Directive from Everyday Life in Middletown
Saturday nights are the most challenging part of our new reality under Covid-19. With so many music and arts opportunities in the community and at Ball State, combined with gatherings at church and with friends, it was a rare Saturday evening when we were at home. And then we relished the change. But every Saturday? With Zoom we are starting virtual cocktail parties, but the cooking and fixing food together that characterized many of our gatherings will be missing. Acorn and Netflix to the rescue! And popcorn is replacing more elaborate finger food.
For the first two weeks it was strange to wake up most mornings with nothing I had to do beyond food planning and cooking, which I enjoy a great deal. And that process has changed. When we retired 12 years ago, we started eating our main meal mid-day. Before mid –March, meal planning developed around our weekly calendar…cooking enough for left overs for a busy morning when meal preparation time was skimpy, and there were days our plans meant no mid-day meal preparation at all. Now I no longer plan day to day, but for a week at a time, deciding the night before what menu idea appeals to us. As victims of the Costco/Trader Joe disease, we have loads of food stored in the freezers and pantry. For over a year I had promised L. that I would work through that food; now I am, and I enjoy searching online for recipes that use what is already stored in the house. It is fun to rediscover the vegetables and fruit I froze before we left for a trip. Without this situation, they would still be there.
As a result, we have had to do little food shopping and when we do, it is very early morning once every week to 10 days. Our list is mostly fresh fruit and produce and the odd ingredient needed for a recipe. We are thankful for Wendy Carpenter and her Randolph County farm; on Fridays we drive to the Minnestrista parking lot and pick up (with safe social distancing) a box of pre-ordered/pre-paid fresh produce (i.e.: leeks, arugula, spinach, Swiss chard, winter lettuce). I have discovered new recipes that will become regulars. One example: after finding a package of tofu in the back of the refrigerator, an online search suggested a vegetable stir-fry that I adapted with what I had on hand; spinach replaced bock choy and I added the snow peas left from the last dinner party. Delicious and it fed us for three days!
One Wednesday morning we got up early for the senior hours at Fresh Thyme. It was a very foggy morning. Driving through the empty streets was rather eerie in an otherworld, but not scary, way: few cars and darkened windows in most of the businesses on McGalliard–except for the fast food places selling breakfast through take out windows.
In early March I purchased ingredients to make Silver Palate chili for Sue Errington’s campaign kick off March 14. On Friday, March 27, I made the chili anyway, dividing most of it into seven containers to deliver to friends (including Sue), along with muffins from stone ground cornmeal from a historic mill in Bridgetown, Indiana. Although it was a drippy afternoon, it was reassuring to stop at each house to wave and chat briefly from a safe distance.
I am not getting enough exercise. We try to walk every day, carrying plastic bags for roadway garbage. We walked down Petty Road the first time; it is usually busy with cars driving too fast. Not a car in sight! We collected quite a bit of garbage, filling our original bag, then another bag that we found, and also picked up a small box full of stuff we didn’t investigate. On our way home, laden with our finds, nice homeowners on their front porch invited us to put the bags in their toter.
Our social life is now on Zoom…don’t we all wish we had bought stock in that company before this happened? In the past 10 days, my calendar is suddenly full again…. with Zoom meetings. One day I had four!
Our Unitarian Universalist church switched to virtual services in early March and the Board purchased several “zoom rooms” which we use for worship, meetings, connection group chats, and other church business. I am amazed at the sense of community we have maintained with this program, even with 100+ attendees. At the virtual Sunday service we see each other’s faces and share our lives via the chat room. Dedicated staff and volunteers include in that virtual service familiar sights and sounds…. the ringing of our historic bell that signals the beginning of service, the lighting of the chalice while those of us who wish light one at home, music taped by our gifted Director of Music. Our church building is closed, but our community is not. L’s church poker group is even developing ways to play poker on Zoom!
One challenge has been how to continue to support those who use our church’s small food pantry, which is managed by a food justice task force that I chair. It has taken a while to reach one man who came to the building during the week; finally we made phone contact and one of our task force members will be shopping and delivering food to his family during this time. In addition, the little library on our street has become a little food pantry.
In many ways I am in touch with more people beyond our local social circle than before. My sisters and I are meeting weekly on Zoom; we always have a text thread running, but seeing each other feels necessary. I organized a virtual cocktail party for the far-flung group of friends from grad school days; we get together once a year and exchange occasional email threads. But now it feels good to see each other more frequently. Friends share inspirational or humorous links on line, like the virtual playing of Jesu, Joy of Man’s Desiring by the Rotterdam Symphony Orchestra, each in their own home. The most delightful link was to a video of Zubin Mehta’s grandson “conducting” an orchestra. I consciously keep up more than I used to with people who live alone; I took daffodils to our 91-year-old neighbor. Her family in Atlanta arranges food deliveries for her and she assures me she has plenty to eat.
It is funny to realize that my personal grooming is now dictated by upcoming Zoom events. I laughed at myself as I got “ready for church” Sunday…doing my hair, which I am not bothering with much on other days. During the first week at home I didn’t get out of my bathrobe many days. I finally decided that was not emotionally healthy as a new practice, although it is much later in the morning when I finally get dressed…and in the same jeans, turtleneck and vest. While I may be more casual about my appearance, we are even more diligent than before about the nightly house pick up…dishes and wine glasses washed and put away; newspapers, books and magazines neatly stacked; shoes in closet. Tidiness is more important when the house is our entire world.
We are anxiously awaiting dryer and warmer weather so we can get into the garden. The tulips are coming up; the crocus, blue bells and hellebores are blooming. One morning we noticed the return of trillium in the shade garden. In late March a pair of robins picked up small sticks, we assume for a nest. Signs of spring are reassuring. The world keeps turning.
On April 1, L. and I celebrated meeting 60 years ago; we will be married 56 years in June. At times like this we know we are lucky that we are each other’s best friend and still, after all the decades, would rather be with each other than anyone else.
While we don’t have a huge house, it is roomy enough for us to have personal space when we need it. For the first two weeks at home, I moved my computer from my study, where I used to spend several hours a day, into the family room. It just felt reassuring to be together in the same room…and with the gas log. I made a space at the end of the table where L. works 1000 piece puzzles (without looking at the box!) and our beloved calico sat between us, one paw defiantly placed on the edge of the puzzle!
Now Zoom is dictating the placement of the laptop. The best internet connection is at the other end of the house in our small guest room we call the “away room”. It is now quite crowded with the addition of a card table and my study desk chair.
We are monitoring and limiting news consumption, although on some days we can’t help but wallow in it. We listen daily to WBST/NPR (morning guy Stan Sollars is a cheery beginning to each day) and watch selected programs on MSNBC. We shared an interesting article in L’s Science News about the development of this novel virus, probably from bats where it is not active, to another animal, and then to humans.
Emotionally I feel like I am in a good place, but I am fortunate not to have suffered from anxiety or depression in my life. I am enough of a homebody to not find this situation chafing, although without Zoom, life would be more difficult. As retirees, we don’t have to worry about regular paychecks. Our lives would be more challenging if we were both trying to work from home as well as homeschool our children. As a retired classroom teacher, I empathize with educators keeping contact with their students and working to keep them from falling too far behind. I try not to worry about our son, a medical educator in Michigan, now working from home to assure critical learning for medical students continues in socially safe ways. I know it is just a matter of time before he is in the hospital for rounds or simply because that is where he needs to be. We talk every weekend and he now sounds less stressed and fatigued than earlier. But I also know that my worry won’t change anything.
Early on I started a Silver Lining list. While our spring/early summer trips are postponed for a year, we will see the tulips bloom, and this year I am starting basil and State Fair zinnia plants in the potting shed, which I couldn’t do if we were away. I have time for tasks I put off, like cleaning under bathroom and kitchen sinks. I am more likely to reach out to those with whom we have infrequent connections.
I have to hope that some societal good will come of this experience. Maybe health care will be seen as the human right it is, though I notice the red-blue divide in the country continues despite our common threat from Covid-19. Is there a chance that the pressures on teachers and the education system during school closings will result in greater respect for the critical job teachers do? Will our society develop an increased understanding that for many students at risk for a variety of reasons, the classroom is their lifeline? The gap between those who are privileged and those who struggle has never been more obvious.
I’ll close with a poem making the rounds online:
Pandemic?by Lynn Ungar
What if you thought of it
as the Jews consider the Sabbath—
the most sacred of times?
Cease from travel.
Cease from buying and selling.
Give up, just for now,
on trying to make the world
different than it is.
Sing. Pray. Touch only those
to whom you commit your life.
Center down.
And when your body has become still,
reach out with your heart.
Know that we are connected
in ways that are terrifying and beautiful.
(You could hardly deny it now.)
Know that our lives
are in one another’s hands.
(Surely, that has come clear.)
Do not reach out your hands.
Reach out your heart.
Reach out your words.
Reach out all the tendrils
of compassion that move, invisibly,
where we cannot touch.
Promise this world your love–
for better or for worse,
in sickness and in health,
so long as we all shall live.