D-Day + 16: The Yin and Yang of Coronavirus Sheltering at Home

In the late 1980s, my first husband, Rome, and I lived in a small town in northern California.  People who live there – most people who live there – think of it as God’s Country.  It is quite beautiful:  tall pine trees, mountains, mountain streams and lakes, and all that good stuff.  It is quite historic:  epicenter of the Gold Rush, Sutter’s Mill, and all that good stuff.  It is quite quaint:  lots of good shops and restaurants and all that good stuff.

In other words, a pretty wonderful place to live.

If you like that kind of thing.

But I had grown up in a very small town in a very rural part of Iowa, and a large part of becoming an adult was establishing a new identity for myself.  Even though I had lived in Denver just four years before Rome’s job landed us in California, I was enthralled with Colorado.  The huge blue skies.  The crisp mile-high air.  That bank of mountains rising to the west; the prairies to the east.

And, very much, the urban-ness of Denver.  Although Denver in the 1980s didn’t have the feel of New York or Chicago or San Francisco, to my rural Midwest eyes, it was the big city that I craved.  The 16^th Street Mall.  The shopping.  The restaurants.  The bars.  The universities.  The Broncos and the Nuggets and the original Rockies – a minor league hockey team, not to be confused with the Colorado Rockies MLB team.

Grass Valley – our home in northern California – just wasn’t what (or where) I wanted to be in 1985.

The good news – and part of the reason we agreed to the move to California – was that Rome’s job included a lot of travel.  And I went along with him frequently on the big trips.  Switzerland, England, France.  Australia!  We took other vacations, also:  to Chicago (his family), Iowa (my family), skiing vacations in Utah and a rafting trip on Lake Powell.  The traveling was heavenly.  The coming-home - to a place I didn’t want to be – was hell.  I would be in absolute ecstasy while we were on vacation, and utter depression when we got home.  At one point, Rome commented that he dreaded homecomings with me (and my depression) so much that it was almost not worth going on trips together.

Time passed.  We moved to England briefly in 1989 (ecstasy again) and then, finally, back to Colorado.  Homecomings became a good thing.  So much so that I started to get attached to the idea of just being at home.  Nesting.  Finding time to read.  Or play the piano.  Or get serious about running, without having to figure out how to work my exercise routine into a crowded travel schedule.

Over the years, I traveled more and more for work.  At first throughout the US; later international trips.  France.  Ecuador!  Australia. South Africa!  And more and more travel for fun, too.  Tour de France cycling!  Danube Bike and Barge!  Slovenia biking.  Ah, I loved the going away to somewhere new and exciting.  And oh, how I loved the coming home even more.  I would come home and look at my calendar and bemoan every appointment or date that made me leave home, even for an hour or two.  I loved the being at home.

And so it is: I have a serious split personality.  I love looking at maps, and reading travelogues, and figuring out where else I want to go in the world.  Planning the trips, making reservations, shopping for travel essentials.  And yet, I love being at home.  I crave days on end of nothing to do except curl up with a good book.  Or hours to fiddle around on the piano.  Or putter in the yard.  Or brush my cats.  Watch a movie.  Plan a party, or an ice cream social.  Go for a run.  Or a bike ride. To just be.

Sometimes I love being at home so much, it’s hard to imagine ever leaving on another vacation.  The coronavirus shelter-at-home order is perfect - a reason to stay at home and never go out again!

But then again, sometimes, when we come home from a great trip, like nearly three weeks in New Zealand, with all the natural beauty that land has to offer, and with the fabulous friends we have made there, it’s hard not to start planning another trip as soon as I walk in the door.  And so I think:  the coronavirus shelter-at-home order totally sucks.  I need to go somewhere, and I need to go now.

I love being home.

I need to go somewhere, anywhere.

I love being home.

I need to go somewhere, anywhere else.

I love being home.

D-Day + 11: The Earth Will Survive

Our crocuses are blooming.  In abundance.  Daffodils are just putting out yellow flowers, and our grape hyacinths have opened up.  Tulips and irises are poking up; no flowers yet, but they are sure to come soon.  Our yard is greening up across the board, and it’s still very early spring. 

Mother Earth herself, it turns out, knows no concept of quarantine.  No matter if we are sheltering in our homes, she continues on her perennial way.

Many years ago, during the George W era, my friend Nancy and I were having a discussion about the environment, bemoaning the lack of political attention to global warming.  Mid-conversation, Nancy stopped and looked at me.  “You know, the earth will survive”, she said.  I remember being confused - I must have had an odd expression on my face.  She went on, in her native Texas drawl.  “Mankind will be gone because of our destructive ways, but the earth will persist.  We don’t know how long it will take for life to recover, but it will.  Just without humans.”

It’s an odd and sometimes disturbing thought.  It’s also somewhat comforting.  It’s particularly comforting while I watch birds at my feeders, especially when I imagine that our feathered friends will outlive us on the planet.  I mean, after all, life itself may not miss much of humanity, but the birds?  Oh, wow.  

It would be a sin to not be able to imagine that the Cedar Waxwings will survive, with that oh-so-cool yellow band at the tip of their tails, or that little splash of red at the tip of their wings.  Or the Snow Geese!  Especially in springtime, when they flock by the tens of thousands on their way north.  Or the Sandhill Cranes, particularly in their little family units.   (A year or two ago, Ed and I stopped by the Rowe Audubon Sanctuary near Kearney, Nebraska, on our way across the state.  It was really too late to catch the crane migration, but to our surprise, there was a family unit – mom, dad, youngster – hanging out in a cornfield near the sanctuary.  The volunteer at Rowe told us they believed that one of the adults was injured and unable to fly, and that the rest of the family was staying with the injured bird.  How’s that for true love?)  Or the Bushtits, who come twittering through our yard a few times every day.  Fierce tiny gray birds with long thing tails who travel in gangs, and they seem to know no fear of humans.

So much of life that I hope outlives us.

But for now, I’ll watch as more green stuff pokes up in our yard, and pray that the nurseries are open and operating by Mother’s Day, when we typically do our spring planting.  We’re watching the hollowed-out gourd that hangs in the ash tree in our front yard for a (very hopeful) return of the House Wrens who nested there last year. I watched the other day as a House Finch worked some dead leaves from our snowberry bush, and then fly off with a mouthful of fluff:  nesting material.  The little House Finch went into a row of shrubs in our neighbor’s yard.  No social distancing for the birds.  Thank heavens for small delights.

D-Day + 8: True Love in the Time of Coronavirus

Before the advent of coronavirus, 2020 was looking to be our summer of weddings.  Through the summer and fall of 2019, we were inundated with announcements by young family and friends of upcoming nuptials.  “We’re engaged!” and “She said yes!” were staples in our Facebook feeds.  By the fall, we were starting to anticipate plans for four separate weekend (or longer) trips to attend these weddings.

It’s an impressive lineup of locales and venues.  Our nephew’s wedding is scheduled for June in Louisville, KY.  Cool!  Neither of us has been to Louisville before, so absolutely, we’ll be there.  The “Day at the Races” at Churchill Downs on the day before the wedding is just the cherry on top of that sundae.  Then the Vermont wedding of our niece in August.  Suh-weet!  What a lovely time of year for a trip to New England, with the added possibility of making a longer vacation out of it.  Maritime provinces, anyone?  Then another niece getting married in Omaha in September:  not as exotic, but home grounds for this Iowa girl.  Finally, the young friend who wins the award for the most romantic proposal of the group.  He and his now bride-to-be had the hiking experience of a lifetime last summer in the French-Swiss-Italian Alps, and he managed to find a willing bystander to video his mountaintop bended-knee proposal, with a shimmering mountain lake in the background.  We were thrilled when he told us that we would be included in their wedding plans in Estes Park in September.

Except.

Except, who the hell knows what is going to be happening for travel in June?  That’s the biggest risk item.  But August and September:  I wouldn’t put big money on a bet that the coronavirus will be completely a thing of the past by then.

And so, what?  What of these young folks with thoughts of the big day that some – or all – have been dreaming of their entire lives?  The preparations, the wedding gowns and tuxes, bridesmaids’ dresses and flowers, photographers, caterers, musicians, fancy venues?  The specialness of the day wrapped up in sharing it with ones you love.  Plans for honeymoons in exotic places….like Italy, or Spain, or, well, anywhere in the world?  Will anyone be able to travel?  More immediately, will the invited guests be able to travel to the ceremonies?  Will the venues be enabled to again provide facilities for crowds that go well over current restrictions of 10 or 50 or 100?

We’ve been gathering “Save the Date” cards, and just a week ago received the first invitation, for the Kentucky wedding.  I wish I could tell you what will become of all these plans to solemnize true love.  But true love in the time of coronavirus is like nothing anyone has seen before, so.  Who the hell knows?

These thoughts are especially poignant since our wedding is still fresh in our minds.  Ed and I got married short of five years ago, in a ceremony much more humble than the ones we’ll attend – if we can attend them – this year.  We had a wedding celebration in the lush back yard of good friends, with a group of 80 or so friends and family in attendance.  Our “minister”, Galen, was ordained by the internet.  No attendants, no flower girls, no long walk down the aisle;  we were outside on a glorious sunny and warm September day.  Just vows that we wrote for each other.  No “love and obey”.  I don’t think we pledged to stay together through sickness and health, although I’d say that’s pretty much a given (Ed has, at least, lived up to his part of that bargain with all the care he gave me this past year during my knee replacement saga).  We did pledge to have fun, and to give each other space for our individual obsessions and idiosyncrasies.

I’m pretty sure we didn’t explicitly include, in those vows, to “do whatever it takes should a pandemic strike us”, and I know darn well that our vows didn’t include a stipulation that, should we not have access to salons and barbers, I would cut Ed’s hair for him.  But, well, you do what you have to do.  A day or two before the salons in Colorado were closed, Ed ordered a clipper set, and it arrived late last week.  This weekend, we brought a chair into the bathroom, and Ed became my first victim with the clippers.  For some this may be an ordinary thing:  I know that my stepdad buzzcut my brothers' hair when we were all young, but that memory didn’t make this experience any less weird.  And, strangely, intimate.  And, all in all, it didn’t turn out too badly.

This, I think, is truly true love in the time of coronavirus.

D-Day + 4: Dining Out. Or is it Dining In?

It’s amazing how fast one adjusts to being a house prisoner.  On Sunday and Monday, we walked outside:  just short of 3 miles the first day, and right at 2 miles the second.  On Tuesday, I stayed inside, completely.  My time outside was limited to filing bird feeders and putting more water in the bird baths.  Make that TWICE filling the water in the bird baths.  Is that bizarre or what?  We had a mixed flock of American Robins and Cedar Waxwings who just decimated the water supply.  They completely emptied out the shallow (heated) water tray by noon. Do you think that they heard about all the panic consumption, and decided to join the fray? 

At any rate, that brings us to Wednesday.  Wednesday is, for various reasons, the day we typically eat out the most.  When work allows it, we sneak out for breakfast at Jelly U, the best breakfast/lunch joint around.  Then later in the day, we typically go to harmonica class, and then to dinner across the street at our favorite Italian joint, Colore.  If you even think that I’m delusional about this, be assured I’m not;  I’m very well aware that the harmonica classes have just become an excuse to go to Colore.  (Don’t tell Ed.  Or my classmates.)

The fact is, we love to eat out.  Happily, we both love to eat out.  This no-restaurants thing is a major challenge.

This all means that we approached Wednesday with sadness over our changed circumstances.  But also with fortitude, since both restaurants are still open for delivery and carryout.  We called Jelly’s yesterday morning and placed our regular order, then made the walk over there.  The front door of the restaurant was closed and locked, with posted directions sending us around the building to a walk-up window that we had never seen in use before.  It felt like we were in the 1920s going around the back to a speakeasy.  Gabby, the manager of Jelly’s, opened the window and handed us our grub.  I handed her a credit card to pay, and immediately panicked:  what do I do about the credit card when she returns it?  I didn’t have any wipes (duh, does ANYone have any wipes?), so I stuck it back in my wallet and then wiped it down with alcohol when we got home.  Our entire outing, from the time we left our front door to the moment we came back in was 33 minutes.  I felt like I was breaking all the rules the entire time we were out.  And washed my hands every 5 minutes after we got back home.  But we were living our life, as (much as possible) mundanely as ever.  The food, sadly, didn’t really stand up well to being served cold at home.  But the food really isn’t the point.  The ritual was part of the point:  partial success on that front.  Supporting our friends who are waitstaff at the restaurant:  not so much, since there really wasn’t anyone working front of house other than the manager.  But supporting the restaurant?  We feel good about scoring well on that item.  We desperately feel for our local businesses, and – as long as we’re still getting paid for our work – we’ll keep supporting them.

Our trip to Colore to pick up food for dinner was a bit different.  We drove over (it’s close, also, maybe a mile and a half away), and were happy to see the outside lights of the restaurant blazing.  We walked in to pick up the order we had called in and were a bit surprised to see how many other people were there, also picking up food.  It was a happening place!  But we all stayed in our own little bubbles:  couples with at least 6 or 8 or 10 feet between us.  It’s the new normal, but that doesn’t make it any less weird.  Chris, the owner/manager of the place, took Ed’s credit card to pay for our order; as part of the process of handing it back to Ed, he swiped it with a bleach disinfectant wipe. 

Colore gets a large amount of business from the Swallow Hill Music School, which is directly across the street.  We had worried about both Swallow Hill and Colore in this time of forced shut-downs (Swallow Hill closed voluntarily this week, too).  But Chris told us that almost all of the regular Wednesday night crowd from Swallow Hill had preceded us in the restaurant, picking up orders.  That was one of those little pinpricks of light that cause tears to well up in my eyes.

 

So that was our D-Day + 3.  Today, D-Day + 4, arrived dark and gloomy.  It was raining lightly when I first woke up, and way too dark for that time of day.  I turned over and went back to sleep a while longer.  As I slept, I dreamt that Ed had answered his phone, then handed it to me.  I looked (in my sleep) at his phone and saw that the caller ID that came up said “COVID-19”.  That was enough to jolt me awake.  If that’s enough to get you up and moving, I don’t know what is. 

After that rude awakening, the weather really turned.  And not in a good way.  It went from rain to rain/snow to snow.  Heavy, wet spring snow, the kind that breaks branches and takes out power lines. Falling and falling and falling.  Sticking on trees and roads, but, happily, our small-limbed trees all look okay so far.  I’m grateful that I filled the bird feeders yesterday; this is nasty stuff to have to go out in.  The birds have been busy feeding all day.  Northern Flickers, House Finches and House Sparrows, Black-capped Chickadees, White-breasted and Red-breasted Nuthatches.  Blue Jays.  Dark-eyed Juncos, pretty much all the regular sub-species.  Our resident European-collared Dove, and our sometimes resident Spotted Towhee.  An occasional American Crow, but no raptors today.  The goldfinches are all feeding somewhere else, too.  But really, a lot of birds.  Tons.  All these birds, and more, lining up to clean out our feeders. 

Everyone, it seems, loves to eat out.

D-Day + 2: Happy St. Paddy’s Day! (posting a day late)

It was bound to happen at some point:  Ed and I have had our first true disagreement about The  Great Coronavirus Scare of 2020.  In this case, it’s all about how we refer to our confinement period.  My inclination was to start the counter today, St. Paddy’s Day, since it’s the first day that Denver restaurants and bars are closed for in-restaurant dining.  Ed insists that our extreme social distancing started on Sunday, the day that we first made a determination not to partake of our normal activities when we chose to skip the Church of Keith.  In the interests of marital bliss, I’ve decided to go with his timing, and so there you have it:  D-Day +2.

Why D-Day?  Well, I’ve been obsessed by all things WWII lately, since well before coronavirus came on the scene.   At some point shortly after I watched the movie “Hacksaw Ridge”, I learned that my father had been in the Battle of Okinawa.  The Battle of Okinawa was the largest amphibious assault of the war in the Pacific, and one of the bloodiest of that war; there were approximately 100,000 casualties for the Japanese as well as 50,000 for the Allies.  That my father – who died before I reached the age of 2 – was a part of that battle (and survived!) came as a revelation to me.  I wanted to learn more about it, and by extension, more about WWII.

Now I’m seeking out and watching and reading everything I can about WWII.  It turns out that I have more connections to the war in Europe than to the war in the Pacific.  My stepfather was taken as a prisoner of war in the early days of the Battle of the Bulge (December 1944 to be exact); thankfully he was liberated in the late spring of 1945, before he could starve to death.  My first father-in-law was a radio technician for the Polish Army, and he, too, was taken as a POW, and very early in the war.  His radio/electrician skills saved him; he survived for 4 years as a POW before being liberated in the waning days of the war.  Ed’s father – my last father-in-law – was a flight instructor.  He never saw any action, which seems like a good thing to me, but I know he felt cheated out of an opportunity to be a part of the fight.

This newfound interest led us to watch the series Band of Brothers a few weeks ago, and we watched the movie Saving Private Ryan (again) this past weekend.  Both essentially start with the assault on the beaches of Normandy on D-Day.  The actual date of D-Day (June 6, 1944) is now indelibly etched in my mind.  But it made me start to wonder:  what did the D in D-Day actually stand for?

Well, it turns out that the D just means “Day”.  It’s a bit of a redundant term.  It means the date of the operation or invasion.  It simply follows that D+x refers to the number of days after D-Day.

Which brings us back to D+2.  This sure seems like a weird kind of war, where all we can do to help the cause is to hunker down and stay indoors.  Since I work from home, I’m pretty much always eager to get out the door after working hours are done.  I value morning walks to a coffee shop to pick up a scone, late morning walks to the best local breakfast joint for an early lunch, Pilates class, harmonica class, piano lessons, dinner at our favorite Italian restaurant.  Haircuts, pedicures, massages.  You get it.  We’ve become friends with all the people who provide services to us: they are part of our family, not just anonymous faces.  We feel for them all as we enter the coming days.  I still get a paycheck while I’m confined to home:   that’s life as normal for me.  But many of our friends and family in the services fields are going into very, very stressful times.  We’re praying especially for their sakes that the “x” in “D+x” is a very low number.

And in the category of “it’s all about me”, I’m pretty danged bummed about this St. Paddy’s Day.  No, not just because we ended up canceling our trip to New Orleans to see the St. Paddy’s Day Parade (canceled) and to partake of my friend Leann’s concurrent crawfish boil (also canceled).  Not because of missed corned beef and cabbage (yuck to both, with apologies to those who love it).  Not because of green beer  (I may drink a green wine tonight).  Nope.  My disappointment runs more in the sartorial realm.  The color palate of my wardrobe runs from pinks to blues to purples, with nary a green item to be found.  Except for the shirt I bought specially to wear today, so I could fit in.  Does it matter that I wore a green shirt, but nobody saw it?

Love (and Life) in the Time of Coronavirus

I woke up Sunday morning, March 15, pretty darn sure that I had the virus.  After all, I coughed a few times while reading in bed on Friday night, and then had a longer coughing spell Saturday night.  That’s a sure sign, right?  So what if I had no other symptoms.  On Saturday I had searched in vain for our digital thermometer, but when I couldn’t find it, had a nagging feeling that I disposed of it some time back when it stopped working. Trips to Safeway and Walgreens on Saturday proved what we expected:  no thermometers for sale, of any kind, anywhere.  So Sunday morning, I tried out our three old-style analog thermometers – all three at once.  When they all showed a temp lower than 98.6, Ed said, see?  You are fine.  He reminded me that we had worked in the yard Saturday afternoon, raking leaves and uncovering all the new green growth coming up (the earth, it seems, has not stopped operating as per usual, even in the face of the pandemic), and that I was probably coughing and sneezing out all the stuff I breathed in.

“But I have a horrible headache!”, said I, trying to convince him of how sick I was.

“You always have a headache – you have had a headache pretty much every day since the day I met you six years ago” he replied.  And promptly walked over to me and kissed me.  Not a peck on the cheek, but a real, mouth-to-mouth resuscitation kind of a kiss.

It seems to me that if one of us gets infected, both of us will be infected.  We’re in this together.  Love in the time of coronavirus.

Then, after that breathtaking kiss, he suggested that maybe I should blog about these times.  I think he’s hoping to keep me from obsessing about every cough, sneeze, or little twinge – and every new article or Facebook post or tweet announcing yet more bad news, dire warnings.  Maybe he’s right.  Or maybe it will just give me a more public forum to obsess.  In any event, here we go.  In stark contradiction to my Facebook and Twitter presence, I’m hoping to use this forum to not complain so much, but just observe life in these weird times.

That was two days ago, and, well, I didn’t quite get around to writing anything at all over the weekend since I was, as Ed predicted, continuing to obsess about life in the time of coronavirus.  Life is different all around.  

We usually go to the “Church of Keith” on Sunday mornings, and that didn’t happen.  The Church of Keith is our name for Sunday mornings at our local coffee shop (Keith’s Coffee Bar, natch).  That’s the “where” of Church of Keith.  The “what” of Church of Keith is live acoustic music, provided by a variety of local talented artists, mostly guitar players and singers, with a few harmonicas thrown in for good measure.  We have a nice little community who gathers there almost every week.  Except this one.  The live music was canceled a few days earlier, and even then, we still debated.  Should we go?  Should we stay home?  In the end, we decided in favor of extreme social distancing.  Instead of Church of Keith (individual quiches or breakfast burritos and other yummy pastries), Ed made us French toast, and we nearly finished off the remaining fresh fruit in the house.  We did finish off the organic maple syrup.

Then, instead of enjoying the walk to and from Keith’s, we hunkered down.  We did one chore – hanging the new blackout shades we just got for our living room – and then we just stood and looked at each other.  Our compost bin (the big industrial one provided by the city) is full of yard debris, so the rest of our spring yard work is on hold until after this week’s pickup. We were both a bit freaked out by the new normal.  The weather was gorgeous:  mostly sunny, warmish.  We talked about going for a bike ride, but neither of us could gin up the mojo for it. 

So we ordered up Starz again in order to binge watch Outlander.  We pulled down the new blackout shades (wow – they do make it dark!), cuddled under the blankie, made popcorn, exulted when we found a forgotten loaf of chocolate chip banana bread in the freezer.  When late afternoon was upon us, we forced ourselves outside for a longish walk:  just short of three miles, around Harvard Gulch Park, the route that used to be, before knee replacement and all that, our short run route.  It was almost like early Sunday evening on any given week – but it wasn’t.  There were plenty of people out taking advantage of the last bits of a setting sun, but when we saw a neighborhood acquaintance on the bike path, we didn’t stop to chat.  Everyone was moving inside their own private bubble.  It was just a little too quiet to seem normal.  But still, it was lovely to be outside, and to be part of the world.

Monday morning, I got up with yet another massive headache.  But, as Ed says, that is (sadly) all too normal for me.  A couple of Excedrin, and I can cope.  And:  no coughing.  And:  my obsessive temperature taking has yet to detect anything above 98.2 or so.  I walked past a mirror, though, and the image I saw looked a bit like death warmed over.  So I took a shower, ditched the sweats in favor of jeans (for someone who works from home all the time, this is the definition of dressing up for work), actually rolled my hair and put on some makeup. 

If it truly turns out that I’m going to live, it’s time to put on my game face.