It has been almost 9 months since I entered a blog post. And the life that was 9 months ago seems like a distant memory. Visiting NYC, going to Flora Bar at the Met Breur with our son and my in-laws, hugging my adult kids, getting lunch in Harvard Square with my daughter and granddaughter, theater, museums, the library, music class for babies at Bow Market, our granddaughter’s first birthday party with family and friends crowded at the outdoor patio of the brewery and all those wonderful dinners I would complain about cooking for the kids and the meals we would eat around our dining room table.
Life seemed both oddly perfect and frustratingly scary as we confronted our precarious financial situation and the state of the planet. It was hard to ignore the articles stating how dire the climate emergency was as I pushed my granddaughter joyfully in the stroller. And it was clear capitalism and greed were going to destroy us all unless it was stopped. I did little things to try to make a difference. I tried to go plastic free, to compost, to minimize food waste, to not drive, to not fly, to reduce my footprint and yet knew nothing I did was enough. Those with power made a move to destroy a valuable start-up my husband was working on and our kids were all weighted down with debt from their educations and were living pay-check to pay check despite all having advanced degrees and professional positions. We did not see a future where the current system was going to work for us as a family. As my parents planned to move into an upscale independent senior community I would have visions of my husband and I living in poverty when we were elderly.
Then in November my husband and I learned we needed to move out of the apartment we had lived in for five years in less than 30 days. I felt like my world was unraveling. We had never been completely comfortable in this apartment. The landlord was terrible and we had had multiple problems with the place. We had given up trying to even maintain any semblance of home and had mostly been “nesting” and just trying to get by. It was like we were perpetually camping out. But we were happy and it made our trips to NYC seem even more special. I loved our neighborhood and I loved the fact that I was less than 2 miles from 2 out of 3 of my kids. Periodically we would look for other apartments in the neighborhood but we never found anything even remotely livable in our price range. But on the same day we were told we had 30 days to find a new living situation an apartment around the corner became available. I had a doctors appointment so we only spent about 10 minutes looking at it. As soon as I saw it, I told Roy we could make this work and should immediately apply. It was the week before Thanksgiving and there were few apartments on the market. Two other families were also considering this apartment . Fortunately we had neighbors and real estate agents who lived in the neighborhood who knew us and vouched for us and our application was accepted. It felt like a small miracle. At the same time we given how particular we are about everything from noise to environmental toxins panic suddenly set in. How would the place work for us? Would it be safe for our granddaughter? Would Roy be able to work during the day in the space? Nothing about this was going to be easy.
We moved, Christmas Eve. Our youngest son came up from NYC to assist. It was crazy and hard and dirty and yet somehow the new apartment miraculously felt more like a real home than our other apartment ever did. It had these bizarre resonances with our home in Lexington and even stranger our upstairs neighbors were a couple who lived across from us in Lexington all those years. Our youngest son helped my husband unload a storage pod we had been paying for since we left our big house in Lexington. We found old toys and books for our granddaughter to play with and set up a play corner for her. We ate too much Chinese Food Take Out and we laughed and celebrated through this difficult time. Roy started a new consulting job in Harvard Square. Again life seemed good.
I had visions of Springtime Brunch celebrations in our backyard, reminiscent of the parties and brunches I had thrown in Lexington. It had been a long time since we had a backyard where we could entertain and I was so excited for warmer weather and flowers. I told Chris, Ethan’s girlfriend she could come over and garden and envisioned sitting and having tea and cookies afterwards with her while baby Roen and the dog Salo played in the small yard. I imagined Isaac visiting from NYC with his Bass and giving a concert for us and friends and neighbors on the deck. We might have been out of money and struggling but again our life seemed perfect in so many ways.
A few years ago when Ebola and Zika were causing a stir it seemed like I was the only person who was worried about a global epidemic. When I would talk to others about my concerns they would often shrug off my panic statements. I had the same feeling about this virus in China in January. I remember telling everyone in my studio print class that global travel and business should be shut down for 2 weeks to contain it. Everyone looked at me like I was crazy and said that would be too extreme. Sigh, if only the world had done that. I kept saying, “Why can’t the world just stop for 2 weeks….stop driving, stop flying, stop going to school and work and just take a pause. just for 2 weeks so we can prevent this thing from spreading.” We started to stockpile but not in an obvious way. Before the toilet paper crises had even entered the news I did things like restart our “Who Gives A Crap” subscription for eco-toilet paper. I filled the pantry with lentils and beans and grains. I decided to buy bigger containers of spices at Curio and joked with my friends there that I was trying to not pester them so often. In the February we went to NYC to see our son and go to theater. At brunch with my FIL we talked about the virus and the need to stockpile. We talked about our concerns that our government in the US could respond to this adequately. Even my FIL agreed this was not going to go well. We filled prescriptions and made sure we had what we needed. We told family and friends to do the same. We knew things were getting serious when our son’s scientific conference (one of the biggest international scientific conferences there is..the American Physical Society) canceled their meeting in the beginning of March Saturday night at 11pm before the conference was to start that Monday. In their message they said, “Do Not Travel to Denver”. Physicists and mathematicians were arriving in Denver only to get on a plane and head home. Still Roy and Nick had to decide about PAX (the big east coast gaming conference). They decided to go but would be extremely careful and wash their hands. At the time the information we had was that for those who were healthy the virus was not that serious and there was some thinking that it made sense to get infected early on in the pandemic. In retrospect I am not sure Roy would have gone knowing what we now know about the virus.
But as soon as Roy returned from PAX, our extended family decided to quarantine. It was a good solid 10 days before the rest of Cambridge would go into quarantine. I stopped going to classes. I minimized any shopping trips. Here we are, 2.5 months later and most of the world is in quarantine. All from this tiny little virus that doesn’t even have it’s own DNA. All from something that can be killed with soap and water.
Shira and Nick let their Nanny go. They are working from home. I am relieved Shira left clinical practice for a corporate job. I cringed when she suggests she might do a clinical shift at Fenway early on when there still was not enough PPE for health care workers.
In late March we moved Isaac out of NYC to Roy’s sister’s condo in CT. NYC did not seem safe and we were worried about him being alone there. Now he is alone in this condo in CT. We FaceTime. Baby Roen thinks he is in the computer. She takes my computer and moves him around the apartment with her placing him in her fort so she can play with him by herself. He plays improvised music to accompany my reading Eric Carle’s “The Very Busy Spider”. Roen thinks it is funny to say the horse goes “Baaaaaah” rather than “Neeeigh”. If I ask her if she wants to talk to Uncle Isaac she points to the computer. When she is ready to say bye she closes the computer slowly sometimes looking inside and checking on Isaac as she does it. It is a strange world.
I have been sewing masks obsessively playing around with various patterns available online. I am learning I am a horrible seamstress, although practice does help one get better.
When all this started many made comments about being together soon or felt it was just for two weeks. We knew better. Here we are. Nobody is coming over for a mother’s day brunch. Grandparents, Kids, My Uncle and his Wife and friends will not be eating a spread of spring time salads, quiches and homemade pastries. The deck is empty and on one of the first warm days I sit there and draw and imagine what it would be like to have people in those chairs.
A collaborative drawing done by me and Roen age 20 months
Sometimes we are left with just ourselves and our reflection
Art made for granddaughter…..to help her become more comfortable with us wearing masks when we are outside.
