascinating and surprisingly intricate process. See? I
don’t spend all my time at church; sometimes we take field trips.
Sunday
morning was church as usual. In the afternoon I returned to The
Garage, our recently renovated community space, to listen to charming
stories from our beloved 90-year-old member, Elly Lindstrom, who told
us about her 82 years in West Highland neighborhood and our church.
Monday
morning brought 7-8 of us bright and early to the parsonage for a
biweekly current events discussion group. This week we talked mostly
about the ballot issues we’re voting on.
And
Tuesday we were back in class.
Pastor
Brad pointed out that I had seen him four days in a row. As much as I
love our church and pastor, I’m glad I have a break now until Sunday
morning worship. I might have to spend some of that time
contemplating how I got so involved with church when I’m not even
religious. I like that nobody tells us what we have to believe and
that our questions are always welcome.
So,
no, I’ll have to tell my friend, I don’t live at church, but Sunday
morning is my favorite time of the week, and after my cozy little
nest, Highlands UMC is my favorite place.
That was a Tuesday, too. I was sitting at my desk watching the Today show when I saw the planes fly into the towers and watched the resulting chaos with horror. My brother called from work and asked how much of the building was damaged. “It’s gone,” I told him. “It’s all gone.”
“Does this mean we’re at war?” he asked. “I guess it does,” I said, but at that time, we didn’t know whom we were at war with.
I was supposed to take my dad to the airport that day. When I told him the airlines had been grounded, he wanted to go to the airport anyway and wait until he could fly again. He couldn’t conceive of not being allowed to travel. When the ban lifted that Friday, he was on one of the first flights out of DIA.
My response, as usual, was to turn inward. Eventually, the events of 9/11/2001 led me to seek God and find a church. It took a while. The first Sunday of the new year, I ventured for the first time to the local Methodist church, Highlands United Methodist, not knowing what I’d find.
Because of the way Christianity is portrayed in the media, preaching hatred, intolerance, and judgment,
I didn’t know if a church for me existed, one that didn’t demand hate. In my limited understanding of the Bible, that didn’t sound like Jesus to me. I got lucky and found a church home and, in time, a church family that has been my mainstay for all the years since then.
These days when bad things happen, as they continue to do, I know that I can always find solace, peace, and joy in our regular Sunday service. That makes Sunday my favorite day of the week and the loving, kind, and welcoming people at my church among my favorite people on the planet. I’ve found that when life brings its worst, out of the ashes it can also create something wonderful.
Coming home from the grocery store the other day, I made the mistake of turning down Olde Wadsworth. Since testing of the G Line commuter trains started in earnest a month ago, the railroad crossings just south of Grandview have caused frequent backups throughout Olde Town.
In my defense, the street looked pretty open, and it was until I approached Grandview. There I stopped at the red light and waited for the crossing gates to open and the guards to lower their stop signs and return to their posts. Yes, we still have guards at every crossing 24 hours a day. Now with trains running every fifteen minutes or less, they finally have something to do.
So, I sat at the red light and waited. And waited. And waited. No train came but the gates stayed down. I looked at the clock and realized I’d been there six minutes. Then suddenly a train came by. Okay, I thought, now we can get going. The light turned green for approximately two seconds, long enough for two cars to squeak through.
The gates came down again and I was stuck for a total of 14 minutes.
When I finally made it home, some workmen had blocked the entrance to our parking garage. I had to park on the street and schlep my groceries in from there.
The day went downhill from there. I will spare you the details.
You may recognize the title of this piece from the poem Casey at the Bat by Ernest Thayer. If so, you also know the next line, “Mighty Casey has struck out.” That’s the way I felt.
Everything I tried to cheer myself up failed.
I played my “Happy and Calm” playlist. I read a book I liked. I watched an episode of my favorite show, “Grace and Frankie.” I ate some dark chocolate. Still, I struck out.
Sometimes you just have to cut your losses and count on things looking better in the morning. Psalm 30 tells us, “Weeping may spend the night, but there is joy in the morning.”
It worked.
Remember that old novelty song “They’re coming to take me away, haha. They’re coming to take me away!” I’m singing that this morning, although it isn’t me they’re coming to take away, it’s my couch. My hideous, bulky, not-very-comfortable couch that I’ve hated ever since I bought it twenty years ago.
Once I swore I’d never again have anything in my house that I couldn’t move by myself. That will never happen largely because I have three pieces of space-age designer furniture that I’ve had since 1969 and that I adore. Even though with molded plastic fronts, they look lightweight, in fact, they weigh a ton. Literally.
I have contemplated putting wheels on everything. Sliders help.
Back to the couch. You might wonder why I bought it if I hated it. Well, I detest shopping. I made a trip to American Furniture Warehouse thinking it was so big they would have to have something for me. This was as close as they came. It was the right size and the right price. The color, always the most important feature for me, was a dusty lavender, not the clear bright purple I would have preferred, but again, as close as they came.
Once I moved into my bright modern condo, the couch seemed to become even uglier, so I’ve been looking around (online, because I still hate to shop) for a new one for the past seven years. You’d be surprised how few purple couches are on the market.
Well, maybe you wouldn’t.
I finally found the one I wanted, sleek, modern, and bright, and put it in my Amazon cart where it stayed for several months. Then a couple of weeks ago, it went on sale and I had to order it. Before it came, I needed to find a way to get rid of the old one. The service I called offered fast service and reasonable prices.
They’re coming this morning to haul it away and the new one will arrive sometime in the next week. This all makes me very happy. Best of all, the new one is light enough for me to move by myself when I decide to rearrange things.
I might be old, but I’m lively.
First comes the train horn blowing two long, LOUD blasts, then one short and one extra long. It starts at 3:40 in the morning and continues every fifteen minutes (frequently more often) or so all day long until it quits at 1 the next morning.
It’s pretty much all people in Olde Town Arvada talk about these days. This has been going on for more than two weeks and no one can say when it will stop.
RTD is testing the G Line commuter train. You remember the G (formerly Gold) line. It was supposed to open two years ago, but they ran into problems with the A line, which is the same technology and shut down the Gold line until they fixed the A line. They promised that once the train is up and running we could become a quiet zone, but no one seems to know when that will happen.
This woman says she likes hearing the trains. Another uses an inside fan as white noise to drown out the sound. One man complains about the frequency and decibel level and wants to know how long this will go on. The other says, “if you don’t like trains, don’t move next to one.”
To the man who asked rather snottily if the train track was there when you moved here, no, it was not. Well, the tracks for the freight trains to Golden were here, but those trains run a maximum of four times a day and rarely at night, so no comparison.
We had to endure many months of construction noise while they built the commuter tracks, listening to the incessant beep beep beep of the construction trucks. Compared to this, that was, to quote Jaime Escalante, “a piece of pie, easy as cake.”
To the Pollyanna who suggested that those of us getting blasted out of bed and having conversations disrupted 21 ½ hours every day should realize that this is for the greater good and quit complaining: bite me.
Meanwhile comes the unwelcome news that tomorrow we get to test the fire alarm system here in the condos. That requires an even louder blast that will continue for a good twenty minutes until they make sure it’s deafening every person in the building.
At least that will drown out the train horns.
On the Auntie continuum, I fall somewhere between Aunt Bee and Auntie Mame, less matronly than one and less flamboyant than the other.
When my nieces were little and spent time with me, I told them “just don’t act like children.”
I’m sure this makes me a bad person, but children are not my favorite people. I think they’re cute and I like watching them, but interacting with them baffles me.
Now I’m a great aunt (well, I was always a great aunt) to Griffin, 10, and Harper, 7. They live in Phoenix and I see them once a year when they come here to visit their grandparents. This year they flew alone for the first time, and in that and many other ways they are growing up way too fast. They were more subdued than in previous years. Harper has lost her first tooth, showed us her new gymnastics moves and then settled in an armchair to watch So You Think You Can Dance. Griff was a little cold from our uncommon rainstorm, so he came home and changed into his pajamas before cuddling under a blanket to watch TV.
I was thinking that next year, he’ll be taller than I am, and then I realized that this may be the last time I see them. Next spring their grandparents will retire and move to Tucson, so that’s where they will visit from now on. I’ll have to go to Arizona to see them, and that would require me to reconsider my no traveling policy, which could happen, but I’m not making any promises.
Thank goodness for Facebook. The ability to check in regularly with distant friends and family has always been the best thing about it.
I will watch from a distance to see how they navigate their perilous teens. How will their interests grow and change? What will they study in college? I’m feeling a little premature melancholy about all this. Maybe my own version of empty nest syndrome.
There’s only one thing to do when the forecast calls for a high of 97°–hole up in my air-conditioned apartment. That works for me because my home has always been my happy place. It’s kind of a giant toybox, and always offers plenty to do.
Reading is my go-to activity. Right now I have 48 library books checked out, not counting downloaded ebooks and audiobooks. Of course, that doesn’t include the 600+ books on my Kindle (no, sorry, that isn’t a typo), and the dozens of “real” books on my bookshelves and stacked on every horizontal surface in my house.
Writing comes in second only to reading as a favorite thing to do. That’s why you see these posts so often, plus I keep thinking about getting back to that book I started writing about three years ago. It could happen.
Watching the late night comedy shows on YouTube because I can’t stay up late enough to watch them.
Exercise, specifically a 15-minute stretching/yoga routine I’ve been trying to add to my daily schedule. Failing that, I could always go to our gym here at the condo, but that is probably not happening if only because I’d have to venture outside for 40-50 steps to get there.
Meditating only takes me about 20 minutes. If I try for longer, I fall asleep.
Cooking is probably not an option because of the heat, but I can always make a salad or zap leftovers in the microwave.
If all else fails, I can clean my bathroom and mop the tile floors.
Lastly, I could get busy with my decluttering project. So far, that’s been on my to-do list for about four years. Someday I really will start it, and someday could be today. Call me optimistic.
Hope you find some good ways to stay cool and entertained.
I have a low tolerance for authority and bureaucracy. That’s why it took me three colleges, six majors and twelve years to complete my bachelor’s degree in sociology from the University of Colorado at Denver. I returned to school, earning a master’s in adult learning from Colorado State University. A ... Continue reading →
The Constant Learner 