Living the COVID-19 Pandemic

Spring in Biltmore Lake

            “We are going to be much healthier when this is over,” said a woman I passed on a Biltmore Lake trail yesterday.  She was walking a small dog and going up the hill as I was coming down.  I had just done four miles to the water tower and was almost home.

            “There are so many more people than we usually see up here,” Art commented.  Neighbors and residents of our community who did not look or act like “walkers” were on the uphill woodsy trail which leads to a county water tower. Art and I have been hiking to the this water tower and back for several years when we want a nearby hike that’s more rigorous.  We now do it easily. 

            We stopped to chat with one couple (at a distance) who were sitting on a log resting.  We passed two other older couples walking separately but slowly. I wondered if they would make it all the way. Perhaps they will, with practice, I thought. It may be that they never would have tried if we weren’t living through the COVID-19 pandemic.

             

            This week my phone has rung often. We hear from Hayden every few days when he walks Jeter, their dog, in the mornings.  He has always been a communicator but during normal times, he is too busy getting ready for work and school runs to call us. We catch up on weekends.  Now he checks in often. He and Jessica have been role models as they are seriously following rules about “social distancing” and staying home. They are learning the ups and downs of home schooling Austin which is not so easy.  Their concern for us is touching, but I don’t let on that I worry more about them and how this all will affect their future lives.

             I have had long conversations with my brothers in California and in Reno.  Megan and I text as she is isolated at home in Berkeley in their small condo – two adults working remotely, two children downstairs with a nanny to watch over them.  How does she do it, I wonder.  Megan’s brother Ian and Angelica are now housebound in the middle of Chicago but “doing fine” he tells me. 

My cousin from Cedar Rapids, Iowa,  Julie, called so we could catch up on our lives since we last talked.  “I, too, am walking a lot,” she told me.  “I can picture just where you are walking,” she told me.  I remember that she has been to visit me in Biltmore Lake, just as we have been to see her in Boca Grande, Florida and her home in Cedar Rapids.  We have each walked the others’ trails so that now we can feel connected and picture it.

Our long-time friends Dick and Mary from Vermont days called for a chat yesterday.  Mary talked nonstop about her grandchildren and their lives now in Florida and Dick’s health.  We go back many years with these friends and pick up where we left off when we see them.  

“We’ll see you in Vermont again this summer,” we reassured each other before we hung up.  “For sure,” they agreed.  We signed off with memories of the many visits and celebrations we have enjoyed on the deck of their Gt. Hawk house and imagining it will happen yet again.

Mary Rojas checks in from Washington D.C. by phone - a friend I’ve known 50 years and whom we see often on visits to Hayden & family.  Our Vermont friends who loan us their house every summer posted on Facebook “hoping you’ll be able to use the house this summer”.  My dear friend Mary in Tucson sent me a photo of her kitchen filled full grocery bags her niece had dropped by for her.  She had not asked for anything but her daughter had sent them via a niece.  Acts of kindness in difficult times...

          All week I had thoughts and feelings about how our lives have changed since the pandemic has struck the U.S. and especially since we are now housebound with everything closed and cancelled.  Reading the print edition of the New York Times each morning leaves me frightened and uncertain. I look for the few articles that find the “silver linings” during this strange time.  Thinking about elderly Americans becoming healthier through outdoor walking is a positive.  Less traffic on the roads is welcome.  Making the environment cleaner now that working from home is changing greenhouse gas emissions. Finding new ways to connect through Zoom and Facetime are good and more frequent real phone calls (like our generation enjoyed for years) are welcome.

I often wonder what Mom and Dad would say if they were alive today.  I know they’d remind us that they survived the 1930’s Depression and World War II.  Mother would say, “we were scarred by the Depression and the War. “Those times influenced how we lived the rest of  our lives.”  They were the generation that saved money all their lives and rarely bought things on credit.  They valued education above all else and followed through on goals of marriage, family, and a lifetime job.  Still, a pandemic is different although the economic fallout equates to Depression times.

I am Mother’s age when she talked that way.  What have I gone through in my life? Nothing to compare to what she did nor what is going on today.  I survived a polio epidemic in Buenos Aires, Argentina and a Revolution in my childhood.  I was so sheltered from that reality that those serious times did not make a lifelong impact.  I have gone through disappointments with jobs, remember times when we had no money, and lived through the terror of nearly losing Hayden to a severe illness in Chile when he was a baby.  None of these things are the same.  I think about Hayden and Jessica, Megan and Cruz, Ian and my other nieces and nephews and wonder when this pandemic is over, will their lives be changed in some way like it was for my parents’ generation.

Months before the pandemic, we meticulously planned a trip to France in early April. It was to be a walking trip to the villages of the Luberon in Provence ending with a week-long hike along the “quiet side” of the Riviera. We said we that this would be our 45th wedding anniversary celebration, and it would mark our 75^th birthdays. We cancelled the trip a week ago. 

Now, Art checks the weather in Provence occasionally and says “we picked a perfect time to go to France, it’s in the 60’s and sunny.  If only we were there.”

“”That’s good to know…we’ll go this same time next year,” I respond with optimism I don’t necessarily always feel.

  The reality of being at home, instead of on a trip in Europe, is a relief as the COVID-19 pandemic worsens.  The mourning period for a trip “not taken” has not lingered. We are beyond that.

I am not certain how the world around me will shift in the weeks and months to come.  For now I am grateful that we live in a comfortable place with Nature all around us and the ability to get out and enjoy it every day.  Having creative outlets, as I was taught all my life, can save you during tough times. I am writing and sending simple stories to Austin in Spanish. I like to hear about the activities that Hayden and Jessica are coming up with for Austin to learn and do.  He is cooking and sending photos of what he and Jessica bake – granola and Apple Bread.  He is learning to do educational programs on his own Tablet connected to the Internet.  He is working on crafts, drawing, and painting.  Art is working on his stamp collection again after several years of it being put away.  He says there is enough to do to last him a lifetime.

We are readers and our house is full of journals and newspapers that arrive on our doorstep almost every day.  I did feel panic on the day the inevitable announcement came that the public library would be closed indefinitely.  I don’t lack for books and things to read but for me, the library has always been my “go to” escape place.  I can go there and simply browse through the shelves looking for an undiscovered gem to bring home and read.  That personal anticipation and joy is not there now. 

My hairdresser closed her salon so that a lifetime habit of regular haircuts is not an option anymore.  The “silver lining” is that I am not a slave to hair coloring as many women my age are.  I will accept my natural self in a world where people are dealing with much more difficult things than hair gone astray.  

I like that the everyday minutiae of life has simply evaporated. This allows me to be more grateful for what I have.   I cannot take the long view of things because that is a big unknown.   I will stick to observing Nature around me come to life now that it’s spring. I will take deep breaths of cleaner air outdoors.  I will listen to the many more birds singing all around me hoping they know something we humans don’t - that there are better times to come.

Welcome Nature once again...