MFG and I get together in the morning on some days. He's one of the few who will tolerate this for video chats. Everyone wants happy hours and evening game nights. By then, I'm exhausted if I've been having a quietly productive day or I'm about to be completely exhausted from whatever fresh hell Jow brings in through the door - money missing from his paychecks (yes friends! This is how we treat our heroes!), food poisoning that he gave to both of us when he cooked dinner one night on his day off (but both he and his doctor are positive is the virus - Spoiler: it was not, as the test indicated), an accidental needle stick and sometimes, just too much death for him to take in.
Lately, they've been sending patients home mostly. But it wasn't like that a few weeks ago. A few weeks ago, it ranged from the so absurd it became hilarious to so fucking sad I didn't know what to say.
I don't often want to get together in the evening. At the very least, Jow comes home sometime between 4-7p which is a really wide variable when you're trying to map out your own day and when to make dinner but we follow protocol and I usually keep him company while he does that so by the time he's done with protocol and I've put dinner on the table and sometimes we have a half hour to talk to each other, it's time to do it all again. This is made a bit easier by all the thoughtful gifts left on our doorstep by loved ones - sometimes cookies, sometimes stew, sometimes cards, sometimes champagne, sometimes flowers, sometimes masks, sometimes talismans.
MFG will take tea with me early though, which is good because having verbal interaction is probably good for me. I've noticed over tea and livestreams that my throat now hurts a little after an hour from talking so much (which PastDeb would find hilarious) He noted that I seemed to be flourishing during this, as he is. Guilt crosses both our faces via computer. No one is allowed to flourish right now. You are allowed to be depressed, comatose, anxious about the end of the world, bored and reacting poorly to any and all of this. You are not supposed to be all, game on muthafucka!
He said that I am like a giant squid on the bottom of the ocean that you can only catch a glimpse of through a glass that makes me look smaller. I look like a squid who could fit herself into a mason jar very neatly in my regular life. In the apocalypse? I'm a goddamn eldritch being shrieking, be not afraid!
I said this morning that I'm stretching my tentacles, so to speak. And I am. I'm still anxious of course. Like, that doesn't magically go away. But I've also never had this much time to myself. I was in school from the age of four to twenty-two and I had part time to full time jobs of various levels since I was twelve. Summer off was not a thing, really. Even when I had a brief bout of full time unemployment, I was a content writer and when that annoyed me too much I became a nanny because I was making myself crazy. At first I was just screaming, you're garbage! to myself all day and accomplishing very little.
And then I started stretching out.
While my brain does still scream about the pandemic or whatever fresh hell is going on for Jow as a nurse for one of our state's virus step down units, it has stopped screaming about many of the things it normally screams about. Being forced to massively simplify life has done that. I've learned that I'm really good at foraging and meal planning. I've learned to appreciate different parks. I've gotten back to enjoying cooking and keeping the house in order. I'm starting to try to learn to listen to my body's cues again. I find when I'm not in a constant state of being completely overwhelmed, it's easier. I realized I did a long walk well a few days ago because I was wearing ankle boots. I kept thinking if I just walked more, my ankles would become strong. But they never have. I don't know why it's taken me until now to then consider, perhaps when I'm taking an extended walk, I should wear ankle supports. Probably getting some to have is the key first step there.
I also feel more myself, I'm stepping forward into my inner Emma more, so to speak (now with deep sea tentacles!). Not quite match making (though Jow will tell you that all that's keeping me from running a successful version of Married at First Sight is obtaining a few binders), but brainstorming, lending support, coming up with plans, advising people about stepping forward to the things they want, running interference in familial squabbles, keeping loved one's spirits up, offering other perspectives for sticky situations, organizing this new daily life, listening to research books, centering myself in gratitude, moving my body almost every day. When I don't move my body, I'm so much more anxious and depressed. When my lips are chapped and I have roots, I'm often more depressed. When I don't put effort into what to wear, I'm often more depressed. So I'm trying to do those things more. I bought a basting brush for my Overtone and that's been working out really nicely.
I find myself enmeshed in simple rituals. I had the nicest Beltane I've had in recent years because usually I'm exhausted from tax season and I still frankly want to die. This year, I did a livestream making one of my best floral crowns to date. I pranced around outside in it for a little while. I gave our very fancy black madonna a jaunty May crown. I made a bouquet of flowers. I made dinner with spring flavors - baked brie with Sicilian marmalade and acacia honey with fresh pears and challah, roasted fresh asparagus, hollandaise sauce, grilled lamb, cauliflower gnocchi, cinnamon bread with creamy berry gelato and May wine that I infused.
But there's no way around the fact that death doesn't take break. Not for Miss Spice's stepdad when this first started. She ran up to see him and to organize a simple burial with her mom and to stay with her mom until some of the shock had passed. Not for G's mom. The inability to do much of anything is terrible right now. You can't go to a service, you can't run to their house to drop off a casserole, you can't even take your loved ones out for drinks so they can catch their breath. It's frustrating af to have your hands tied.
Since G. lives locally, I dragged her out of her house. I lost my dad when I was eighteen, I can't imagine having no respite right now. But that's what's happening - birthdays, deaths, Mother's Day, it all keeps marching forward. When we got our park privileges back -
You have to understand. We're one of the hardest hit in the country. It can be hard to wrap your head around all this when you aren't physically seeing it happen at your door. But I do. That's my lens. With Jow having his hands in it literally every day there's no way for me to be like, oh this is no big deal. It's changing the shape of the world, so that's a pretty fucking big deal. Am I personally afraid to go to stores that are open or parks? Not when the simple act of my husband coming home every night is a bigger risk, honestly. I wear my mask, I wash my mask regularly, I wash my hands, I take the proper precautions. But even if I never left the house, Jow brings home that risk every night. We live in a tiny rabbit burrow. There's no way for me to avoid this.
The beaches reopened, officially. The boardwalks too. The benches are taped up, you're supposed to surf or walk and keep it moving. I have found that if you are willing to go early in the day, it's not very crowded. Many people are working from home or home schooling their kids. Most people don't want to get up early on the weekends. It's not very crowded anywhere early. Going to the beach felt forbidden. Too much joy! No one is allowed a moment's respite. Not from grief, not from the virus. But I know intimately how needed it is to function in the face of grief. And how sharp that joy is to remind you that you're still breathing air. When my dad died, my friends took me out shopping and cut school with me so I didn't have to sit through class all day and instead we could drive with the top down and eat fries at lunch and try on short skirts. It sounds frivolous af and it is. But so is life. And you need that balance in grief to keep yourself upright. I coaxed G. out, the next day it would be raining. She said she could go but only if we left then. I can smash and grab as good as the next person, so I found two small bottles of rum from the freezer for the Ocean Mama and stopped at the store to pick up flower offerings, vitamins that I've been bothering G. to take and the fairy cookies I loved for her to eat. It was nice driving down route 18