Post-pandemic re-entry has all of us facing the same horrible question: What have you been up to? My standard answer – “Oh, you know. The usual.” – might not work. How can you sum up 14 months of – whatever it’s been – in the answer to one question? Maybe I’ll just print this and hand it out.
When I thought it might last a few weeks, I filled two gigantic scrapbooks with family photos and painted a bathroom. When I realized it wasn’t ending anytime soon, I painted the bedroom our sons grew up in, touched up the trim in our daughter’s old room and did a thrifty redo of the furniture in both rooms. I painted the basement, ripped out the carpet with a friend’s help and updated the furnishings, largely by “shopping” our garage loft.
I should point out that I am not a homebody. I don’t love redoing rooms or hanging around at home. That’s why I ran 1,000 pandemic miles, including three versions of one virtual half marathon, and spent some long, dark evenings outlining cross-country road trips. On a glorious fall weekend, I went on my first backpacking trip in a few years, courtesy of our son the trip leader.
Ed and I partied with family in our daughter and soon-to-be son-in-law’s garage. We marked milestones from the appropriate distance: our younger son’s grad school graduation, some new jobs and related moves. At the same time, I missed our Seattle-area son and his partner with an ache that won’t go away until I see them again.
I finished reading The Lord of the Rings for the first time. I watched one eight-part series and two movies, more than I usually sit through in 14 months.
I cooked a lot. The new meal that emerged as the star was crunchy baked cod with homemade tartar sauce, New York City Marathon winner Shalane Flanagan’s red cabbage slaw and the best sweet potato fries I’ve ever made.
Except for the intense, early months of the shutdown, I kept up with my post-retirement mentoring job. I lost two freelance writing gigs when everything was canceled, then bounced back with a part-time return to the college, which needed a temporary science writer.
I wore the same wool dress 100 days in a row and documented it to get a gift card from the company. So maybe it’s no surprise that I decided no one needs 19 women’s-cut, graphic T-shirts, and 23 short-sleeve and 18 long-sleeve synthetic shirts for outdoor adventures.
I danced, toasted and talked about books at online parties. I learned that every time a group of my women friends gathers on Zoom, one of them can’t sit still and walks around the house with her phone in her hand, making me motion sick. Another will insist on sitting outside because it’s nice where she is, even though the WIFI reception is spotty on her deck and we keep losing her. And one of them will have a husband who lurks in the background thinking he’s funny.
So, what now? Some things, it seems, do not change when pandemics begin to lose their grip. I found more photos to organize. There are always more books to read and meals to cook.
But other things do change. There are road trips that require packing snacks and getting in the car instead of just poring over maps. There’s a wedding coming up. Family and friends are moving, retiring and reuniting.
Some changes, I’d like to hang onto: less busy-ness, fewer errands and more nights in my cozy tent.
Other changes, we can only pray for. God willing, there will be no more Zoom gatherings.
Dunn Now 