My family got through the worst of the pandemic the way most families did. We used every resource we could imagine to stay safe and to stay sane.
In a crisis, you want me in your foxhole. I keep my wits about me. I am Dependable. I come up with Creative Solutions. And then when the crisis is over, I go off in a corner and curl up.
As part of my being dependable, I helped my grandchildren, then-third-and-fourth-graders, with their school Zoom classes. What those teachers accomplished in that stupid Brady Bunch arrangement was incredible. For all the people for whom the pandemic truly sucked, I figured being a young teacher with children at home trying to teach a classroom of young children via Zoom had to be the single most challenging role. As a college professor, I at least was dealing with mostly grownups. I admired what my grandkids’ teachers did, though there was one day when the connection was iffy and we decided to turn off the computer and scream for five minutes to get our frustrations out.
That actually helped. We screamed and I timed it, and then we logged back on ready to tackle language arts.
On some weekends, I’d bring the grandtwins to my house to give them a change of venue. Sometimes both would come, sometimes only one. One weekend, it was the artistic girl-child and while we were painting and drawing, we decided the street needed decorating. So we wrote the above message in front of my driveway and the girl drew a smiling face.
This was back when the roads were mostly clear and you never had to worry about a crowd because there weren’t any — at least not in my world. A few weeks later, I was in the yard and a neighbor asked if we were allowed to paint on the street. I said yes. As no authorities had come to tell me otherwise, we were allowed. I have driven over that message for a few years now and every time I look at it, I smile.
We got word recently that they’re paving my street, and with it will go one marker of a benighted time. It’s OK. I don’t need the reminder of two tough little kids who got through a difficult time with humor and grace, because they used every resource they had and some they didn’t know they had.
Happy Monday. LFG.
I have a daily reminder of it as it totally upended and changed our lives. We were fortunate to not have lost anyone to that insidious disease, but our post-COVID life is very different. It messed with my head in a big way. One thing's for sure, we will not be wanting for cleaning supplies, paper products, and toiletries as I now keep LOTS of that on hand. As for teachers... a friend of mine, a high school art teacher, was sharing tales of how to teach art classes remotely without being able to get them supplies for projects. Fortunately, social media teacher groups were all over each other providing suggestions. "Let's see... gather your dirty laundry. Arrange it to make a portrait with it." My favorite though, was doing an interview with a random object found at home. She got that idea from an app called "Everything is Alive". You should try to get a picture and you and your granddaughter with that piece of art before they "pave paradise [and put up a parking lot]".
We have not even started to understand how that time affected us individually and collectively. Just as we have not understood so many other events and times. It will play out in our psychology and physiology and science and medicine will study us someday. They will find us quite interesting I think.
Thank you Susan. I still have a box of masks in the closet by the front door and some food put by in the pantry.