I normally shun normal. I usually
shun what everybody else does. I'm not sure how to say it and I'm not sure why
I am like that. It’s not like I think that everybody else is wrong. And I'm not
one to want to be in the spotlight, especially for being different. But I guess
I just like to not be like everyone else. I like to be my own definite person.
I get it from my Mom.
So that being said, today I'm going
to write about what the whole world is talking about. Yup, you get to hear
about the novel corona virus again. I guess by now it is controlling
everybody's life so in a way I'm justified because it isn't only what everyone
is talking about, it has been our life for the last few weeks and seemingly
will be for the next few weeks or even months.
I don't pay much attention to news.
That's an understatement. Part of the reason I'm not interested in lots of
socializing and small talk is because I have absolutely no clue what's going on
in the rest of the world. I prefer to spend my time sewing instead of catching
up on the news. So the first I remember about this whole deal is being in
Winnipeg with some friends near the end of January and seeing footage of
streets of different cities in China with people walking around wearing masks.
I heard tidbits here and there from people discussing the news but I didn't
think much of it till one week in March when all my co-workers could talk about
was the disappearing supply of toilet paper only to reappear on Amazon at a
ridiculously high price. By the end of that week I was seriously sick of
COVID-19 jokes. That weekend we had the last church service we'd have for
awhile. By then, there had been a caution that maybe the older folks should not
attend as a precaution. Sunday evening some of us youth were sitting around in
a coffee shop and someone wondered if it was ok to joke about the virus any
more. He was realizing it was getting serious and all of us agreed. That was
the first it really hit home to me that this virus was really affecting the
whole world. I don't know when in this timeline the first case hit Manitoba and
I don't know when I started keeping up at least a little bit with the news. But
both of those happened. As I write this, Manitoba has 194 confirmed cases of
COVOD-19. (I started this post a long time ago, obviously)
Life was pretty normal for the next
few days. There’s that word ‘normal’ again. And then suddenly church was
cancelled a week later. And from there we spiraled down quite quickly. Normal
church services have been reduced to a speaker preaching to an almost empty
church, a few singers and the rest of us listening from our couches at home.
Extracurricular activities have been halted. My work days have been affected
slightly, a few weeks I only worked two days instead of three, but we are still
considered an essential business as Technology does not submit to Virus. I
haven’t found this super hard, staying at home I mean. Although if I don’t get
out of the house at least once a day I can go crazy. Six-year-olds and
2-year-olds can do that to a person. Long walks and bike rides and drives and
early morning shopping trips are good ways to keep from going too crazy, I’ve
found. Following are a few paragraphs of my experience with this pandemic so
far.
I’m listing to church. My mind
pictures the one family singing, staring out over the sea of empty benches. A
handful of people where usually there are over a hundred milling about or
listening quietly to the sermon. And here we are. Listening from our own homes,
our own couches, in everyday clothes and bare feet. Sure, maybe the first
Sunday was novel. We didn’t have to scramble to get lunch in the oven and
breakfast eaten and the drive to church driven before 10:00. The second Sunday
was ok but by the third Sunday I was definitely ready to go back to church. It
doesn’t feel quite right listening from home in our short sleeves and bare feet. As
of today it’s been 6 Sundays.
Since socializing has been
prohibited my cousin has made our home his second home. This is a win/win all
around as he lives in town and doesn’t have much to do there and we need
something (someone) to keep us busy. And it’s never boring when he’s around.
Sometimes we go canoeing down the creek and after traversing under a few
bridges with only a foot of clearance underneath we disembarked ungracefully
into the deep. And trudged dripping wet and cold across a muddy field to warm
up in the truck that my dad so wonderfully brought us. Sometimes we waltz into
Walmart just before closing time the night before Easter to buy ourselves a
nice expensive Ninja blender since our old blender has only been working half
for the last few years. Sometimes we head to a local park after driving around
making valiant but failed attempts to find potato wedges at the numerous
Timmy’s in town and we spend an hour or so acting like kids, rolling down hills
and climbing trees and generally making fools of ourselves to anyone watching, nobody
was watching. If all else fails and we can’t find anything else interesting to
do we head upstairs and play endless rounds of ping pong, trying out left hands
and spins and spikes. I’d like to say I’ll be a pro at ping pong when we can start
getting together and playing ping pong again but in reality I won’t be.
Near the beginning of this whole
staying-at-home, not-being in physical-contact-with-people deal I was chatting
with a friend who kinda shares the staying-at-home, not-being-in-physical-contact-with-many-people
mentality with me in normal life, I made the comment that I didn’t think I’d
get very bored staying at home. I was wrong. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not dying
for human contact (meaning other than family) so much that I take a drive in
town, or go to the store just to see and talk to people even if they are
strangers. There’s no danger of that, although I wouldn’t mind seeing my
friends again. Sure I have a device to communicate with them but that doesn’t
take the place of actually being with them in really life. My biggest problem
has been being at home all day with nothing to do. Actually there’s lots to do.
I could cook and clean and sew and take care of kids and do all sorts of things
that I ‘don’t have time for’ normally. I do do this stuff. But I get really
bored of not having much purpose to life. I feel useless. I’d like to be back
in Gallup right now, where I know I’d be doing something to help people other
than myself. But soon it will be nice enough to start mowing lawns and working
outside and I will be a lot busier.
One evening after two, three weeks
of not seeing most of my youth friends, we met for a few minutes on a random
parking lot. Not our normal party but it was good to see my friends again. One
day after a few trying hours of uselessness I had a brainwave and the next day
saw a friend and me driving 3 hours both ways to spend a few hours at another
friend’s house. One evening I was slaving over a fire trying to cook up supper
and my device heralded me with a message from a friend inviting me over for the
evening to sit around a fire. More friends joined us and we spent the evening
chilling and being crazy and singing to a soundtrack of rippling water and
splashing logs and the natural sounds of the bush. These get-togethers have
been spread out over a few weeks, increasing as the virus forecast is slowly
looking better and better.
Excuse the scattered, contradicting
thoughts. Mistakes are rampant but I guess that makes it more interesting. I started this post a month ago and I decided it was time to just get
it posted. I've found I have more inspiration when sitting at the computer than
typing on my phone and I'm going to use that as an excuse. The internet has
been down some, this computer can be very stubborn and slow sometimes and often
is being used for business purposes by my Dad. So now a lot of this is old news. Boring. Already life is beginning to change and we're becoming more social. Life is becoming normal again.