Crouching Girl, Hidden Woman

It’s been a while but I feel like I need to somehow track these days. We are at the beginning of dealing with a worldwide coronavirus pandemic, COVID-19, not the gentle common cold coronavirus.

This is day 12 of our self quarantining. Dave did leave a few times – grocery store, campus to grab a few things, and the liquor store. He also left to go to the hospital to say final goodbyes to his father. In the midst of this worldwide chaos he had to do that. Say goodbye to his parent. The hospital was on total lockdown and not allowing visitors, but luckily, after some phone calls during the day, they let the family come to the hospital and say goodbye. There won’t be a funeral. There wasn’t a wake or a meal or a gathering. There were only phone calls and texts and a video chat. And, there’s no room for the grief of losing someone. It was pushed so quickly aside to make sure we were fortified with supplies, food items, meds, etc. Or maybe the grief was just added to the grief that we around the world are feeling. And it’s coming in so many forms, anger, anxiety, depression, to name just a few. But it’s heavy, and it’s scary, and it’s so sad. And it doesn’t feel like there’s enough space in anyone’s head or heart to add extra grief, extra stress, extra heaviness. So we do our best to hold it in and then it comes out in little ways, or in big ways. Little snaps, body aches, exhaustion. But it’s there and we are going through it together, even though we’re apart.

Social distancing is what they’re calling it. But really it’s physical distancing. Not within our house, though I’m inclined to do a bit of that right now too. But everywhere else. We can’t leave to see friends and family. As an introvert, this aspect seemed easy at first, but normally there would be the knowledge that I *could* do that if I wanted to. But we can’t. We cross the street if we happen to walk by a neighbor, and say hello in a bit of a daze, and our voices sound strange because it’s weird to be talking to someone besides those in our homes.

And the news is terrifying, so I stay away. I see a few headlines that make my heart race and I can feel nausea creeping into my body, up all the way into my throat and I click away.

This isn’t eloquent or enlightening or important. But we’re on day 12 and I’m tired after waking up every day at 4am or 6am and staring out the window and instantly remembering what’s going on in the world. They say there’s an end to this, but is it three months or is it a year. Will we just be coming out of this next spring? That’s heavier than heavy. That’s unreal and scary and so, so sad.

Hopefully there won’t be a day 150 or a day 300 of this.

Stay home.

xo