How to blog in a pandemic

….

….

….

Shoot. It’s been weeks? Yikes.

….

Kid goes back to daycare. His parents are essential (one of us actually is), and so: keep job with health insurance to care for the kid and husband? Or keep my husband, who is giving something valuable to the community, from working?

Husband goes to work. I get my monitors from my office and dust off my desk from college. Should I buy a new chair?

….

....

I buy a new chair. Its June already? It got warm outside. I didn’t notice. But I watched the leaves unfurl on the branches outside my window, slowing unfurling, and filling the sky from my new chair in the basement. My day job keeps ticking. My kid keeps going to daycare. My husband washes his scrubs separately from the rest of our laundry, and moves his shampoo and body wash from our master bathroom to the basement bathroom with little fanfare.

….

Our mayor stops giving daily updates. Stores open again, and I venture out to get Starbucks. Weeks pass, and I get brave. I’ll get my hair cut. I deserve it. My split ends are killing me, our positive test numbers are down, and when I call for the appointment, the lady on the phone assures me hand sanitizer and face masks are on every person in the building.

Five days later, with cute hair and the rock in my stomach crumbling to pebbles, my state’s health department calls me. “You’ve been exposed. Self-quarantine.”

I test. I’m negative. My husband’s coworker’s friend got the same call I did, the same afternoon, and notes were compared. It was our stylist. He went to Florida the week before resuming work. I melt back to my basement office, and pull my hair from my eyes.

….

I find a writing group online. Reading other writers concerns about publishing, the industry, and all of their beautiful work makes my heart beat. It takes a lot to tamper down my drive. Even if I’m not moving, my brain is, with incessant buzzing in my sleep, splicing hazy dreams with my to-do list for both my careers, my kid’s school, my husband’s schedule, and now a global pandemic. I used to think it was who I was. Now I know it’s what I do. It’s a clear problem; I haven’t gotten to the root of it yet.

I start leaving the house again. Grocery shopping here, Target there. My kid is never with. I used to dream of lazily wandering aisles again, not having to distract as we speed-walk past the graham cracker box with Olaf on it, or the entire dairy section because he melts down when we don’t buy another gallon of chocolate milk.

There’s nothing leisurely now about shopping. I balance my palms on the cart, and bump the cart along with my Quarantine-15. In. Out. Unconsciously hold my breath as I pass the woman wearing a mask like a chin strap. Watch a guy knock a box of masks off a grocery store greeter’s table and tell her they’re a “fucking joke.” Watch her pick the box up, and dust it off with bare hands. Feel a lump press upward in my throat. Wait to cry until I’m in my car.

....

Wait for a vaccine. Wait for the election. Wait for the leaves to turn yellow and pile in front of my basement window. Wait for my husband to bring home our kid every day. Wait until I have anything valuable to say about this. About any of this.

….