Note # 50 – Keeping On

Well.

Here we are.

I’d ask how you’ve been since we last talked, but I have an idea how you’ve been, at least lately.

If you’re at all like me, you’ve been anxious and restless and reading the news with a subtle mixture of apprehension and dread. You’ve been missing your pre-pandemic life, you’ve been missing your friends, your family, the normalcy of a hug or a handshake. You’ve been treating a trip to the grocery store like a scene from Contagion or maybe Mission Impossible: Loblaws. You’ve been having good days and less good days and you’ve been watching a lot of cute dog videos on Facebook (which really do help – it is a scientific fact. I don’t have citations, but trust me on this.)

You’ve probably been stress baking or spring cleaning or trying to convince yourself that potato chips and wine for lunch is actually okay because, well, there’s a pandemic and so maybe those old rules don’t apply anymore.

You’ve been watching a lot of Netflix, you’ve been trying to figure out what to do with your hair and you’ve been wondering exactly how long life is going to be like this.

In short, you’ve been keeping on. Some days more gracefully than others no doubt, but you know what? I think you’re probably doing great.

I am also keeping on, as best I can.

A surprising amount of my life has just moved online. I have staff meetings on Google Hangouts and book clubs on Zoom. I have virtual cocktails with my friend Sandy at least once a week (we’re trying to perfect our Sidecar recipes) and I’ve had a front row seat to a truckload of Metropolitan Opera productions. I’m learning Italian (I can now form all sorts of sentences that would only be useful in highly bizarre situations – The tiger eats chocolate cake; the ladies have lunch with the elephants at the restaurant.) And of course I’m writing, although it took the first three weeks of self-isolating to settle down enough to sit my ass in a chair and concentrate, but now I’m keeping office hours five days a week and might actually finish a whole chapter this week.

I’ve discovered a daily live drawing party on Facebook (today we listened to jazz together and did gesture sketches of musicians.) And if this lasts long enough (which, I’m sorry to say, it probably will) I may even finish painting the damn basement.

I’m trying to put a brave face on it – and maybe you are too – but I will admit, at least some of the time, I’m really scared. Scared I’ll get very sick, scared there won’t be enough health care resources for everybody who needs treatment, scared that people won’t follow the recommendations of the public health officials and that the death rates will soar, scared of the fallout of the global economic situation.

It’s a lot. Sometimes I have to remind myself to breathe.

But I’m also trying to be grateful. I find myself in a place of incredible privilege – I am safe in my warm house, with plenty to eat and a partner who is a spectacular cook and really good company, to boot. I have books to read and movies to watch. I take Gavin for long rambling walks and read all the chalk messages that the neighbourhood kids leave on the sidewalk. I wash my hands and I try to think of better days to come.

Which is all any of us can do right now.

So just keep keeping on, lovely people.

Because I think that’s how we get to the other side.

P.

P.S. You know what might help pass the time pleasantly? A really good audiobook to listen to. Let me see what I can do about that…