The looming question: How long is this tunnel?
Dear CoviDiary, If every month lasts as long as March did, I will be 10 years older in 2021. But conversely, it feels as if March was stolen from us. The initial beauty of spring was a reminder of a natural world that we depend on but that doesn’t depend on us.
As I lie awake, trying to shut down my brain, mental images flip by like a slideshow — images made from information I absorb from experts interviewed on NPR and CNN, dire predictions that become pictures of people I like and love, all worrisome. But no one can answer the looming question: How long is this tunnel?
Economists say it will take years to recover our fiscal health even after this virus goes into slumber. Epidemiologists’ predictions suggest that it may take most of the year to return to elbow-bumping. Psychologists remind us that many people, silently buried under past trauma or depression, now are weighted by a new layer of anxiety.
Some people are finding ways to stay lighthearted, and they share that gift with others. I have found them in my neighborhood and online — the couple who sing “We’re All HomeBound” to the tune of “Homeward Bound”; the family in
England singing about their shut-in status to the tune of “One More Day” from “Les Miserables”; Neil Diamond’s retake on “Sweet Caroline” (“Hands, washing hands, reaching out, don’t touch me, I won’t touch you”).
Laughter is good for the body. When I see a funny video online, something that would normally make me chuckle now makes me laugh with more volume.
Every time I feel that low simmer of worry begin to creep in, I sit down and try to reenact those meditation exercises I had just started learning in sessions with longtime practitioners at the Allegheny branch of the Carnegie Library before it closed.
The vacation week was strangely blissful. I read several books, got started on a personal writing project and began making meals for the long term with the stocked-up groceries I started the week with: Lentil soup with kale and diced tomatoes; sweet potato, barley and kale soup with diced tomatoes; white beans with kale, rosemary and sausage; wilted kale salad with sesame oil and dried cranberries; three kinds of pasta sauce; and chili.
There was no kale in the chili and pasta sauce, but I still have some kale in the bag.
The one thing I don’t want to do is waste food. What to do with the tub of ricotta cheese, half used? I found a recipe online for pasta with kale and ricotta cheese and lemon.
I have a personal contest to see how long I can go on the groceries I have accumulated so far by using just a few ingredients in each meal to make all the ingredients last longer. I figure I can easily go for three weeks, although rice and beans, lentils and pasta will have gotten a bit redundant by then.
Because I love to cook, this is fun. Finding fun is essential to soften these knots in my mid-back.
During my vacation week, I put songs in a separate file that I named “COVID,” and they include “U Can’t Touch This” by M.C. Hammer, “From a Distance” by Bette Midler, and “Don’t Stand So Close to Me” by the Police.
I organized my neighbors for a group sing from our stoops one evening and picked a song all of us would know, “Somewhere Over the Rainbow.” That song, though hard to sing, had the value of being hopeful.
But the knots remain. I have been taking 45minute walks every day, and on each walk, I see signs of hope in windows: “When ‘I’ becomes ‘we,’ even illness becomes wellness”; “Together, we’ll make it through.”
But I also see discouraging signs: people walking in groups without masks; people standing close together talking; and groups of men on the street. Haven’t they heard the news?
Before a trip to the 7Eleven, I devised a mask out of a bandanna with plastic wrap in one of the folds. I tied it on before entering the store and immediately, my glasses fogged up.
Six people were standing in line, all within a foot or so of each other, the way we all used to stand in line. These days, that behavior is either clueless — which I can’t imagine -— or willfully heedless. Either way, it’s dangerous to them and everyone around them.
We all are wondering how long this will last, but “this” may be just the first wave with so many people not taking precautions.