in the time of covid
one day after another after another after another
How do I feel by the end of the day?
Are you sad because you’re on your own?
The Beatles sing about getting by (and high!) with a little help from my friends, and that’s definitely true of me. (Well, I haven’t gotten high since my college days, but the night is still young.) These days, many of us are living in a socially distanced and sometimes lonely world.
It is not only the pandemic that makes my current life situation drastically different from anything I experienced prior.
For most of my adult life, time felt like a precious commodity that I just didn’t have enough of. My favorite pastime was reading and napping in the sun, a solitary activity of drowsy escapism. As my kids were growing up, if they fought or did something wrong while I was in the shower, they were in big trouble with me; I fiercely protected my 15 minutes of daily uninterrupted solitude. My favorite Mother’s Day was the year my husband took the kids out so I had a whole morning of gardening without anyone distracting me. Don’t get me wrong: I love my kids. Time to myself was just scarce. I appreciated every moment I got.
Work didn’t help. My first full-time faculty appointment began in fall 2005 when my kids were just turning 3 and 6. That first semester, I combined my professorship with administrative work, and I never stopped. I worked summers, weekends, weeknights, first thing in the morning, in the middle of the night when I couldn’t sleep, holidays, and while on vacation. I worked on my phone and on my laptop. I never pulled all-nighters as a student, but I did as a faculty person. I had trouble shutting off. When I had a stretch of open time, I felt obligated to be productive. There was always more to do. I could never fit enough into a day.
And now everything has shifted.
***
My 18-year old son lives with his dad, and I miss him terribly. We usually have dinner at least one weeknight, and he stays with me every other weekend, but he’s 18. That means he goes to school and works and socializes and spends most of his time away from me. This would be the case even if he lived with me full-time. Next year he’ll be going away to college and I’ll see even less of him.
My 21-year old daughter is living with me right now because of the pandemic and her university going fully online, so I get to see a lot more of her than I would otherwise. We have dinner on Mondays, and sometimes we spend time together on a weekend, but she’s 21. That means she goes to school and works and socializes and spends most of her time away from me.
Don’t get me wrong: I’m happy my kids are becoming young adults with lives of their own. It’s just that I suddenly have extra time on my hands. I feel like I’m living that Harry Chapin “Cats in the Cradle” song! lol…except I’ve actually spent a lot of time with my kids, so not so tragic.
And work, happily, doesn’t fill up my open time the way it used to. I shifted from a faculty-chair position with a lot of flexibility in my schedule to a full time administrator working Monday through Friday, 8:00-4:30. My prior “flexibility” meant I felt I should always be working since there was always more to be done. My current structured work schedule means that when I’m at work, I work; when I’m not at work, I don’t work. Sure, if there’s a special event outside of the typical work hours or something pressing that needs to be done, I gladly fill my responsibilities. But, in general, I have gaps of time in the evenings and on the weekends.
Now, instead of trying to fit more into the day, I find myself wondering how to fill the time I have. Some evenings, I find myself scrolling mindlessly through social media or playing a game on my phone that leaves me numb in body and mind. Some evenings I force myself to do one activity after another–wash the dishes, paint a picture, repot a plant, fold the laundry, paint my toenails, and on and on–in hopes that I can escape an overwhelming blah feeling. On two occasions I ended up on a dating app just to distract myself. For the record, I’m not against social media or dating apps or any of the other activities I’ve used to pass time. I even believe seemingly meaningless play is a wonderful thing and I plan on never giving that up.
But I am against frittering away my life, looking for something to fill some kind of void, building a suffocating cocoon of distractions. I’m still in the process of shifting.
***
I don’t have perfect answers for adapting to a changing sense of time. It presents a sort of existential crisis for me, along the lines of what is my purpose and time is running out and that feels paralyzing. And the surplus of time has also made me—a person who grew up in a big family and who has always been surrounded by other people—lonely. That’s at least part of what I’m coping with.
But I do, of course, have a few things I’m learning.
ONE: It helps for me to recognize and name feelings such as loneliness, grief, and anger. Instead of distracting myself from feelings, I’ve been trying to experience them. I spent a lot of years using work to distract myself, so I have some catching up to do. But I’m getting there.
TWO: Instead of asking myself “How will I fill this time?” I can ask myself, “What do I want to do with this gift of time?” The former question frames time as a problem, a challenge, something to slog my way through. The latter question presents me as an actor with interests and desires.
Too often, I’ve been passive, letting life happen to me instead of shaping my days according to my priorities (“Life is what happens to you while you’re busy making other plans“). I’m trying to pay attention to what I care most about. I want to use my time to reflect those cares. Note that this point is related to Mark Manson’s book, discussed here; it’s also something my friend Kelly said on the phone to me the other day, which brings me to my next point….
THREE: In the words of the Beatles, I get by with a little help from my friends. When I find myself engaged in mindless activity waiting for the minutes to pass with a terrible sense of blah, often calling someone–a friend or relative–gives me momentum to shift my mood or my activity. This blah feeling is different from feelings such as loneliness, grief, or anger because it seems stultifying; experiencing it makes me feel more stuck, whereas experiencing other feelings makes me feel more alive and free.
Just the other evening, I was wrapping gifts and ran out of tape. I had started with 4 tape dispensers, not realizing that they were all partial rolls, so the discovery was quite a blow when I finished the last roll mid-gift, as you can imagine. It would take me about 10 minutes total to drive to a drugstore and buy more tape. But that task seemed like WAY TOO MUCH EFFORT. Until I texted my good friend Lindsey about it. And then I went and bought some goddamn tape and about 17 other items I needed. It took about 20 minutes because of the extra shopping, and both my night and my week improved immensely. Thanks, Linds!
For real, sometimes the step that will break me out of a potentially blah empty evening is reaching out, not necessarily with any emergency call for help, but just a “hey, how are ya?” kind of conversation. I need to push that technique up to the top of my list of coping strategies.
FOUR: Sometimes it helps to focus on what I’m avoiding and why I’m avoiding it. Whole new worlds can open up. Before I started this blog series, I went over a month without blogging at all. I also had stopped watching TV. Each evening when I would consider what I wanted to do, those activities were quickly discarded. I was somehow never in the mood to do either.
Then I heard people talking about The Queen’s Gambit and I wanted to see it. As I watched the first episode, I realized that I had been avoiding blogging and TV watching because I didn’t want to sit on the couch where I usually sat for those activities. Why? Because I had lower back pain. I was avoiding enjoyable activities because they could be painful, but I was unaware of my motivation until that evening.
I found ways to sit that would be okay for my back, I began doing stretches and exercises while watching TV, and soon after I began blogging. Both activities are great for me–they help me process things and they are often just plain fun. As far as blogging: “It’s wonderful to be here. It’s certainly a thrill.”
When I talked with my therapist about this discovery, she said she was glad I had noticed sooner rather than later what I was giving up because of my instinct to avoid pain. She pointed out that sometimes I have a talent for avoiding pain, which in itself can lead to…a different kind of pain.
And that brings me back to item #1 in this list, doesn’t it?
***
That’s it. That’s what I got so far. I have time off December 25 – January 3, and I already had trouble sleeping one night, getting anxious about facing that time with options limited by the pandemic. In non-pandemic times, I think I’d travel to a beach for a few days where I’d be happy walking and reading and playing in the water.
I asked for ideas on Facebook, and I’m grateful for all who made suggestions. I will spend some time with my kids and spend outdoor time walking or hiking with friends. I have a couple social zooms planned, and I’m looking forward to taking care of some small projects. I’ll probably finish my #TheLaurieProject blog series, and I will likely get started on my next writing project. I’ll definitely read and watch some TV.
I’m not sure what else I’ll do, but I have a feeling the days will fly by. When I was in high school, I wrote this poem. I think it had a first stanza that I no long remember, but here is the middle and end.
The funny thing is clouds
which seem to keep quite still
while they easily pass over the grass
and beyond the furthest hill.
Who can count the years?
or the days or hours or minutes?
We hardly notice when they fly by
on wings of the swiftest linnets.
That’s PastLaurie teaching PresentLaurie to pay attention, to notice, to live. And when I find myself in a numb or mindless or blah state, to refocus on what and whom I care about.
Thanksgiving yoga
I come from a family of eight and have always been part of medium-sized to humongous holiday gatherings, so being solo on Thanksgiving this year is a new experience.
It was intentional. Because I do long commutes daily, even before the pandemic began spiking I decided I didn’t want to drive in Thanksgiving traffic to see family in New England. And I told my kids they should spend the day with their Dad visiting their Gram.
My original Thanksgiving day plan was to go for a walk in the state park, volunteer someplace serving to-go Thanksgiving dinners, make myself some small kind of turkey dinner, and maybe have a FaceTime or Zoom drink with a friend at night.
The volunteer thing didn’t work out because meals were delivered ahead of time, and the rainy weather forecast made the state park walk seem questionable.
So when I saw an opportunity for yoga on Thanksgiving morning, it called to me. I wanted my day to feel good. Centered. Peaceful. Mindful. You know–all the words we associate with both yoga and Thanksgiving. I signed up on Wednesday, and Thanksgiving morning I headed out for a 10:00am class.
I parked along the street and stared in dismay at the yoga storefront. There were signs about it moving. But I couldn’t tell if it was going to move or if it had already moved. The new place was on a major street not far from my house (let’s call it “Stevens Street”) that was 20 minutes or more away. Uh oh.
I figured I should double check the situation, so I went and pulled on the door, but it was definitely locked. I went back to the car to check the Facebook event page, but the address listed was the place I was at. I messaged my friend who had posted about Thanksgiving yoga to see if she could straighten me out. And only then, before hearing back from my friend, did I think that maybe I should check my assumption about Stevens Street being 20+ minutes away.
Duh. It turned out there was also a Stevens Street just around the block that I was not aware of. I was only one minute from the yoga studio.
So I drove to the new locale, parked, pulled on the door. It was locked. As I went to check to see if the actual entrance might be around the side of the building, I heard the door open behind me and a person say, “Hello?”
It was the yoga instructor (we will call her “Ashley”), poking her head out, so I asked if it was the place for Thanksgiving yoga, and she said yes. As I went inside and shed my coat and shoes, we talked: I said sorry for being late but I didn’t realize they had moved, and she said they tried to contact everyone but oh well, and she took a couple minutes to orient me to the studio and review the pandemic protocols, and she generally reassured me that it was not a big deal that it was 10:02; the others were gathered and chatting and happy, so no worries about the time. I think Ashley could tell I felt uncomfortable and stressed about holding up the class, and she was really kind.
Ashley brought me to the yoga room and there was no longer an empty spot that allowed for social distancing. So she pointed me to the right front corner of the room, in a row by myself, on the far right of where she stood while instructing the class. Because a lot of eyes were on me as I unrolled my mat, I gave a general “sorry” to the room, and in just a minute Ashley began the class.
I couldn’t hear most of the words she was saying. I haven’t done yoga enough for it to be a second language to me, and the room was large with high ceilings, and the windows were open, and soft music was playing, and I wasn’t positioned very close to Ashley.
I’ve been in that situation before in yoga class, feeling unfamiliar with terminology or with the instructor’s voice not quite loud enough for me to fully process. It was never a big deal: I would just follow along with what the instructor or others in the class were doing.
So that’s what I tried. But I also couldn’t see very well. Ashley didn’t do all the movements with us, and to see her I had to look completely to my left, and sometimes the angle was off so the position she was in would still be a mystery.
And every single other person in the class was behind me because I was in the front all by myself.
As the class started, we did some really basic moves as Ashley said nice yoga-type things about setting intentions and doing what felt right and taking time to center and so forth; but I felt lost and alone. I swiveled my head enough to follow, but I know that I’m not supposed to do a whole yoga class with my gaze to my left and behind, and…I continued to be uncomfortable, physically and emotionally.
We went into child’s pose and stayed there for a minute while Ashley said we could return to this pose at any point during our practice. My tears fell onto my mat. When we stood and did some kind of inhale-and-reach-up and exhale-and-swan-dive-down and so forth kind of movement, I felt my nose running beneath my mask. I just rubbed my mask to blot it and kept on going.
The hour was spent breathing and moving and doing my best to hear and see as Ashley interspersed her instruction with nuggets of wisdom, using her expertise to help people in body and soul. Internally, I wondered if my feelings of sadness, discomfort, loneliness, and so forth were failures–signs that I was failing to center myself. I tried to feel gratitude. I think I did feel gratitude, for so many things like the ways my body can move and that I can take yoga classes and that I have family to miss and friends I love. But it’s an odd thing when gratitude is so intentional that it feels forced. I tried to accept that I felt awkward when people stared at me as I unrolled my mat, I tried to accept that I felt self-conscious being in the front of the room while regularly unaware that a pose had changed, I tried to accept that it’s okay to not know what I’m doing and that not knowing did not determine my worth. I thought about expectations and disappointment and whether my annoyance that I spent $17 on this class was reasonable and a sign that I’m learning appropriate boundaries or whether it was a sign that I may too easily blame others instead of taking responsibility for myself.
In short, I had a lot of Thoughts. My tears disappeared fairly quickly, which was good, because if they had been noticeable that would’ve been one more thing to be self-conscious about. But I didn’t feel centered at any point during the yoga class, though I guess I came close to feeling centered when I struck a pose that required balance and I stared at the flag post I could see out the window.
When the class ended, I gathered my stuff and was the first to leave.
It was beautiful out, so I stopped at a park and took the walk originally planned. I emailed the yoga place and told them updating the address on their emails and social media would help newcomers. I tried to be honest about my experience without being an ass because I know this yoga place is stellar. They are undergoing a transition, and things sometimes go awry during transitions.
During my walk in the park, I thought about what happened and what a funny story it would make. I didn’t enjoy I Love Lucy when I was a kid, and lately I’ve been thinking about how similar to Lucy I regularly feel, and maybe when I was a kid I felt uncomfortable with the ridiculous jams that I now get a total kick out of.
So when I sat down to write this story, I thought it would be funny. But it’s come out sorta sad. Even though the actual story of what happened is funny, in so many ways. I’m laughing about it right now because it’s delightful that I can be so completely awkward. If I were to perform the story for you, it would have you cracking up. A lot of dramatic moments about nothing.
I don’t really know if this is the case, but part of me wonders if I needed to express sadness today somehow or other, and maybe yoga gave me just what I needed. So even though I didn’t feel centered during the yoga practice, I think I do feel centered now.
Sometimes our expectations and our realities don’t quite mesh. Sometimes we experience disappointment, embarrassment, discomfort, loneliness, sadness. Sometimes those feelings just gotta be felt. Some days we also have room for laughter.
Most days we can also find room for thanks.
walking & talking
One of the silver linings of the pandemic and of my long-ass commute has been more awareness of how good it is to walk. Walking is good to do on my own, for sure. And it’s also a great way to have social time that is relatively safe.
So here’s the crucial role walking plays in my life these days.
Most of the time I arrive at work early and take a 5-minute walk before heading to my office. I love this time of day. My long commutes are hell on my lower back, so the stretching of my limbs is necessary, and the outdoor air is, well, exactly what outdoor air should be.
My more substantial walks on most weekdays happen during half of my hour-long lunch. Two of my colleagues, Kim and Paige, already had a walking routine before I started at Kutztown, and after they saw me eating my lunch alone outside on a few occasions once I began there, they asked if I wanted to join them. I couldn’t say “yes” fast enough. Social time has always been part of my work life, but it’s harder to figure out since moving from a faculty position to a full-time administrator role, and it’s wayyyy more difficult to figure out during a pandemic. Having lunch or coffee with colleagues is just not a safe option. But walking? It’s perfect.
Sometimes our walking plan doesn’t work out, but more often than not, it does. And we already have plans for using the field house track when the weather is too cold or snowy to be outside for 30 minutes.
Our conversation during our midday walk sometimes focuses on work, but most of the time we chat about things we see or random things going on in our lives. I’m learning the campus (which is beautiful) and the neighborhood, and we are building friendships. I don’t like spending money and time driving to work, but I do love working in person rather than working from home, and part of the reason is these lunchtime walks.
And then there are weekends. Sometimes I have a chunk of time on my hands and I walk at the Lackawanna Heritage Trail (not too far from my house) or at Lackawanna State Park (a more substantial drive away but 100% worth it). These times of solitude are well-spent.
happy at the State Park 
beauty is good for the soul
More typically, I walk with good friends. Like my time with Paige and Kim, these outings are ways of having social time without compromising safety. I love love love the conversations I’ve had with my friends as we have actively enjoyed the outdoors.
I don’t know how I will make walking work during the winter months. I don’t know if I’ll just bundle up more or invest in snow shoes or try cross-country skiing. I just haven’t figured it out yet. But I do know that over the last several months as I’ve been getting my life together, walking with friends has been such an important part of my health that it’s not something I can sacrifice, at least not without figuring out an alternative.
lunch…and a whole lot more
One of the things I love about my work routine is food. I started my current job just three months ago, and I have a long commute (over 90 minutes each way), but one of the ways I’ve made my schedule work for me is by establishing a food routine.
I offer it here not because it is ideal for anyone else but because I have never had a food routine like I do now, and I love it, and I just want to shout it from the rooftops.
That may be a bit hyperbolic. And chances are I will end up changing parts of my routine over time. But for now, for whatever it’s worth, here is what is working really well for me.
Weekend action
On Saturdays, I shop for prepared foods and fresh fruits and vegetables at a little Italian market called Caravia’s. They are closed on Sundays, so sometimes I can’t make it work, which is quite depressing.
I also go to a more typical grocery store on Saturday or Sunday: Weis or Wegman’s or Gerrity’s or Price Chopper. I supplement the fruits and vegetables from Caravia’s and add anything else I need.
Then, on Sundays, the magic happens. I prep my food for the week: 5 spinach salads; 5 small containers with a scoop of Caravia’s chicken salad in each; baby carrots and sliced bell peppers; and non-perishables to store in my car or in my office so my morning prep is easy-peesy.
Weekday deliciousness
6:00-7:00am on the road with a protein bar, coffee, and water
8:00-9:30 the workday begins with a 2nd mug of coffee; later, a piece of fruit; and water
9:30-11:00 nuts! these snack packs are the perfect size; and water
11:00-12:30 chicken salad and lots more water
12:30-3:30 spinach salad whenever I’m hungry for it; and water
3:30-6:30 if I’m still hungry, carrots or peppers; and definitely more water!
At that point, I’m home again, and I have dinner with the kids or eat leftovers or cereal or chips and salsa or soup, and then the next day I do it all again.
Sometimes I eat less during my workdays, especially when I have a lot of meetings. And once every couple weeks I have grilled chicken instead of chicken salad, or I toss a piece of candy in my lunch cooler because I’m just that crazy.
I’ve always enjoyed food, taking great pleasure in eating and drinking. But this is the first time in my life I have taken this much care in preparing food and drink that I fully enjoy and that also feels good for my body and my energy levels throughout the day.
Every weekend I devote time to prepping for the upcoming week. And each weekday, as I pack my lunch cooler in the wee hours of the morning and gradually eat and drink my way through the day, I’m grateful for the care and attention Weekend Laurie has provided. She makes my work days feel easy…easy like Sunday morning, and just as delicious.
Curve ball commute
Over the last week, I have been doing the kind of nesting associated with prepping for a baby (or for a new school year for you teachers out there)–I basically was trying to get Everything in My Life in order before starting a new job at a new university. I did a lot of house projects, ironed a lot of clothes, did some serious grocery shopping, updated my Libby audio books and my podcast library, cleaned my car, visited Jiffy Lube, etc etc.
My commute is almost 90 minutes each way, so I wanted to be a Responsible Adult while being kind to Future Laurie.
Last night, I put on the finishing touches: I picked out a dress and heels, filled water bottles, cut vegetables, and prepped both breakfast and lunch for my first day of work. I went to bed at 11:00 but woke up a few times, finally getting out of bed at 4:30 this morning because I just couldn’t sleep any longer.
I left the house at about 5:45am. I was feeling good. I was going to arrive early, and that made me feel relaxed about my first day.
I jumped on the turnpike, and everything was going well. I reached the first toll booth and slowed down, and there was suddenly some intense noise–the kind of noise you hear when driving over rumble strips. I paused and kept listening as I went through the booth, and as I sped up, the noise disappeared. I chalked it up to a rumble strip type of surface designed to slow people down.
I drove on and came to the second toll booth and the same noise occurred. Now I thought maybe it was my car, so I checked out the instrument panel, but no warning lights were coming on. I kept driving past the toll booth to see what would happen. Sure enough, as I sped up, the noise disappeared. I thought maybe there really was something going on with the roads by the toll booths. I wasn’t convinced, but I figured if there was a problem with my car, I would just have to find a garage in Kutztown.
When I arrived at the third toll booth, I had to slow down sooner. And I couldn’t continue: It sounded Really Bad. I could feel something wrong in the front end of my car. I had to stop.
I pulled onto the breakdown lane just before the tolls where I could get out safely. Nearby was a parking lot, a few cars and trucks, a building, and a couple guys moving heavy things less than 100 yards from me.
I got out and kneeled down on the road to peer under the front end of my car. The problem was plain: A big silvery metal Something was trapped under my car and was being dragged along the road…a Something that was either part of my car or that I had somehow picked up and dragged…a Something that was well out of my reach.
So I walked over to the men who were working. As I approached, they would look at me and look away. They were clearly hoping I would not interrupt their work. In those moments, being a middle-aged white woman and all, I was suddenly very nervous that I was being a Karen. But it was my first day at a new job, and I had driven an hour and still had a half hour left, and I had worked really hard to prep for this day so that nothing would go wrong. So I kept walking to the men even though their body language did not indicate any sense of welcome.
Once I was near them, I apologized for interrupting, and I talked quickly so I wouldn’t hold them up too long. I explained that my car was dragging something, and did they have any advice or did they think I should just call triple A?
And you know what those men did? They said, “Let’s take a look.” And they walked back to the car with me, where one got next to the driver’s side while the other kneeled next to me on the road in front of the hood, and together they reached far enough under the car with their gloved hands that they were able to grab and pull and finally take the Something off from where it was still attached to the underside of the car. They handed that Something to me and said I would be fine driving without it, but I should save it and bring it back to Jiffy Lube and give them hell.
I reached for my purse. I wanted to give them something for their time, their help, their good will even when they were in the middle of their own intense labor.
And you know what those men did? They said, “No” to my offer of money, and they said it without hesitation, turning and walking quickly back to the job I had interrupted.
I got back in my car and sat for a moment trying not to cry at the kindness and thinking about how much I love people. And then I drove the rest of the way to work. And I was still early.
And people continued to be good to me all day long.
Day55 Mother’s Day
I’m crazy about my own mom and grateful to her for a zillion or so things, but today I feel like sharing what I like about being a mom. And it’s Mother’s Day, so that means I get to do what I want.
When I was a working mom with young kids, sometimes people would say things to me like
Don’t you just LOOOOOVVVVEEE being a mom?
And I would say, “Yes, but it’s really hard.” I regularly felt the need to temper any kind of romanticized or idealistic notion of motherhood with this reminder. Let’s not act like motherhood is only watching little people act in adorable ways and cuddle and so forth. That part is definitely amazing, but motherhood for me also involved often having too many responsibilities and not knowing how to manage them all, and dropping my son off at a daycare where he screamed and held out his arms to me as I left for work, and negotiating ridiculous conflicts my children had daily over who got to open a door or push an elevator button, and resorting to yelling sometimes when the kids weren’t listening, and regularly being overtired or irritable or frustrated or whatever.
All that said, one of the favorite parts of my life was when the kids were small and every day involved reading stories, singing songs, and lots and lots of playing of all sorts—trains and cars and dolls and pretend and catch and hockey and baseball and board games. I loved it.
I also appreciate how many ways I learned who I was and what I valued as I mothered. I became good at certain things I had no reason to learn otherwise. For example, I’m really good at finding lost things. For some reason it drives my kids crazy when I insist that we go through these approaches, but it almost always works to
- Figure out where you last remember seeing the lost item
- Retrace your steps
- Check every conceivable spot where the lost item could be, even if everyone is certain that it’s not in that spot or that they already checked there
I’m also patient about untying knots in laces or necklaces and fixing the little screws in glasses.
I learned that I believe in song as a way to soothe. I believe we should share and take turns and communicate explicitly about our wants and needs. I believe it’s okay to set boundaries on what we share; with my kids, it was a favorite stuffed animal for each of them that they had permanent dibs on.
I learned that hunger and tiredness affect my ability to cope with life just like it affects my kids.
I figured out boundaries and discipline. My kids know that the non-negotiable rules for me are the ones connected to safety, kindness, and character. I hope they also learned that we all make mistakes. The important thing is what we do after we mess up. I hope I’ve taught them that one.
I learned that I love to play and tell stories and listen to little ones and watch them grow and learn and laugh.
I experienced how important cuddling time is for all of us.
****
At this point, my kids are aged 20 and 17, and we are all dealing (or not dealing) with the grief and pain that comes in the time after divorce. My daughter Callie is in college. My son Jace is finishing his junior year of high school and lives with his retired dad. Jace and I get together as much as we can—it was usually twice a week in the pre-pandemic months. But I have to work full-time to support myself and my kids, so right now I have a good job I love, but work is 2 1/2 hours from where my apartment is because I chose to rent a place near Jace (and also near a good support network, but that’s for another post).
These days, it seems obvious that motherhood is hard. Post-divorce fall-out for me, and pandemic for all of us.
I still wonder if I’ve failed the kids by choosing divorce. Is that always a part of being a mom, kinda like being a teacher—seeing both what we did well and what we might’ve done better? Their dad is a good man, and he was a good man when we were married. But our relationship was not healthy, and I spent years distracting myself from looking at it. Maybe my kids will learn about healthy relationships from this. Or maybe they won’t. This whole situation is in the grey area of parenting. I’m muddling through.
So the current hard part of being a mom for me is worrying about the ways I’ve been a poor role model for my kids. And then I think, If I’m too hard on myself, then they might think that’s how we should be. It’s a lot of pressure, being a role model, but it’s also a reminder of our values. If I’m gentle with myself as I continue to learn and grow, maybe my kids will learn to be gentle with themselves, too.
So, yeah, it’s hard being a mom right now, but it is still something I appreciate more than ever.
Part of not living with my kids very much in the last 10 months has been realizing how much I love them and how grateful I am to be a mom to them. The silver lining of the pandemic for me is that I can work remotely from my kitchen, and my kids are taking turns staying with me and with their dad, so I get to spend real time with them again. Not just visits or going out to dinner, but the kind of time that you get when sharing a household.
The truth is, both Callie and Jace have their lives that don’t involve me. Callie, especially, craves a return to a life of living with people her age; she wants to travel and learn and be ready to launch into the next phase of her life when college is over. Jace has a year of high school left, but he is like most teens in that he spends plenty of time away from me. That is as it should be. They are growing up.
So it’s not that they stay in my apartment and we do some deep bonding every moment. It’s more that when we interact, we might enjoy a meal or a tv show or an activity together (I set up Wii; I am still horrible at MarioKart, and they are both still pros); I get to see how cool they are as they figure out their linguistics work or analyze the cinematography in a movie; we laugh together or share angst or vent to one another when small things go awry; we have minor and major conflicts, and we resolve them. I appreciate all of this in a new way. My eyes are a bit more open because of the months I’ve had of deeply missing these wonderful human beings.
I think the pressure to be a “good” mom makes mothering less enjoyable. But when I think of mothering as an opportunity to grow while helping a couple other human beings grow, it’s easy to love it.
Now that my kids are no longer toddlers, people don’t really ask me,
Don’t you just LOOOOOVVVVEEE being a mom?
But I’ll answer that anyhow.
Yes. Yes, I do.
Day40 Mask Medley
Yesterday, in an email, my friend Janet wrote
Being seen is one of our greatest human needs, I believe, including seeing our wonderful selves when at times our invisibility seems so real! Struggle with that myself! These masks aren’t helping!!!!!
That was in response to a note I wrote to her saying how she made me feel seen. What a gift that is to receive.
***
In the recent days of wearing masks with my son and my daughter, we talked about feeling ready to rob banks or stage coaches, and we said things to one another like, “You’ll never get me, Copper!”
We looked at people wearing masks in their cars and wondered Why—why wear a mask when you’re all alone? We legit brainstormed possible reasons because we couldn’t imagine making such a choice without a compelling reason.
We continue to take off our masks as soon as we have the opportunity.
***
In Ramona the Pest by Beverly Cleary, Ramona dresses as a witch for a kindergarten Halloween celebration, and she is very excited to be a witch with the power to spark a bit of terror in others. But it’s not long after donning the costume that Ramona discovers she doesn’t like the experience as much as she anticipated. Why? Because no one knows it’s her. Rather than forsake the scarily fun mask, Ramona makes herself a name tag. She both masks and unmasks herself; she performs a witchiness and also finds a way to reclaim and comfort her mortal self when faced with the existential dread of not being.
Yes. I’m saying that Ramona, in her witch costume, had a Hamlet kind of moment. I do not remember if there were also ghosts in Ramona’s kindergarten room.
***
***
I use the soft video focus on Zoom so I look better to others and so I look better to myself. Tonight I FaceTimed with my friend Lindsey and was regularly distracted by my wrinkly neck. Lindsey told me she read that Zoom-fatigue was partly due to the energy we expend in thinking about our own performances when we can see images of ourselves on the screen. Yes, I thought: I’ve been seeing too much of myself lately.
I don’t know how old I was when I realized we can see the faces of others but the only way we can see our own face is indirectly, through mirrors or photos or, now, phones or Zoom images.
And then there are Zoom virtual backgrounds that mask the messiness or intimacies of our home lives. These backgrounds hover and shimmer. Objects and body parts appear and disappear and appear again. The illusion announces itself, but we are unable to see beyond the illusion except in tiny glimmers.
Sometimes the combination of reality interfacing with these virtual backgrounds is fantastically funny. At one point, a friend of mine looked like she was walking on the moon—and it wasn’t on purpose—and I cracked up. Yesterday during a work meeting, a colleague was wearing headphones and used an active beach scene with the surf coming in for her background. When she needed to walk somewhere, the movement of her head made it look like she was jamming out to some music on the beach, and it was all I could do to focus on the content of the meeting. I knew she wasn’t actually listening to music on a beach but instead was walking through her home, but it sure looked like she was listening to music on a beach. It was such a startling and incongruous sight during a meeting that I was dying to bust out laughing. But all I did was wait for her to be settled again.
***
Many (most?) of us have a growing collection of masks. My first mask was a store bought one that was gifted to me, and I never used it but both my kids did (a week apart…I think that was okay?). My second one was homemade and gifted to me along with a couple for my kids. That one is a fancy red and black pattern. My friend Angela brought over a couple masks she made, wrapped in plastic with directions. My daughter immediately claimed one because she had misplaced her other mask, and I haven’t been out of the house in days so I haven’t worn the other one yet. But I will, and I’m looking forward to giving it a spin. I also made some no-sew masks—one from a cloth napkin that was horribly uncomfortable, but my son liked it for some reason. And two more from a soft pink t-shirt. My son claimed one of those as well.
I also ordered masks for my parents because my dad said he was still going out a few times a week to run errands. I think my parents now also have a growing collection.
And we all swap information about the care and use and protocols for mask cleanliness and upkeep. It’s like a whole world of people getting their first pet or first motor vehicle and comparing notes about how it works and what are the pros and cons of one style or another and how can we use training techniques or regular trips to the mechanic to exhibit some agency and control in a world that allows us so very little agency and control….
That sentence petered out. As I was writing it, I thought about how we control enough. Or maybe we don’t. But we might as well call it “enough” because, if some things are out of our control, it’s better to accept those things and to control or influence the parts that are more malleable.
And I’m also thinking that we control our own responses. At least to some degree.
***
It’s late, and I’m sleepy, and I need to get up early in the morning. But as I write, I keep wondering:
what are the masks I use to hide from those things that scare me? what are the masks that become not the solution but the problem? what are the masks that substitute an illusion for messiness and intimacies and imperfections? and
what are the masks that help us survive and even thrive?
Day23
Sometimes, because it’s so overwhelming to process, I need to list things with markers—not dry erase markers or sharpies (though those are wonderful for listing as well), but rather points that I can locate, changes that can make sense in my brain.
March 5 is when our study abroad trip left for Ireland: 164 cases in the U.S.
10 days later, March 15 we returned, from Ireland: almost 3500 cases in the U.S.
2 weeks of self-quarantine later, March 29: approximately 141,000 cases in the U.S.
Today, 8 days later, April 7: approximately 395,000 cases in the U.S.
In just over a month, 164 to 395,000 cases. (With apologies about the numbers—different websites report them differently, and so many people haven’t been tested that actual numbers are much higher, etc etc. But the point, in case you’re missing it, isn’t about exact numbers but rather about the pace at which things can change.)
Here are some other markers.
March 16: My nephew in the Bay Area advised all the east-coast family members via our family Facebook page to prepare for lockdown. He had just begun a 6-8 week lockdown with his family.
March 24: The first time I found out a person I know had the virus.
March 30: I talked with my niece who lives in NYC and found out about a promising position suddenly ending in one workplace…and a new opportunity arising, with a long commute and long hours but good community. She has been helping check people in for testing.
April 2: My friend told me of firefighters in the Bronx who responded to 5 respiratory failures in a single hour that day. All 5 people died.
April 2: I talked with a friend from my prior university who had the virus.
April 3: The first case of the virus in the university where I currently work was announced to the campus community.
April 3: My first time at the grocery store since March 16. I learned I should not use reusable grocery bags, and I figured out how to stand in line.
April 7: My son and I wore face masks in the grocery store for the first time.
I could trace time in other ways, too, noticing how much more proficient people are with Zoom, appreciating the remote social time I’ve had with friends, treasuring the way priorities are in stark relief, thinking about ways we celebrated my mom’s birthday, seeing the creative bonding that happens in place of pre-corona virus life.
I really haven’t been directly affected in an intensely negative way (yet). But sometimes I need to mark the sadness of a sickness spreading. I need to pay attention. I need to mourn.
Day6
Yesterday was Friday, and it was the kind of day when people were reaching out to each other. It was the first day that I felt like I hadn’t actually worked my full work day when 4:30 rolled around. But it was okay, both because priorities shift during pandemics and because I did more work after hours to make up for it since there’s actually a good bit of work that needs doing in higher ed right now.
Before January, I had worked the schedule of a professor and chair, which meant my work days were largely unstructured. I had to teach my classes and show up at my meetings (though many meetings were optional and there weren’t real consequences for tenured faculty who didn’t show up) and get my work done, but how / when / where I did my work was largely up to me.
For me, for whatever reason, that unstructured work life translated into feeling like I was supposed to be working all the time. I did some work every day. I worked mornings, days, nights. I worked weekends. I worked holidays. I worked in the summer. I worked during winter break. I worked during spring break.
I also did a lot of other things. I socialized and shopped and spent lots of time with my family when my teaching schedule didn’t interfere. But I always felt like I was carrying my work around.
The work itself moved me in lots of directions. Prepping for 2-3 different classes each semester, grading student work, making time for my own writing and research (which often fell by the wayside), participating in university service and leadership in myriad forms that were necessary but time-consuming, and feeling like if I dropped the ball on anything there would be classrooms without teachers in them or students paying a lot of money and being treated disrespectfully or faculty who were trying their damnedest to teach and inspire students who needed support…that list went off the rails at the end and I don’t know how to end that phrase and I feel too lazy to edit, but you get it. I didn’t want to let anyone down. And I enjoyed a lot of my work and felt like I made a difference and used my gifts, though there were also parts of my work I wasn’t crazy about. And I was exhausted.
I wonder now, looking back, how much of my work compulsion was also about looking good to other people. I grew up in New England with its Puritan heritage. Hard work = good person. You know, the whole American framing of work detailed in The Protestant Ethic and the Spirit of Capitalism by Max Weber (shout out to Jerry Cohen at Brandeis from my undergrad days for introducing me to that book). I still feel the need to be visibly working, whether I’m working remotely from my kitchen or sitting in my office. What’s strange is that I’m good with other people having a work day that involves walks outside or snacks or stretching or social media or whatever in terms of taking breaks, but I feel very self-conscious about my own activities and how they might be perceived. As I work from home, I try to answer emails fairly quickly so people know I’m actually there, on my laptop, working diligently.
I can’t visit my therapist while I’m self-quarantining, but I think I’ll talk with her about this tendency. What’s the difference between working hard and making sure others see that I’m working hard? Why has that become a source of legitimation for me?
In the meantime, one of the things I love love love about my current job is that it is Monday through Friday, 8-4:30 with an hour for lunch. Those parameters allow me to feel largely free of my odd work compulsions. When I leave work, I leave work. If my boss (who is the best boss I’ve ever had) calls or texts and needs something after hours, I would be on it. But she hasn’t yet. So last night, the night of Day5, was the first time I did significant work after 4:30.
And now it is Saturday morning. Day6 of self quarantine. Almost everything is closed and I shouldn’t be interacting with people anyhow. But I have plans to walk in a state park, keeping 6 feet away from everyone, and I am looking forward to it.
Day4
I felt really good yesterday. I had good energy at work and accomplished a lot. I went outside a few times. In the evening, I drove to the next town to drop something in the mail just so I could be out of the house more. I completed my daughter’s CSS Profile, which is a major accomplishment because it is a horrifying financial aid document.
I didn’t yet talk to some friends who have been on my mind, so that is on the agenda for the next few days. I am one of those lucky people who has amazing lifelong friends. More than any one person deserves. I’m never as good a friend to them as I want to be, but part of what makes our friendships work is that we don’t do a lot of tallying. We just know we care and do our best to be there for one another when we can, and when our time is swallowed up by other commitments, we cut each other lots of slack. That’s the thing about being friends with really good people: They tend to have lots of commitments to tend to.
Last night, I felt over jet lag and stayed up until after 10:00, but then I couldn’t sleep. I have a rotator cuff issue. It started last week in Ireland, and it’s been bad since Saturday, but last night it was out of control. I medicated and iced and fell asleep, but it woke me up at 4:00, and I haven’t been able to go back to sleep. I ended up watching tv, hoping the distraction from pain would help me sleep, but it didn’t.
Eventually I made myself breakfast (an unbelievably painful task because of my rotator cuff; I literally chanted something like “You’re going to be all right / You’re going to be fucking all right,” except it was more rhythmic, and I felt like I was a character in a movie verbalizing so the audience could tell something was amiss, and that made me wonder if people ever felt like characters before movies existed…like, did they imagine themselves as a character that Homer would be talking about? on the battlefield with Athena in disguise and so forth? but really I’m just wondering about that now because at the time I could barely deal with the pain while performing simple breakfast-making tasks) so I could eat and take medicine. You know what’s amazing? That was about a half hour ago, and the ibuprofen has kicked in, and I feel like a new person. I just need to time my medicine right for sleeping from now on. And I emailed my primary care physician to see if I should make an appointment to see an orthopedist once my two weeks of self quarantine is up. Pretty productive before 7:00am.
I worried that today was going to be a bad day because I didn’t get enough sleep and I was in terrible pain. But now I think there’s hope.
I still have 32 minutes to get ready before work. My luggage hasn’t arrived so I don’t have a hair brush, but I can still use a flat iron and change my clothes and tidy myself up. I have cut veggies and hummus to snack on today. I’ll make a decent lunch. If it’s not raining, I’ll take a walk at lunch time or at the end of the work day. It’s dark, and we’re wearing sunglasses. Oh, wait, that last bit is about Jake and Elwood, not me.
I don’t know the purpose of blogging in the mornings, and I don’t know if I will keep it up. But for now it feels right.
Peace.
Laurie Mac Reads 