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The ideal person to be quarantined with would be my Nana. She was born in 1911, grew up on a farm, survived the Great Depression, and was smart, industrious, patient, thrifty, and a phenomenal baker and cook. My Nana always had two refrigerators and freezers filled with food enough to last forever. She washed clothes in the sink and sometimes in the washing machine, and dried everything on the line. She washed and dried the dishes by hand. Somehow I feel like she wouldn’t have run out of anything or would’ve known how to make what she had on hand last and last. She never learned to drive and would’ve been content to stay at home taking care of her family, reading her devotions, sewing, and playing Scrabble as long as was necessary. She might’ve been sad that Major League Baseball was canceled because she enjoyed watching the Atlanta Braves play. She would’ve missed going to church every Sunday, but she wouldn’t have skipped a single day reading the Bible. She would’ve called to check on the women in her Sunday school class and people from the church who were homebound (of course we’re all homebound now, but the people who were sick or incapacitated). She would’ve made meals and pound cakes and asked my Papa to drive her to deliver them. I am confident that Nana would have remained calm during all this craziness.
Perhaps because I’ve been thinking about my Nana so much lately, I had two terrible dreams last night in which she had just died. In one dream, I was in the house on Chestnut Street in High Point, North Carolina where she and my Papa lived for most of my childhood. I dreamed that she had died and the entire rest of my family had suddenly vanished. I had no one there to talk to or who could console me, except for an acquaintance I didn’t really trust.
In the next dream, I was in another city–maybe Arlington or DC at night and I was hysterical about her death. I was parked very tight between other cars and was trying to figure out how to get my car out of the lot. My friend Elizabeth appeared, along with a guy who sported an unfortunate Prince Valiant style haircut. Elizabeth asked if I could give her and Prince Valiant a ride somewhere because it was raining. I said I would, but then I was driving up absurdly steep walls, like in a skate park, and I couldn’t seem to get anywhere. I was crying and told Elizabeth I couldn’t drive because I was so upset and she would have to drive, so she did.
When I told Randy about this he suggested the steep walls I was trying to drive up represented the nightmarish graphs we keep seeing in the news, of the rise of coronavirus cases and deaths, and the unbelievable unemployment numbers.
My Nana died in 2005. I wonder if I am suddenly missing her more than usual because in all this terrifying uncertainty, I am longing for her steady, reassuring presence. She would know the right thing to do. I wish she were here so she could meet my kids. And so I could bake her a cake. I think she would like that.
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When my kids were in preschool at AUCP one of the concepts that the teachers and staff there reminded us parents all the time was the importance of teaching and allowing our kids to do things on their own even when it would be much faster for us to do it ourselves. If you are a parent or grandparent or older sibling or if you’ve ever cared for or taught a child, you know that it often takes little kids forever to do anything, especially if you are in a hurry.
Of course this is good advice because kids will never learn to be independent if you do everything for them. But also, life. Sometimes it’s really tedious to teach a kid to do something that you could do in five minutes, knowing you’ll have to cajole them to do it and then it will take them half an hour.
Yet there comes a time–perhaps when you are in quarantine–when you are making three meals a day for your family members, that you must teach your first-grader to make a sandwich. For whatever reason, Zeke has never liked peanut butter and jelly. Recently he has changed his mind. He seems to change his mind about a lot of things lately. So I taught him to make a sandwich. He was proud of himself. He added pretzels to the plate. I cut up the apple. I’m wondering when I can give him the sharp knife…
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I know she would never have chosen it herself, but I actually think Zoe’s 13th birthday while in quarantine was more eventful and filled with love from more people than it would’ve been under ordinary circumstances.
I had put a call out on Facebook for people to send video birthday greetings to Zoe, and my wishes were granted. Beginning this morning I air-played the videos for Zoe on our TV and enjoyed seeing her smile. Some of the videos were from friends, some from teachers, some from people she doesn’t even know but who know her through the magic of Facebook. Some of them were from dogs and cats and plastic birds. One video made me cry and another made me laugh so hard I peed.
Last night we made a Kahoot–an online quiz using an app that Zoe has used in school for years–about Zoe. Today we invited family and a few groups of friends to play during Zoom birthday calls. Our first call was with the McCrays, who all sported birthday hats and had put up a happy birthday banner and balloons for Zoe. Later, the Cass family brought their adorable new puppy, Bentley, to visit us. They stayed six feet away while Bentley nibbled bits of turkey out of our hands. Then my parents drove up with some birthday gifts for Zoe, which they handed through the car window. I had just made pasta salad for lunch and I hurried to package some up for them (along with the baby carrots and tortilla chips we always serve with the pasta salad) and passed their bag of lunch back through the car window before they drove off.
Zoe and I played speed, her favorite card game, at which I am usually terrible, and I beat her. I told her now that she was a woman I wasn’t holding back anymore. Which is nonsense, because I never held back before I just wasn’t good at the game and it was lucky that I won today. Then the four of us played Not Parent Approved and ate pasta salad.
Next we had our family celebration, during which Aunt Susannah aced the Zoe quiz, and our littlest family member Sam did a little birthday dance for Zoe. Susannah and Aaron and Charlie and Sam made the best birthday video ever–their rendition of Taylor Swift’s “Me,” which featured Susannah in a bridesmaid dress and Charlie popping out of unexpected places including the fridge. Also Sam doing baby pushups.
Eager to get back on her bike, Zoe asked me to take her back to the field where she and Zeke rode Friday and Saturday. The field just so happens to be located near her best friend’s house. After riding a few laps around the track, Zoe was suddenly serenaded (from a safe distance) by a vaguely familiar group including a unicorn, Wolverine, a poop emoji, a hot dog, a windsock guy, and a Slytherin. Strangers stopped to take photos and videos.
Back home Zoe got back on Zoom with her squad from school, a happy reunion that lasted more than two hours, until our delivery arrived from Bangkok54. While we ate we watched the Taylor Swift documentary Miss Americana, which Zoe had already watched five times, but it was my first. The movie was excellent and gave me a newfound respect for Taylor.
Of course Zoe received some presents, and some will be arriving in the mail pending coronavirus delays. But the best thing about this birthday was her just hearing from people in Arlington and all over the country that they are thinking of her and wishing good things for her and sending her love. And now that she’s 13 I think she understands how much that matters.
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(this is a slightly belated post for Friday, April 3 as I was too exhausted last night to write)
Surprisingly, this week went by fast. Although we still have absolutely no semblance of a routine, I guess we’re getting used to the new reality. Here’s what Zeke does every day: draws, builds with Legos, reads, does some math (usually with an app), practices martial arts or hikes (and now practices on his bike!), does a zoom or FaceTime call with family, and plays xbox. Here’s what Zoe does every day: schoolwork on her iPad, reads, practices martial arts and hikes or bikes, does some chores, talks with friends on FaceTime or Zoom, and explores the exciting worlds of Instagram, YouTube, and TikTok. I won’t list what I do because it’s much more boring, but rest assured I keep busy.
The absolute highlight of my Friday was seeing Zeke put all his energy into learning to ride his bike, and finally succeeding. And Zoe was an amazing cheerleader and coach for him, as encouraging and kind as I’ve ever seen her with her brother. Most of the time Zeke was trying to ride, he was shouting bizarre phrases such as “Peruvian chicken!” and “I am the man!” He did a lot of yelling and laughing and running between attempts. I did a lot of running behind him trying to hold on as lightly as I could until he got some momentum going.
I fully believe that both my children learning to ride their bikes is a significant silver lining of this pandemic. Before everything was closed and canceled, they always had or made a million excuses about other things they needed to or would rather be doing than practicing on their bikes. Now they have no reason to be tired and they are excited to go outside but they can’t touch anything outside so biking is suddenly appealing. Someday, when all this is over, they’ll be able to ride their bikes to school and to friends’ houses. Can’t wait.
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When they first announced that our schools were closing because of the virus, it was only supposed to be for a month. The kids would return to school on April 14, after spring break. I can’t believe this decision was made only two and a half weeks ago. Already it feels like forever, since everything has changed and changed and changed again since then. But way back then, I naively thought that we might still be able to have spring break. We weren’t planning any exotic trips–just an overnight to Baltimore to visit the American Visionary Art Museum, explore the National Aquarium, and take the water taxi to Fells Point. And another overnight to Pennsylvania to spend a day at Hershey Park, which Zoe requested as a birthday present and where she and Randy were going to ride all the roller coasters. Still, we had something to look forward to.
Now our schools are closed for the rest of the school year, although perplexingly that’s not the case nationwide. And Virginians, along with residents of many states, have been ordered by the governor to stay at home unless we need to leave home on essential trips. The number of confirmed coronavirus cases in Arlington has surpassed 100 and continues to climb. It seems like we are stuck at home for the foreseeable future. I just hope to God we can have our summer. Please don’t tell me otherwise right now. I cannot handle it.
I am feeling discouraged. My family will not be able to be together to celebrate my or my kids’ or my parents’ birthdays, or Easter, or Passover. We won’t be able to see friends or go to church.
Everything was glitchy today. Apps froze, devices crashed. Zeke collided with a bookcase and cut his arm. I cannot concentrate on writing anything for work when any children are in the room.
I do not intend to whine. I should just go for a walk. I feel this obligation to make dinner though, since we got takeout last night. I know it could be much worse and we are exceptionally privileged and lucky. But the indefiniteness of it all weighs heavily on me.
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A sage person recently reminded me that two contradictory things can be true at the same time. This wisdom seems particularly relevant right now, as the world struggles with a terrifying pandemic that is killing hundreds of thousands of people and causing widespread unemployment, hunger, and myriad manifestations of physical, social, and emotional distress. At the same time (which seems almost cruel to say because the first thing is so awful it feels insensitive to contradict its weight) there are good things happening that would never have otherwise been possible.
In no particular order:
- Greater appreciation of teachers and school staff
- Cancellation of standardized testing
- More downtime for over scheduled kids (and adults)
- Less consumer spending (at least at our house)
- Dramatic reduction in air and water pollution
- Families and friends connecting more using technology
- Grandparents learning how to use more technology
- Individuals and families getting outside and exercising together
- Greater appreciation of grocery store workers, janitors, garbage collectors, and other essential workers who don’t earn enough money
- More time for kids to explore their interests and passions
- Opportunity to be creative about learning (please note I am NOT saying this is easy or that homeschooling is simple or that most of us aren’t going berserk, just that we can think differently about what’s important for our kids to be learning and doing and maybe that’s not the same as what it has been for a long time)
- Workplaces learning how to be more flexible
- Greater awareness of the brokenness of our healthcare system and hopefully more public and political will to fix it (of course doctors, nurses, and medical staff are AMAZING! I’m talking about the overall system, insurance, etc.)
- Neighbors helping each other out more
- People who don’t usually go to church (or synagogue or mosque, etc) or museums, or the theater, or the ballet, or wherever else, may check these things out online and maybe find new destinations and communities when this thing is over.
I’m sure there are many more, but I’ve been thinking a lot about adaptability and innovation. Yesterday I was both delighted and dismayed to watch Zoe’s first home-based virtual martial arts class. Dismayed only because our family loves the EvolveAll community so much. EvolveAll has been a major part of our lives for eight years now. In recent times, since both Zoe and Zeke are students there and since Zoe was training for and earned her black belt, we typically spent six to nine hours in the studio every week. We love the instructors and the staff, we love the kids and parents, we love the warm, encouraging, and fun vibe. And we haven’t been able to be there for three weeks!
I was thrilled, however, (although not surprised!) to see the tremendous effort that Emerson, Christian, Elijah, Kamil, and the team have put in to creating a new experience for the kids. Over the past three weeks they had posted training videos online, but watching a martial arts video on your own is not that much fun, compared to the feeling of working hard together in class. So yesterday EvolveAll launched its live classes via Zoom, along with a participation component for parents and kids using Class Dojo. I could tell how glad Zoe was to see her martial arts instructors and friends again, even if only on a screen, and to get back to practicing black belt techniques.
Through the magic of Zoom, Master Emerson could see into everyone’s living rooms or basements, and offered guidance on how people could modify their techniques so as not to kick any nearby furniture. At the end of class he solicited feedback from the students, whose main request was more and longer classes.
Of course everyone would rather be doing martial arts (and ballet class, and music lessons, and soccer practice, and everything else that’s been cancelled) together in the studio or on the field and not in their living rooms, but it is so reassuring to know that just because you can’t see your people doesn’t mean they don’t exist. Maintaining a strong sense of community is essential during physical isolation, and I know these kids (and their parents) will never forget the instructors, teachers, coaches, and other folks who are helping us stay together.
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- This is what you do when your six-year-old purple stripe belt has his first live martial arts class via Zoom 30 minutes after your first Google Hangout staff meeting with your new client is scheduled to begin.
- Make Zeke clean up rogue legos off the rug
- Move table off the rug–stand it up between other stuff near the back door
- Create a Zoom account for your six-year-old on your iPad
- Find martial arts Zoom invitation in your email
- Text it to yourself so you can open on your iPad
- Copy Zoom link into iCal on the iPad
- Show Zeke how to open iCal and click on the link
- Show Zeke how to login to Zoom
- Have Zeke remind you how to AirPlay iPad screen onto tv
- When Zeke asks how long until the class starts, realize you need to go ahead with that time-telling lesson
- Gather materials to make paper clock using instructions from PBS Kids
- Realize you don’t have a metal brad so try substituting with a weird plastic brad from the toolbox
- Assemble clock
- Realize the plastic brad does not allow the paper hands to move easily
- At Zeke’s suggestion, replace paper hands with pipe cleaners
- Provide brief lesson on how to tell time
- Make fruit smoothie because you realize you haven’t eaten all day and you’re going into a 90-minute video call
- Put blender in the sink and turn on faucet to sprayer mode to rinse out blender like they do at Starbucks
- While putting smoothie ingredients away, realize that blender is overflowing with water and faucet is now spraying water all over the kitchen floor
- Hastily up kitchen floor
- Briefly sit on patio to do conference call outside but realize that’s totally untenable
- Sprint upstairs to do the call in your office, which is now your husband’s office, while your husband does his conference call in the bedroom
- Meet new coworkers at virtual staff meeting and try to figure out four new assignments received in past 24 hours
- Try to remain focused despite incoming calls and messages from friends, family, and other clients
This gets easier, right?
Right?
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Tonight we watched a makeshift team of superstars use their powers for the greater good.
Last week when I heard about a televised concert being hosted by Elton John and featuring an array of pop stars and celebrities, I figured it was another goodwill effort by musicians to bring cheer into our quarantined and anxious lives. Turns out, the concert was perhaps the most important public service announcement I’ve ever seen.
The iHeart Radio Living Room Concert for America not only delivered heartfelt performances direct from the living rooms (or diving board, in Tim McGraw’s case) of talented musicians, but included scene after scene of doctors, nurses, hospitals, EMTs, and firefighters working to help people through the pandemic. The show highlighted video clips of impassioned pleas from medical workers sharing what they’ve seen and beseeching the public to stay home. Elton John encouraged viewers to donate to Feeding America, a hunger-relief organization that is working to make sure millions of families are able to access nutritious food, especially when they’ve lost their jobs or are facing illness and to the First Responder Children’s Foundation, which supports children and families of first responders.
We’ve been reading the news obsessively–perhaps Randy even more than I have because he’s a news junkie to begin with–and we have watched and read devastating firsthand accounts from doctors and nurses. But the horror of this situation is still fresh, and seeing these people–still in their scrubs, with masks hanging around their necks–describe what they had just lived through was heartbreaking.
Watching this concert gave me hope, however, because it was being broadcast on Fox, on YouTube, and on the IHeartRadio app, and I suspect that millions of people who have not been obsessively reading the news–perhaps even some of those people who ignorantly and inexplicably attended coronavirus parties and crowded Florida beaches on spring break–were watching too. And I hope to God that what they saw shocked them and shook them and will make them stay the hell home and away from people they might unwittingly infect or be infected by, for the greater good.
This morning I watched something entirely different, although it was also created and shared by a team of heroes. Because of the pandemic, my church–along with many religious congregations around the world–has moved to conducting Sunday services online. UUCA has a long tradition of live-streaming services on Sunday morning so people can watch from home, but now that we’re literally not supposed to be together at church, they’ve had to come up with new ways to create the Sunday morning experience. Before I joined the UUCA ministerial search committee two years ago, I was a member of the worship team at UUCA and I absolutely loved contributing to Sunday morning services. I know how much goes into planning and conducting a service, even under ordinary circumstances, so I was profoundly grateful to the ministers and staff and worship team who made today’s service happen. Board of Trustees representative Amy offered a welcome from her front porch, with cherry blossoms blooming in the background. Gail, (another) Amy, and Gay shared reflections about how they are finding love and light in this unbelievably confusing and difficult time. Gail’s daughters Carmen and Kamila told the story “We Are Not Afraid,” about the illegally integrated Highlander Folk School in Tennessee and the students’ response when armed white men broke into the school. The girls sang “We Shall Overcome” so sweetly. Gail and Gay quoted the Persian poets Rumi and Hafiz. Gay read the Maya Angelou poem “Continue.”
“My wish for you is that you continue. Continue to be who and how you are, to astonish a mean world with your acts of kindness. Continue to allow humor to lighten the burden of your tender heart.”
Maya Angelou
And there was beautiful music by our accompanist Sophia, an original song and a wonderful rendition of “Meditation on Breathing” which I LOVE, by the talented Kristin Cotts. And so much more. It was all so much MORE than a regular service could be. We had the opportunity to see people and hear from them in their own homes, to meditate to photos and videos of the ocean, and to experience a deeply reassuring coming together of voices and faces of people I love.
In the middle of these two moments, I experienced a moment of shared joy as I watched Zoe pedal confidently around and around and around the (completely empty) church parking lot. Zoe technically learned how to ride a bicycle a few years ago, but she never felt comfortable enough to actually ride for fun or transportation. She even made her own bike (which she was riding today) through a cool program in our community that teaches kids how to fix bikes and enables them to earn one of their own after putting in a certain number of hours. Until now, however, there were always things she wanted to do more than practice riding. She agreed to get back on the bike today, and after just a little while she went from riding a few feet and then hesitating to zooming around the blacktop with a huge smile on her face. After we went home, she asked Randy if he would take her back to the parking lot so she could ride some more.
Zeke has not yet arrived at this state of grace, but he will. He spent about 20 minutes working on gliding around on his bike, which has no pedals right now, but which we will reattach the pedals to as soon as we can borrow the right tool. After that he decided to return to the car to read his book, which he was content to do while Zoe rode.
One kid at a time…
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When a tickle in your throat strikes terror in your heart, it’s hard to act like everything is normal. When you wonder every single time you wash your hands, which seems to be in the high dozens every day, if there was any virus on your hands and if you washed it off enough or if you left some on the faucet handle, it’s hard to return to what you were doing with your full attention. When you already personally know two people who have lost loved ones to this virus but you know there will be many more, it’s hard to concentrate on anything.
You can distract yourself for a little while at a time. I finished a great YA novel last night and started another one today. I cleaned the kitchen and planned meals for the week. Zeke and I played Uno. I started studying A Little Bit of Tarot along with the cards in the deck my friend Tracey gave me before she moved away. Our family watched a sweet and funny movie–The Unicorn Store, starring Brie Larson and Samuel L. Jackson like you’ve never seen him before. Tomorrow we’re going to watch online church and take the kids and their bikes to an empty parking lot to practice riding.
Of course you have to live your life, because that’s how it works. And when you have kids, you have to keep things moving so they don’t absorb all your anxiety, because they will if you aren’t careful. And right now I have a lot of anxiety, and I am notoriously bad at hiding my feelings.
I’ve been through difficult situations before when people told me I had to keep it together for the kids, and not cry in front of them. I understand the need to be strong and reassuring for your kids, but I also believe kids learn from their parents that it’s ok to have feelings, and it’s ok to have negative feelings, and that they’re part of life and you have to figure out how to handle them. Life isn’t always pretty or easy, and if you don’t have a model for how to face the hard times, sometimes you refuse to face them, or you fall apart. I know there are lots of ways to be a parent, and this isn’t a subject covered in the instruction manual. I don’t think there’s a right or wrong answer here. Parenting is already fraught with uncertainty, and living through a pandemic unsettles everything that much more.
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By the time this is over, my hair is going to look like Kramer from Seinfeld and my eyebrows will be full-on caterpillars. At least I can clip my own nails so I won’t develop talons. I think sometimes about my absurdly first-world problems—I can’t get my monthly massages or manicures and pedicures. I think about the women who provide these services who likely have zero income right now. I wonder how they’re surviving. I wonder what they are thinking about what they’ll do when all this is over. Will they be able to go back to the jobs they had before? Will those jobs exist in the same way? Will these women have to start over. My massage therapist is also in nursing school. I wonder if she was asked to skip ahead to hands-on training. I wonder if she still wants to be a nurse.
I am reading more accounts from doctors and nurses on the front lines. These stories are horrifying. Yet I sense that a lot of people are not reading or hearing these stories based on their behavior in public and their public policy decisions. Every day I receive and read emails from the New York Times and National Public Radio providing a rundown of key national and international news items as well as links to in-depth reporting. I’ve gotten these emails for months or maybe years but usually skimmed them. Now I read every word. I acknowledge that these are only two of many reputable news sources available to Americans. But I get the feeling that a lot of people get their news from disreputable sources and that somehow these people are confident that the natural laws of science and math don’t apply to them.
I hope that a real outcome of the pandemic is a genuine discussion of how and why we learn and whether schools are emphasizing the right things. Zoe has been overloaded with online assignments from her teachers. The emails I’ve received from her principal and the school district superintendent indicate that none of this will be graded. Essentially, because she was in good academic standing when the third quarter ended, a week after schools closed, she will be promoted to eighth grade. Of course, you just don’t do your work for the grade, you do it to learn. Or at least you’re supposed to. But it’s ridiculously unrealistic to expect every kid to be able to do the same quality and quantity of work at home, surrounded by their entire families, in the midst of an unprecedented global health crisis, that they do at school. It’s not clear to me why teachers are assigning deadlines and telling students the work will be graded if that’s not the case. (I emailed Zoe’s principal tonight to ask for clarification).
It would be nice if we could focus more on what kids want and need to learn. With Zeke it’s a lot easier to take this approach right now because he has the basic skills required to enter second grade. I can teach him what I think is useful and interesting and let him play with legos for hours at a time. Next week we’ll work on actually telling time. And hopefully how to ride a bike. I realize I have enough knowledge about the public school system and my kids’ abilities to make these decisions, but many families in our community and our country don’t. And I suspect they’re receiving thousands of different messages from thousands of different teachers, principals, and superintendents. This has got to lead to some kind of reckoning in our educational system, right?
Oddly, one of the highlights of my day was a crying baby. I had a call with my point of contact for my new client. He alerted me as soon as the call started that his 16-month-old son had not gone down for his scheduled nap and was rather cranky as a result and that our call might be cut short. He had his son strapped on his chest in a carrier and was trying to give him a bottle and do the familiar parental sway and bounce dance to assuage him. He apologized a couple times and I repeatedly told him not to worry about it, that I have two kids who were once babies and I am intimately acquainted with that exact challenge. He briefed me on a few points and said he would email me details later today or tomorrow and we would talk Monday.
While I empathized for this dad and his baby, I also felt relieved. First that he was a man in this situation, which gave me hope for the state of gender equity in parenting in our culture. And second because starting out a professional relationship with this kind of vulnerability and realness can only be a good thing. Anytime we see each other’s struggles and can put compassion and kindness ahead of deadlines and deliverables is a good thing.
You Ask a Lot of Questions 