Today is Day Number 36 of California’s “Shelter-in-Place” order. For most of those 36 days I have been preoccupied with work tasks related to aiding our faculty in moving from face-to-face instruction to online instruction. Thus far, very few people in my social circle have been directly impacted by COVID-19.
Our world is small. Our bedroom, our backyard, the hours spent looking at my computer screen in my office. I Zoom several hours per day. I run all of my calls and chats through Microsoft Teams. I check in with my kids via text message and cellphone calls a few times each week. My eldest is living with my Mom in Utah and my youngest is living in Washington D.C. with her toothless cat.Some days I am afraid, some days I am bored. Some days I want to eat something other than the groceries we have delivered via Instacart.
Today’s projects included planting dill, basil, and tarragon that we grew from seed, in our herb garden. I also folded some laundry, mopped the kitchen floor, and finished reading The Parable of the Sower. Ironically, it’s the first novel I’ve been able to start and finish since S-I-P. My attention span has been so short and novels haven’t been able to hold my interest. Next, I plan to read through the stack of books that I bought from a charming little bookshop we discovered in Avila Beach, when we went to Central California in early March (which now feels a lifetime ago).
