Pandemic: Life on Pause

month has gone by fairly rapidly, with many changes, and I haven't taken the time to write about many of them. And it occurs to me that I should be writing these things down, because though I've felt relatively calm and self-possessed about the changes that have occurred within the last 30 days, I also realize that I'm living through an experience that doesn't happen every decade, nor even every generation, but perhaps only once every few centuries. I take strength and comfort from the thought that the people who lived through the last major worldwide pandemic -- the Spanish flu epidemic of 1918-1919 -- had their lives upended in ways much more severe than ours, and that eventually society shook it off, righted itself and got back to normal (or at least a reasonable facsimile thereof). So although things are chaotic at the moment, I try to think of this experience not as the end of life as we know it, but merely of life with the Pause button on for a while.

So at the end of February I was finishing up the most recent travel experience with Miss V, visiting a couple of potential graduate schools in North Carolina and Pennsylvania. We'd heard about the nasty viral outbreak in China and how someone in the U.S. -- actually, someone in our state -- had come back with a case of it, but we didn't yet know it was in the full community transmission phase. But when the news about Life Care Center of Kirkland broke, I knew things were about to get nasty.

The rash of cancellations and closures started in early March. An interfaith network meeting I usually attend, a St. Patrick's Day celebration at Seattle Center, a live podcast recording V was planning to see, Emerald City Comic-Con all got nixed. Church was canceled at first for just one week, then until further notice; we've started holding church services at home. School districts shut down one by one, switching to distance learning, and college students were told to leave their on-campus apartments and go home; some had as little as 48 hours' notice to vacate the premises. Missionaries were sent home, given temporary new assignments, or confined to their apartments. First the Seattle temple was closed, then every temple around the world was closed. There were public recommendations: practice social distancing of at least 6 feet from others in public, limit public gatherings to 50 people, then to 10 people. And always, always, "wash your hands for at least 20 seconds and don't touch your face." Commencements were canceled. Weddings were canceled. Funerals were canceled. Restaurants, especially Asian restaurants, became ghost towns even before the governor restricted all restaurants to delivery and carry-out services only. Non-essential businesses at first tried to stay open by limiting the number of customers who could be in the store at once. Eventually they had to close completely.

Panic-buying and stockpiling set in early. Certain items became difficult (and, in the case of face masks and hand sanitizer, virtually impossible) to find at groceries and pharmacies. I've been exceptionally fortunate throughout most of this, because although we've never hoarded or stockpiled anything, I've managed to keep the family in enough toilet paper for our needs.

At first I continued picking up groceries via Epic Late-Night Grocery Run, since nearly nobody was in the store late at night and it felt safer to pick things up when I didn't have to risk getting (or giving) a case of the 'Rona. Alas, I cannot do an Epic Late-Night Grocery Run now, because no grocery store in this area is open later than 11 p.m. and the governor has advised Washington residents to shelter in place, only running errands for groceries or prescriptions. To make sure my errands out are as productive as possible, I've been keeping track of household items we need on a Post-It-style phone app. Once the list gets full or something critical runs out, I venture forth for a massive coordinated errand run where I try to get everything done in one pass.

Captain Midnight has been working from home since the beginning of the month. He set up a workstation at the far end of the kitchen table, and the area is slowly being taken over by the equipment he's testing. CM is getting used to Charlie-cat hopping up on the kitchen table and sitting on his laptop keyboard for attention, disrupting online team meetings. Charlie should be a minor celebrity at CM's work by the time all this is over.

Miss V had an internship in Seattle this month, which abruptly came to an end. She's been working on some sewing projects and picking up a few paid gigs here and there. I know this isn't the way she imagined Spring 2020 would go, and she's had some anxiety and a number of disappointments over canceled events, but overall she's done her best to maintain a positive attitude.

Me, I spend too much time online. (Yes, even more than I already did.) I knit from my overflowing stash of yarn, read a library book that's now on extended checkout through the end of April because the county library system is closed down, and work on putting together a Discord channel where people can gather to tell each other stories during the pandemic. There are days when I go geocaching to feel a bit more normal, focusing on caches close to home. And there are days when I only go outside to pick up the mail. Most days I sleep until noon because I've been staying up until 3 or 4 a.m. just to recharge. There's a lot of love in my family, but we're also all introverts and we need our space, even from each other. There are days when I'm fine with doing the typical household chores (laundry, dishes, pickup, garbage, etc.) and days when I just don't wanna do squat. On Thursday Miss V, who usually avoids cooking, stepped up to the plate and made Indian food for dinner. I don't know what I appreciated more: the taste of the food or the satisfaction of not having to cook for an evening.

When I do go out, the streets are abnormally still, like what one might expect on a Sunday morning at 5 a.m. Even during rush hour, traffic is nearly nonexistent, and it feels like drivers are routinely speeding to keep from staying out any longer than they have to. It's allergy season as well (because of course it is), and high pollen counts make me clear my throat frequently as I try hard not to cough in public. I sanitize frequently during errands and wash my hands thoroughly as soon as I return, but in the end I'll probably be the one who brings back a case of COVID-19. I mean, I hope that won't happen, but I see the exponential growth of this thing and the continued lack of widespread testing and realize that, especially in the next few weeks, the virus will be essentially everywhere I go. The best I can hope for is that we'll get mild cases that clear up without need for medical intervention, and that we'll stay sufficiently isolated so no one else will get it from us.

I have... thoughts about this administration and how it's handled the pandemic. I'm sure you do too. I also have some fairly strong feelings about people who break quarantine to play on the beach in large numbers, but I can't express those feelings without resorting to profanity, so... moving on.

For the time being, Captain Midnight has a job. I realize how fortunate he's been to keep his employment when so many others are out of work, and I'm grateful for it. Other things I'm grateful for: the ability to cook from scratch (thanks Mom), the ability to self-entertain most of the time, the smartphone I swore I'd never get which has helped me stay organized through this (thanks Julie), my bullet journal (thanks Ryder Carroll), getting officially diagnosed with ADHD before all this went down, home delivery of nearly everything, chocolate as a self-medication for stress, getting my (actual) medications filled early (thanks Bartell Drugs), my family and Charlie-cat, and -- overwhelmingly -- the healthcare workers, pharmacists, grocery clerks, delivery drivers, restaurant cooks, and all the other folks who keep the most necessary parts of our society functioning. I know it's not safe to do it right now, but once the pandemic is over and life switches from Pause to Play again, I'm giving all y'all hugs. And it will be both super awkward and awesome at the same time.