Alone?🧩 🎹 🎬 📷 📺 📬 📚 🥡 💇🏽 🤩

     I don’t know what day of the self-isolation this is. I know it’s Wednesday but that is just because we are entering a new month. Hello April! We’re sort of moving through each day as it presents itself with not a lot of planning because, well,  we really can’t make plans. At least plans for tomorrow because we can’t. So, other than scheduling what we want to binge today we are sort of stuck in the same type loop.

     This morning we watched a morning news show and one of the interviews was with a pro basketball player who is donating money to out-of-work staff at the basketball arena where he would usually be playing. He said something that struck me. He said he hoped that things would change after this was all over. That we will have learned something. I whole-heartedly agree!

                Here are just some of the things I hope we learn or change.

     To borrow a phrase from “The Wizard of Oz”, “There’s no place like home.” We live such busy, busy lives that we can’t and don’t spend much quality time at home. It’s become a touchstone, a coatrack, a dinner table covered with keys and books and papers and other meaningless debris but rarely used to gather around and eat unless it is a special occasion. We’re always running here and there; errands, after-school activities, meetings and social functions. I hope our homes become a home again. A place where we come together to interact with each other, learn from each other, laugh with each other and spend time together, more than just being ships passing on their way to someplace else.

     People seem to be rediscovering group activities like jigsaw puzzles, games and catching up on books we always wanted to or meant to read. I was lucky because I grew up without iPads and Pods, social media platforms and incessant television. And my parents didn’t feel a burning need to entertain my sisters and me. If I wanted to go to the community pool in the summer, I rode my bicycle. Until I got my driver’s license, I rode my bike everywhere. We colored in coloring books until every single page was done, then colored original drawings on plain paper. We played with Lincoln Logs and Tinker Toys. We roller skated and jumped rope, played hopscotch, four-square and jacks. I spent hours playing with paper dolls. And my favorite thing, reading! I always had a book to read and not only was I entertained, I learned things I didn’t know. All this has served me as an adult because I can spend time alone, happily and not fall into depression. It afforded me the opportunity too know myself really well and how to deal with life without resorting to chaotic thought. I hope we all learn to depend less on technology, social media and TV to entertain us and find our own creativity. Being bored can lead to valuable introspection so I hope after this is a memory, we can still enjoy spending time with ourselves.

     I am usually prepared for something like being unable to get to the grocery store by having supplies of essentials around. But, and in my defense, as winters get milder, a debilitating blizzard has been the biggest threat and we haven’t had one in a decade (?). We aren’t in an area where we have tornadoes, hurricanes, floods or massive earthquakes. We’ve had destructive fires but not in my neighborhood. So I became complacent. I didn’t have extra TP, only three-quarters of a package of 12 rolls. I’m not sure what we’ll do when those are gone. I also usually have at least three boxes of rectangular box tissues and a few tissue cubes. Linen closet review showed only one box of one and two boxes of the other. Since it’s allergy season, we’re blowing through that like, well tissues. I never dreamed people would view either as some kind of trophy for winning the quarantine lottery. So, I vow to have at least one extra FULL package of each on hand—all the time. I hope everyone else does as well so no one feels the need to buy out the stores leaving everyone else wondering what they are going to do.

     Finally, spending time with people you love is a gift any way you look at it. Whether you get on each other’s nerves or the whining gets to a fevered pitch, take a deep breath. Soon this isolation, social-distancing will be over. Stores will re-open, restaurants will be crowded again, bars will be jumping. People will go back to their places of business, teachers back to their classrooms, students back to school, we’ll all go back to our regular lives. I pray we don’t have to experience anything like this ever again but all the sacrifices made, all the lives lost, all the hard work, cannot be in vain. It must not be in vain. We have to learn from this. We have to be better. The only real winners in all this are those who do the right thing by staying home and being considerate of everyone around them. Enjoy every day and every one, we are fortunate to have this time to spend with the people who mean the most even if you only connect via Zoom. (What’s Zoom again?)