I’m looking out my window, noticing how it seems like a regular day. Sunny, cool, normal. But really, it doesn’t feel like a regular day. And I would be lying if I said I wasn’t anxious.
It feels, as my mom used to say, like we’re “Going to hell in hand basket.” My mom had a lot of good expressions. Another one of my favorites: “First life sucks, and then you die!”
Ah, I miss my mom. It doesn’t seem like she would have been a beacon of comfort about the coronavirus, based on her words of wisdom. But she made great pasta and I think that would have calmed me down. Carbs are good like that.
Anyway, the sense that we’re in the middle of a science fiction movie, or perhaps characters in a historical drama that they’re going to someday make a movie about, well, that’s the sense I have.
I don’t want to be alarmist. I didn’t buy all the toilet paper at Target today, just the regular person amount.
I’ve been going out. We spent a nice day at the park, and have plans to get dinner for my son’s birthday tonight.
But I don’t have my head in the sand, and I can see that things are getting very “real” as they say, and fast.
There is no denying the impact the coronavirus is going to have on all of us – if not at a personal, physical level, most certainly at a “daily life routine” level.
We got an email from my son’s school today. I’ve been waiting for one, knowing full-well that conversations are being had about what we’re all supposed to do, here, now that “social distancing” is a daily refrain.
We’ve been told that if extended closing is necessary, our district won’t be doing online learning. I’m assuming we just don’t have the infrastructure to make that feasible. They are looking into ways for kids to continue to engage in “learning activities,” which I assume doesn’t mean watch Toy Story 17 times in a row. Which is tough because it’s all I’ve got so far in terms of home-based curriculum
These are strange times.
I want to be prepared, not panicked. I’m trying to keep my family safe in a common-sense way. I want to be responsible, not over-reactive.
I want my kid to have a normal first year ever of school, and that’s seeming increasingly unlikely.
But I know full well that his experience – our immediate experience – is not the big issue. I understand that we have vulnerable people all around us (and that we ourselves may be more vulnerable to this than we think). We all need to do what we can to mitigate the impact of this thing.
So, for now, I’ll keep glancing out the window, wondering if things will begin to look as different as they feel.
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