Tag Archives: #SocialDistancing

Reading and writing in isolation

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Also, Spring!

Reading…

I recorded and shared my first #InternationalPoetryCircle poem yesterday. I chose a poem from the book I’m reading currently, Mary Oliver’s Dream Work, which I think I bought during my last trip to the bookstore—back when I didn’t know how long it would be before I could return again. I pre-ordered a book that day, and I regret that I didn’t get in to pick it up in the week or so between when it was released and when I started social distancing in earnest.

Now, I miss my library and book store terribly, even while I have an enormous pile of unread books at home. To be honest, I have several large piles, scattered throughout the house.

If there are silver linings to our current situation—and I believe we have to look for silver linings because they help stave off despair—surely one of them is the imperative to read some of these unread books. I’m first working my way through the handful of library books I had at home when the library closed down. Then I plan to tap into my own lending library, a.k.a. those piles of books.

Debbie Downer here: This squirrel carcass showed up on the roof outside my home office window yesterday. It’s mostly flat but appeared from nowhere. Explanation? Dropped by a predator? Froze on a higher roof and fell off? It’s a mystery at my house.

In between poems I’ve just started Doris Lessing’s The Cleft, one of my library books. It’s a faux history that in its early pages has raised fascinating questions about the origins of men vs. women. Think of a time when only one gender existed, and the other suddenly appeared, and that’s where Lessing’s book starts. The Christian tale of creation tells us man was created first, and woman from him, but Lessing posits the opposite and explores what might have been the thoughts and feelings of women and men when the second gender appeared.

I’ve just started the book, really, so that’s all I have to offer at this point, except tp say I’m intrigued and have enjoyed Lessing’s work before so am eager to spend more time with this tale.

…and writing

I’ve started a couple of poems during this isolation, and published one (Pi Day, over at Headline Poetry & Press), but this blog has prompted, and houses, the bulk of what I’ve written outside of work. I’m starting a new project, though, to write postcards or letters to the people I care about. I read yesterday that the Post Office is under serious threat of being closed down by summer with so little mail being sent out because of COVID-19. We need the Post Office to help keep us connected always, and to support mail-in voting both for the remaining spring primaries and in November if this pandemic lingers as I fear it will. So I’m seizing the opportunity to reconnect with loved ones both near and far. That leads me, of course, to today’s goals, as this will be one of them.

Goal setting

First, my performance on yesterday’s goals:

  • Photo of the day—check
  • Read poetry—check
  • Record a poem to share with others—check
  • Dog walk and exercise walk—check
  • This blog post—check
  • Figure out if I need to go to the Post Office to purchase stamps—check
  • Dinner with friends via FaceTime if I’m able to quit work on time—worked late
  • Check the status of my seed order—check(ed) and reordered

Today? More modest:

  • Read a poem for #InternationalPoetryCircle
  • Photo of the day
  • Get those stamps (task delegated to the husband, who is our designated shopper)
  • Start putting stamps on voter postcards
  • Write to at least one person
  • Dog walk

exercise walk is an important stretch goal, along with enjoy the sunshine (hope it lasts). Since it’s a workday, an added goal is to work well, so I’m off to do that now, ending this post quite abruptly, but not before…

Photo of the day

I actually took quite a few photos that I was happy with yesterday, including everything shown in this post. Here are two. The first one I like aesthetically, just a shadow on the sidewalk:

This one is my real choice for Photo of the Day because it’s the message I want to leave everyone with:

Tip jar: Working from home

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A lot of us are finding out that working from home everyday is vastly different from working at home occasionally. I have an office job, normally, and work the occasional day from home to focus on specific projects I need to get done without distraction. Now, like many across the United States, I’m doing it full-time.

I’m lucky to have a job that makes this possible. For too many people, the reality is either a layoff or continuing to go out into the world to work, exposing self and loved ones to a potentially deadly virus. I’m blessed to have both a job that can be done remotely and an employer who understood the coronavirus situation early on and made working from home an early option.

That doesn’t mean it’s always easy. It’s hard not to blur work and home life when you don’t leave the house to go to work. That may be exacerbated now because we don’t go anywhere else either, except on an occasional supply run. (My husband is the designated shopper in my house, so I don’t even do that.) I suspect depression is also a threat due both to social isolation and the potential monotony of the unchanging environment.

Tips for the home office

There are ways to make it easier, though. Here’s what I do to keep work time feeling like work time, and distinct from home time:

  • Have a designated office space that’s used only for work. This might be a whole room or just a corner of one. Mine is only the size of my desk. But it’s a place I use only when I’m “at work,” and that’s what matters. Mine is where I used to sit to write this blog. No longer, I’ve given it over entirely to me job, and I know write everything of my own from a different space.
  • Establish, or keep, a routine that sets aside at least a small amount of personal time. I start my morning writing in this blog, or writing poetry, usually with my first cup of coffee (although today I haven’t yet brewed that). I sit down to work at about the same time I would be doing so if I still drove to the office every morning. Depending on the weather, I might take a mid-day break to get the dogs out for a walk—particularly if rain threatens later in the day. More often I work straight through the day.
  • Let co-workers know when I’m “leaving” work. I started doing this because I have a job that’s ramped up enormously due to COVID-19, and much of the work that comes to me is urgent. Letting my boss and my co-workers know when I was leaving to walk the dog or shutting down for the day was a courtesy intended to make sure I wouldn’t leave them in a lurch. As it turns out, it serves me also, by giving me peace of mind to have personal time. I carry my phone with me on walks, and sometimes people do need to call me. But they know that I’m away from my desk, and they don’t expect me to rush back to it immediately. Once I’ve checked in and received clearance to take 45 minutes off or call it a complete work day, my time away from my desk becomes mine again in a substantively different way.
  • Shower and dress for work. My mode of dressing for work is much more casual than office attire, and I revel in the ability to wear sweatpants that are in tatters and can’t be allowed out of the house. But I don’t stay in pajamas or a bathrobe, and I don’t wear what I wore the day before. I expect mental health professionals could tell me why this makes such a difference in keeping my spirits up; I just know that it does.
  • Get out of the house to exercise every day. I fear rainy days because they will make this harder; I’ll probably try substituting yoga and sitting out on the covered front porch to breathe fresh air.
  • Keep following whatever are your normal workday rules about drinking alcohol (or using other recreational drugs). I don’t drink alcohol on work nights or during work days. Now that work nights look and feel pretty much the same as weekend nights, it’s tempting to ease that rule. I don’t.

Goal setting

My habit of goal setting isn’t about working from home but about coping with isolation. But I recommend it also.

I did pretty well with yesterday’s goals:

  • Photo of the day—check
  • Read poetry—check
  • Dog walk (snow be damned)—check
  • Don’t eat too many cookies—well, nobody’s perfect
  • Stretch goals: I did the exercise walk and ate dinner at a normal hour, but didn’t create anything but a blog post.

For today, here’s my plan:

  • Photo of the day
  • Read poetry
  • Record a poem to share with others
  • Dog walk and exercise walk
  • This blog post
  • Figure out if I need to go to the Post Office to purchase stamps
  • Dinner with friends via FaceTime if I’m able to quit work on time
  • Check the status of my seed order

Photo of the day

My world was blanketed in snow when I woke up yesterday, and I knew it wouldn’t last. It was really heavy, wet snow, so I knew the trees would be better off with it melted. But it was pretty. I don’t think I captured it well, but I’m fairly pleased with this shot of my largest garden ornament.

Back to work

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It’s back-to-work Monday. For me, that means installing myself in the front bedroom, which serves triple duty as office and sometime family room, at the drafting table I inherited from my dad. I have a window next to me and usually a dog on the bed behind me. Life could be worse.

That’s how I feel about the world these days, too, and I hope it stays that way. More and more people are sheltering at home across the country, but not yet enough I fear. Yesterday during Church of the Informed Citizen services, I came across a site that provides state-by-state data models indicating best- and worst-case scenarios for battling COVID-19. It’s positively frightening. In most states, the “point-of-no-return” date for the state to take action that can prevent the healthcare system from being overwhelmed is sometime this week. That’s true even in a state as rural as Wyoming.

Once again, I’m thankful to live in a community and a state where this threat is being taken seriously. Being isolated isn’t a lot of fun, but it’s the right thing to do, and I’m glad our public officials have taken the approach they have. Even so I worry, especially about my own family. I know that’s normal, but normalcy doesn’t make it easier.

Making the best of it

It snowed here yesterday, as predicted. This is the Midwest, and snow in March isn’t unusual; I’m not going to complain about it. The day didn’t seem terribly cold, despite temperatures near freezing, and we spent plenty of it outdoors. But we didn’t actually break out the fire pit as planned.

Instead, because it was really wet, fluffy snow, I made miniature snowmen for my neighbors and anyone passing by. Three of them, all on my porch railing, one facing the sidewalk, and one facing each of my neighbors’ houses. Little snowmen make me happy; that’s all.

Goal setting

I did pretty well with the goals I set out for myself yesterday:

  • Photo of the day—check
  • Spaghetti carbonara—check (plus oatmeal cookies!)
  • Create something—check
  • Read—check
  • Laundry—check
  • Tidy table—check

Today is a workday, so I need to be more modest. Work aside, here’s what I’d like to manage:

  • Photo of the day
  • Read poetry
  • Dog walk (snow be damned)
  • Don’t eat too many cookies
  • Stretch goals: exercise walk; create; dinner at a normal hour

Photo of the day

It was a lovely snow. I took a few pictures.

Are we going stir crazy yet?

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Today’ is Illinois’ first full day of sheltering in place, my hometown’s fourth, and my own eighth. I’ve gone more than a week now without leaving my house and yard except to walk the sidewalks of my neighborhood. I’m a little bit stir crazy, but I’m okay.

I have big plans today: virtual Church of the Informed Citizen, via Skype, and a fire pit social at the edge of my front yard with my next-door neighbors. How will we manage the fire pit, you ask? The plan is: Fire in the center, two chairs on our side, two on theirs, always 6 feet apart. I think we can do it!

Goal setting

I think goal setting is probably a good idea while we’re all sheltering at home. I can easily get up in the morning and fritter away an entire day, so it helps to tell myself early in the day what I’d like to accomplish.

Here’s how yesterday’s goals tallied up for me at the end of the day.

  • Chicken pot pie—check
  • Dog walk—check
  • Exercise walk—nope, just with the dogs
  • Laundry—check
  • Place my seed order—check
  • Read—only at bedtime, but check
  • Create something—check
  • Photo of the day—check

I added the photo-a-day goal mid-day. Being cooped up in one place, I think challenging myself to take a photo that’s worth sharing each day might be a good way to keep from falling into a rut. I’m pretty good at ruts. I need the challenge.

Photo of the day

I over-achieved yesterday on the photography front. We walked past someone’s terrific sidewalk chalk art on our walk, and that’s the picture shown up top. Rolo got in on the action later by being too cute for words, twice. Here’s one of the results:

And then, of course, there was the chicken pot pie. Rarely can I resist the urge to take a photo of a pie that I’ve baked, be it savory or sweet. It’s not great photography, perhaps, but food porn really isn’t about the photography. I can assure you it was delicious, served with a side salad.

Yesterday’s creation: poem art

A while back—a long while back—I bought an old book of illustrated children’s stories to transform into something. I was thinking at the time of some sort of altered book, but that idea gave way to poetry at some point. Yesterday, I took a page of it, found a poem in it, and then looked for a picture to go along with it. The result: a teeny-tiny poem called “The growing darkness.” I had a lot of fun putting it together, I think largely because it made me work with my hands. Here it is:

The growing darkness, a poem by Kim Kishbaugh (c) 2020

I think next time I might start with a picture and find a poem specifically for it.

Goal setting

Here are today’s goals:

  • Photo of the day
  • Dinner from scratch, by me, probably spaghetti carbonara
  • Create something
  • Read
  • More laundry
  • A tidy table in my living room

Signs of change

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I hope it’s not business as usual for anyone at this point, at least not anyone in North America. We need to change our behavior and follow advice on social distancing. I’m disheartened by my Twitter feed, where people say this isn’t happening where they live. Here in the Chicago suburbs—at least in my very left-leaning community—it definitely is.

A couple local signs of change:

  • A 30-in, 30-out policy at Trader Joe’s, with a line of people outside the door standing 6 feet apart. (Way to go Trader Joe’s!)
  • Increased quiet, with much less traffic on the busy street a block away
  • Seen while walking yesterday: Dad out biking with his two kids, all three bundled up against 40-degree temperatures

Shelter-in-place orders

Illinois’ governor issued a shelter-in-place order that takes effect at 5 p.m. today, extending across the entire state the restrictions ordered by my local community a couple days earlier. We join residents of California, New York and Connecticut, where similar (not identical) orders are in place. I expect more states will follow suit.

I hope it works. We’re all in this together, and we need to look out for each other. Those in low-risk groups may survive COVID-19 with only mild symptoms, but their grandparents and neighbors with disabilities face higher odds. My social distancing is less for my benefit than for those I would otherwise come in contact with who have elderly parents living with them or loved ones who are immune-compromised. I don’t know these people, but I care about them. So I stay in.

Today’s goals look like this:

  • Make the chicken pot pie that was supposed to be dinner last night before I got pulled into an urgent project for work.
  • Walk the dogs, and walk for exercise. (With my two old dogs, these are not the same thing.)
  • Do laundry.
  • Place my seed order.
  • Read.
  • Create…something.

That doesn’t feel very ambitious. Perhaps I should be concerned abut that. Is it a sign of social isolation that I don’t have higher goals for my day off?

I wonder how others are spending your increased time at home. Meditation? Yoga? DIY projects? I’d love to hear from you.

Midwestern spring

Meanwhile, the garden grows, on schedule, unworried about any coronavirus. My lilies are mad for spring, and the peonies are sending up shoots. One hyacinth is readying a bloom, and I’m wondering if the others are still hung over from winter or got carried off by squirrels to someone else’s yard. (The crocuses are nowhere to be seen.) My forsythia is covered in buds, holding its bright yellow beauty at bay, but not for long. Today’s high temperature is supposed to be just 1 degree above freezing, but that’s spring in the Midwest. We can take it.

Surprised by spring

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Somehow the first day of spring, the vernal equinox, passed right by without me noticing.

We had a late snow last year, but bulbs are tough. These tulips did alright.

These are extraordinary times indeed. Yesterday marked the start of spring, and I didn’t notice. I worked a very long day from home, my eleventh in a row (long explanation, related directly to COVID-19), took two short walks, worried about loved ones, and considered ways to bring friends together virtually to prevent—or, perhaps more realistically, mitigate—isolation. (I tucked “worried about loved ones” into the middle of that sentence, but honestly I did quite a lot of that, for the first time during this emergency.)

I did notice the green foliage of spring bulbs poking up from the earth in my front garden, and I consciously relished the 60-degree temperature in the evening. Coincidentally, I asked my husband to order the supplies he needs to build me a new raised garden bed. But I didn’t actually know spring had arrived. I’m a nature girl, a gardener, a child of rural America, and this is unusual for me. My mind was just…elsewhere. I won’t say I don’t know how this happened; I do. Still it surprises me and reminds me just how much our lives have changed in less than a month.

Here’s what woke me up to the vernal equinox: an article shared by a friend on Facebook highlighting virtual tours of gardens around the world, including Monet’s garden at Giverny. It provided me a lovely diversion this morning and has me thinking once again about that raised bed. I might take my camera out today to capture my nascent spring garden; meanwhile, the pics here are my garden in years past.