I mean it was gonna be interesting no matter what. I was gonna regale you of tales of my adventures on the East Coast. My bestie and his rad family. Old girl-crush coworkers I haven't seen in decades. Old haunts with magic self-reviving powers. My sis and nephews and brother-in-law. Chaya and her cousins... And then I don't know.
Thought we'd come back. Deal with Chaya's escalating behavioral issues in preschool (she bit a teacher while I was away, so that was fun to deal with those calls!), get her the neurodevelopmental evaluation the preschool recommended.. yeah. Make some long soul searching decisions about kindergarten versus bonus year of preschool. Fit in a few more trips. Maybe egg it up for Easter or something
Instead, well... you know. We all know. In some ways our story gets a lot more sameness with others in our cohort. We're home now. Locked away mostly in our house. Navigating uncharted (and also overly graphed and ubiquitously "chilling") territory.
I mean it wasn't SO sudden, but it felt abrupt. Before I left on the trip, I had been sick with a GI thing (oh god was it actually covid? Everyone is going to ask that question about every illness for the next while even when the symptoms don't fit great). I'd gotten a viral rash. The urgent care doctor had put me on steroids which made me feel awful. I went off steroids and still felt awful (and was assured I could continue to do so for days to weeks). The guidance at the time included none of my symptons (so now they include GI stuff, but again super low fever, prednisone didn't totally kill me and nobody else getting it... unlikely)
People had started working from home in Seattle. A few friends were self-quarantining. I wondered if I'd be able to go on this loooong anticipated and planned trip. I took my temperature every day before the trip just in case. But still. It felt more like my individual uneasiness. I tend to be an anxious person and, knowing this, I also tend to discount or minimize my anxiety or discomfort. Nobody else seemed super ready to take it seriously. And the East Coast was hundreds of miles away from the coronascariness. So it seemed.
I made it onto the plane! I had four flipping amazing days of all the perks of life-as-before: the Symphony, going out for tea, brunch with friends, shopping at crowded stores without trying to estimate the six foot ruler between selves, hanging with a family that wasn't mine! Hugging people who weren't destined to be quarantined with me for the next several months. Bliss
Talk was getting more serious every day. Sounded like schools in Massachusetts were preparing to close at some undetermined date. It was a heavy brunch and evening topic. But life still seemed pretty normal. Midway through my trip, I made it to my sister's house. And about a half day later it all gelled.
What was once kind of a "Seattle problem" was rapidly becoming a New York problem. Our planned excursion into the city pretty quickly became a "drive around and stop at a few parks from a distance.". Not that there wasn't a lot of covid chat all through the trip, but it was that Wednesday that things started getting serious - the day Andrew and Chaya flew out, incidentally. The Falconer household started out a massive swarm of activity as always. But like dominoes: bajillion activities had collapsed by Thursday. By Friday it was announced that schools were cancelled. And by Sunday, we were going back to a Seattle that was essentially staying-in (we hoped).
Oh the before-times. Oh the last hurrah. So amazing.
And now here we are. With everyone else.
Figuring out the rules of the new-normal in good old Washington State. We may no longer be the "Hub" of US coronavirus (but only because New York is like way better with their testing), but we are the classic hub.
In some ways, it's easier for me because I was already a little isolated. Moving from Mount Vernon was a really cool thing in a lot of ways, but maybe because we weren't going to stay here or some other aspect of location and preschool, it just wasn't as easy to find my peeps. Chaya's old prescshool was a real community. And some of my best friends lived there from before. Renton, I knew people and went to a few meetings, but hadn't found kin. So being mainly in virtual contact with the dearests I can rarely see in person, well... par for the course.
But there are some logistical differences to the new world order:
For one, I did NOT get the memo that I was supposed to invest in a bunker with a walk in fridge and freezer, to then fill with all the eggs and milk that will fit next to the toilet paper mountain.
I used to have an extremely well pantry and a standalone freezer full of make-ahead meals. I was set for apocalypse. But then Chaya and moving and we got down to regular daily trips to the market for just what was needed. Going back to weekly shopping with an added twists of delivery with an added twist of nothing you actually order ever being on the shelves. It's kind of a game of grocery roulette. But enjoy seeing what the shopper chooses as substitutions. We had a lively text conversation while she was doing our shopping earlier this week. I feel like she's one of my new best Renton friends.
Also, Chaya and I haven't had this much time together since she started preschool.
I mean even during breaks, there are usually trips to the store, trips to libraries, storytimes, activity times, museums, visits from Pam, and playdates.
So... that's been interesting.
Not terrible, actually. Pretty good, if emotionally exhausting. I hate Chaya isn't getting more social interaction, since I don't think facetime is the same in vital interactive ways. But we're not driving each other as crazy as I'd have thought.
It's taken a lot of attention though. Chaya needs stimulation damnit. And focus. And... occasionally damage control.
As anyone who has skyped/whatevered with me more than once this week might know, I have been wearing the same shirt for the last week. Because it has a heart on it. And Chaya has a heart shirt. And we MUST match. So that pretty well sums us up. Me, Chaya, Zooey and our snakes (I have one too). We're doing jus' fine, thanks.
What have we been up to?
I mean not that much different in some ways.
Life goes on with all its domestic tedium and coziness.
Chaya's helped me do a few loads of laundry. We cleaned her room. She helped clean the toilets. I've sterilized any variety of things any number of times.
We made a little cake on Friday. This was a mistake, because then the rest of lunch time, she sobbed that she couldn't have more.
We briefly got really into these yoga videos made for kids that were awesome. The dotty british instructor tells a story while working in various yoga moves that she names after characters in the story and uses the moves to act out the story. I admit, so far, some of my favorite yoga instruction ever and I was doing them too. We did about five of them Thursday though, so now Chaya's totally over it.
We have started participating in a livestream of Chaya's old music class in Bellingham. Which has been AWESOME.
Just learned they're doing a similar stream of Chaya's Opera Time Class through the Seattle Opera. So this is exciting.
I've started taking Chaya out with her strider bike to roam around the mostly-abandoned apartment complex.
We decorated the house for St. Patrick's day. Made cards. Have gone through tons of art supplies.
 |
| This is a family of shamrocks including mommy, daddy, Chaya Zooey, Cousin Ian, Cousin Braden, Cousin Same, Aunt Rachel, Uncle Ryan, Gramma Pam, Grampa Ian... there probably would be more if we hadn't run low on paper |
We're keeping it real. Chaya isn't learning a ton, but we actually do play with letters and words sometimes and she is a friggin' preschooler.
Andrew follows most of his regular routine, but with a much shorter commute. And he comes to join us for lunch. Chaya's been pretty good about respecting his boundaries. On Friday, we made him a special Andrew-Mailbox to leave things in outside his study door. This has worked so far pretty well. He's perking up his home office and getting out sometimes. Doing tons of meetings online or by phone. Things evolve.
***
Meanwhile life goes on in more significant ways too. Andrew keeps saying "it's a weird time but we still need a house." I point out that actually we could stay at this apartment for as many years as they wanted, but I also agree this indoor quarantine would be a lot nicer in a house with a yard and a little more space. I'm still not clear on how somebody moves in the era of social distancing. But it clearly happens and I would love to do it before summer. Hey we have plenty of time to pack right now. .
We did NOT get the last house. By a long shot. People offered more money than us in cash and waived inspection.
Andrew went out on a househunting blitz while I was gone. That was not successful in yielding a desirable house, but he did run into a very proactive realtor who decided that we were not currently being served by ours. She seduced my husband to the dark side and we've been working with her since.
She's good though. Super attentive. Hungry. Opinionated. Full of connections and guanxi. In this time of social distancing, I have wanted to push her off with a stick, because she cannot help herself and frequently wanders WAAAAY deep into the 6 foot range. Especially with Andrew, who is less likely to be staking out six foot distances. I only half jokingly said at this point if she wants to send steamy sexts at my husband, fine, just so long as she's completely out of the viral transmission range.
I really don't want to get sick, but my bigger concern is that we've possibly already caught the covid-19 during our trip and passing it to a realtor is like passing it to the next several hundred people she'll see in the coming month.
Like a lot of us, I think I feel constantly like I'm either overreacting or underreacting to the new-normal. I think probably we all need to stop making exceptions and actually keep our distance from each other. But everyone is bad at it. And every little bit helps I hope.
It recalls when my mom was doing chemo. I think until then I was raised in the "too much cleanliness is the cause of all our ills... go get sick and dirty and build your immune system" gospel. Until then, I didn't really understand (viscerally) what it meant to be immunocompromised. That was the first year I think I got a flu shot. I remember constantly being aware of coughs and sniffles. Knowing if I caught something I'd have to stay away and wouldn't be able to help. I started washing my hands more often. I started paying attention. That never wore off entirely. The understanding of how linked we all are and how we pass things that can really impact some people.
Since then I have made friends with many people who have chronic immune conditions. I've had my own autoimmune scare and still have mysterious health issues that make me very aware. We are so interconnected. If this period doesn't bring that home, then I don't know what might. Our health impacts others around us. If Andrew takes every precaution but I'm not safe and get sick... all that precaution probably won't help. If I buy all the eggs or masks or whatever, then somebody else won't have them. Basic stuff. But it feels a lot more visceral all the sudden.
So I'm definitely taking the staying in pretty seriously. While ruefully letting our realtor stand too close sometimes and going to the store, occasionally letting people cross my path way closer than six feet. Because it's hard. And I'll admit sometimes I want to just go running to the nearest infection point, get this damned virus and lock myself at home with option for ER before all the hospitals get full up. Get the darned experience over with.
Life is rich
And time is stretching out in front of us in totally different ways. Some urgent things seem so distant. Some relatively short things (18 months in the course of history, say) seem eternal. We are making a lot of big future decisions even more blind than usual. But we're all in it together right now. That's something.
No comments:
Post a Comment