2021 Life Logs, Day 70: One Year Ago Today
Date: Thursday, March 11, 2021
Weather: Partly Cloudy and Windy; High 55, Low, 44 degrees F
Location: At Home in The Cottage, East Falmouth, MA
I watched President Biden give his first address to the nation tonight and his comments led me on a journey back to this day last year. Since I write this log every day, I can go back and check to see what I really thought at the time, not what I remember that I thought. They are not always the same. I was amazed at the speed with which my life changed, and I think it was pretty much the same for all of us. I went back and read my logs from the beginning of last March and my first mention of the coronavirus was on March 11th.
2020 Life Logs, Day 71: COVID-19 Affecting Our Lives
Date: Wednesday, March 11, 2020
“Hopefully you, nor anyone you know and love, will get the coronavirus, but today it became clearly evident to me that it is going to affect all of our lives whether or not we get the virus. The Governor of Massachusetts declared a state of emergency this morning to further support the state’s response to the virus and that prompted a number of decisions to cancel things.”
On the day before that, on March 10th, I hosted my book club at the here at the cottage and made no mention of coronavirus. Life in my world was going on as usual. On the day before that, on March 9th, I drove to Dedham to visit with my friends the Kanegsberg and on to Chelmsford to have lunch with my niece Lynn. I took Shadow with me to introduce him. I even stopped at Costco on the way home. Again, life was going on as usual. Then March 11th hit and my world started changing, quickly and drastically. Here is what I wrote on March 12th and on Friday the 13th.
2020 Life Logs, Day 72: Cancellations, Cancellations
Date: Thursday, March 12, 2020
“As we are all aware, today was a day of many cancellations . . . public schools, colleges, basketball, baseball, Broadway theaters, even Disneyland. Those cancellations plus the stock market dive are a little scary. We are all moving into untested territory . . . It is just that we as Americans have no idea what the next days will look like. Things seem to change minute by minute . . . Heather called this evening to tell me that she and Jed will be working from home for the time being . . . I did a little more food shopping this afternoon and am preparing for the possibility of a couple of weeks at home . . . just in case.”
A couple of weeks? I guess I was truly optimistic.
2020 Life Logs, Day 73: A New Normal
Date: Friday, March 13, 2020
“Friday the 13th ushered in a new normal here in Falmouth. Basically, for now, we are all home-bound or when we are out and about, we must be very mindful of social distancing. This is hard for adults, but almost impossible for kids. Hopefully, this new normal will be short-lived, but that is yet to be determined. The decision to close public schools in Falmouth was made today.”
Short-lived? What was I thinking?
2020 Life Logs, Day 74: A Virus Changing the Way We Think
Date: Saturday, March 14, 2020
“This evening I was talking to Heather on the phone about our new lives living with the threat of the coronavirus. We are having to change the way we live very quickly, but on the phone call, I realized that I also have to change the way I think. There is no set roadmap to follow. Each of us has to make decisions about what we will and will not do to protect ourselves and to protect others in the next couple of weeks. And this requires that we change the way we think. I thought I had things under control and then I said to Heather that I would be going to play Mah Jongg on Wednesday evening. She quickly replied that I needed to rethink that decision. Basically, she was saying that if we are going to be successful in flattening the rise in COVID-19 cases, we all need to stay home for the next couple of weeks—no indoor social gatherings no matter how small. Somehow, I thought getting together with just four other people would be fine. Not so. Living with the threat of this virus demands that we change what we do AND we change how we think. This is a huge challenge and one that I have not faced in my lifetime.”
And now here we are a year later. As I listened to President Biden’s speech tonight, I felt hope. But the problem is the same now as it was from the beginning. We are not acting together as one people. Not all Americans are willing to play by the same rules. I am more hopeful, but we will just have to wait and see.
I did make one tiny baby step forward today. I got together with two friends on the deck, not in the driveway as I said yesterday, of a friend’s home. We all had on masks when we arrived, but in order to drink tea, we did have to take the masks off. One of us has had both vaccines, one has had Covid and one vaccine, and I have had one vaccine. We were outside and we were far apart. I felt safe enough, but afterwards I questioned if it is too soon to be doing this. I think I will wait until after I have had the second vaccine plus two weeks before doing this again.
Writing continued today and I made my daily trip to pick Ollie up after school and then took Jonah to the skatepark for an hour. And, of course, I had my daily walk with Shadow. Tomorrow looks pretty much the same. At some point, I have to stop writing long enough to do some cooking. Right now, I am making my morning smoothies and eating a lot of salads. I should try to make soup and a casserole over the weekend to get me through next week.
