A few weeks ago, when my husband Evan, a middle school social studies teacher, was getting ready to start e-learning, I mentioned that I’d seen a couple compelling suggestions by people I admire online to keep a journal of this time. I thought it’d be great to have his students write down their experiences. He agreed, and assigned them to create some regular journal entries. Since then he’ll occasionally read bits of them–8th graders takes on the importance of social distancing and devoting a good amount of time to tiktok.
I have been slow to take my own advice, though. I think part of it is that 90% of my day to day life hasn’t changed. When I counted up the hours that I normally spend at church or at a playground or at the library in a given week, I was surprised that it was roughly seven. Evidently I am not in an overly social phase of my life. But of course, it feels much different. There is a big difference from rarely having play-dates and not being allowed to have them.
The biggest shift was that we were going to drive out to Washington DC and Annapolis for Evan’s spring break, March 20-28th. Two weeks before the trip, I started to wonder if it would happen, and by the time we called it off a week out, it hardly seemed like a decision: of course we couldn’t go. At that point we couldn’t even go to our neighborhood playground, let alone go into our friends’ and families’ homes across the country. But we missed celebrating Evan’s birthday with family, meeting Jackson’s new godsister, and a hundred other big and small things that the trip would have held.
So instead we stayed home and potty-trained Lily, and tried to get ready for the new reality of spring.
We bought a few things for our back yard (a ninja slack line and a couple of pugg soccer goals and soccer balls) to make up for the lack of playgrounds.
And we started taking soccer balls with us to have a destination for our walks–muddy fields instead of play grounds. Lily is potty training like a champ, and both kids seem to be enjoying stomping around the soccer fields.
On Sundays, we watched our DC church’s live stream, so it was a little taste of DC. (The sermons have been especially wonderful, and I’d highly recommend them “Practicing Peace: Philippians 4:4-9” and “Facing Uncertainty: Psalm 121“)
Now that we’re back from Spring Break, Evan’s had to go into his classroom to record his lessons and do other online teaching things, but it seems like he won’t have to go in every day. But we haven’t had him have a work from home day yet.
We are a lot more mindful of trying to limit our grocery shopping to one big trip once a week, and now just Evan goes. It’s been hard to find frozen vegetables, ground beef, and toilet paper, but otherwise we’ve managed well.
I’m trying to balance my intake of news with intentional times of not taking in news. I love to listen to podcasts while I clean up after dinner and Evan takes the kids, but I have found that with the exception of listening to the wise and learned Dr. Sarah Ballytine from The Paleo View, I actually haven’t wanted to listen to much COVID-19 talk.
So I’ve been happily in the deep archives of The Bible Project Podcast and the newer Ask NT Wright Anything Podcast, and listening to NT Wright’s book Paul: A Biography. This is a somewhat surprising reaction of mine even to myself, but these are all super well done and are about real and important things. I keep reminding myself that getting sleep and stress management is actually a very concrete and important part of life right now.
The other main new thing in my life is Marco Polo. My best friend from high school Kelli got me on the app mid-January, and we’ve videod to each other almost every day since then. It’s been a great way to stay connected, and so nice to be able to listen and respond in the cracks of the day. I’m a big fan. Plus, I get to see her beautiful face and lovely kids every day.
There are a lot of parts of having a 4 and nearly 2 year old during this time that are nice. They are really too young to remember much, or be missing out on formal education, or seeing their friends. They adjust after only a few days to the idea that the parks are closed and that people are sick. They go on playing and needing our help and being themselves.
Ironically, much of winter is spent not seeing people or going out because of the cold weather or a bad cold that we or our friends have. Evidently, Wisconsin February is a good training ground for quarantine.
We have had an early warmer Spring (even though recently it’s mainly been in the low 40s), so I do not take for granted that we’ve been able to still take long walks through the neighborhood and along the river walk. That is a gift, and one I’m glad for.
Yesterday, we got a flat tire on our double BOB stroller, a couple of blocks into our walk. After getting our much-harder-to-push stroller home, I ordered a new inner-tube on Amazon. But it wasn’t going to get here for three weeks (because of COVID-19). I know an inner-tube isn’t essential, so I understand, but we depend on that stroller a lot. I googled some store locations, even though I didn’t like the idea of having to expose Evan to more stores. I called our local Ace, they didn’t sell inter-tubes, but thought maybe Fleet-Farm would. I called Fleet-Farm, and a nice man went and looked in the back for that size. But they didn’t carry that size. I sent a text on a whim to our neighbor and good friends who have a single BOB, and lo and behold they had an extra front wheel inner-tube tire! She dropped it off at our front door after dinner last night. And this morning we waved our usual morning greeting to their family as we walked by, everyone celebrating the success of the tire.
The whole thing just seems so symbolic of the difficulties and the provision of this time. I hope that every time I use that stroller and look at the front wheel, I will think of the gifts of friendship and people caring for me during this time. (Also evidently, it’s a wise thing to always have a spare set of inner-tube tires for your jogging stroller. Or, as my dad pointed out this morning, at least a tire repair kit!)
On the days when we have stayed in (cold rain and/or potty training) we’ve been grooving out to our dance and music video playlist. Or coloring or working on tracing and letter work here and there. Or dressing up like a fireman and putting out a felt fire. Whatever the morning calls for.
If I stop and pay attention, there are little details of our day that are changing. We spend a lot more time washing hands. Jackson loves to sing happy birthday to “somebody” or if we have friends whose actual birthday it is, we sing to them.
I reflexively go to request a book from our library, and then stop and instead put it on a list of books to get when we can start going back to the library.
Honestly, I think it being Lent and cold early spring right now makes it feel a little less strange. This is always a time of giving up and being uncomfortable and waiting.
I think as Easter and late Spring and early Summer come it will feel more jarring and strange. Of course, if people I love are beginning to get sick and die, that will be a much different thing than us simply staying in and not seeing our friends or going to church. Strangely, in the past month or so we have had several deaths in our close circle of family and friends, all people in their 80s and none of them COVID-19 related.
So I call my friends, or send the videos, or talk matter-of-factly about parks being closed, and enthusiastically about the wonders of playing soccer in a muddy field by ourselves. We cheer for Lily peeing in the potty, and carry around three pairs of pants on our walks for when she doesn’t quite make it.
Most days I feel a mixture of gratitude for this time and mild annoyance for all the inconvenience and disruptions and missed connections. I feel the constant underlying concern and stress in the face of the unknown as well as an appreciation for the relative stability of my life and current health of my loved ones. I feel united with strangers as we give each other a large berth on the sidewalks, that everyone is trying hard to help in our own small ways. And I feel so thankful for friends who love us from afar and drop off tires.
How has staying home during the Corona Virus affected the little and big details your day to day living?