I have not written in a long time, which is unfortunate for me. Writing allows me to process my thoughts and relieves anxiety. But there is so much going on right now that the thought of doing something to relieve anxiety seems as fruitful as throwing a bucket of water into the ocean to increase the depth of the sea.

To be fair, I have a long and storied history of not shying away from fruitless endeavors. Think, for instance, of the numerous perms and Sun-In experiments of the mid to late 80s. Not content with straight auburn hair, I devoted a ton of energy to curly blonde hair. God knows I tried! In the end, it was not a hairstyle that made all of my dreams come true, unless those dreams consisted of an outcropping of brittle orange-ish straw in an ugly halo around my head.

I will begin today with what I know. First, and most importantly, I am well. That has not been the case through this entire period, for I — along with my immediate family — contracted COVID-19. We all suffered a mild case, and we are forever grateful that none of us scored the three black bars on the respiratory slot machine. I thought at first that I had sinusitis, an old and formidable foe, but when I lost my ability to taste and smell about five days later, I thought, “Oh no.” (Full disclosure: This is an edited and sanitized version of what I actually thought.)

If you have not had the test, I will tell you that it is both painless and incredibly uncomfortable, involving a tech’s attempt to scratch your prefrontal cortex through each nostril while using a long-handled mascara spoolie. The chair in which I sat had a straight and unforgiving back, and I found my attempts to flinch away through the wall behind me mightily thwarted by the chair’s design.

I will offer these observations:

1. First: If you receive great comfort by having your temperature checked as a precondition to entry, this may be a false comfort. We never ran fevers.
2. Second: I nonetheless still take great comfort when someone takes my temperature as a precondition to entry.
3. Third: Wear a mask and follow CDC guidelines. By doing so, we were able to keep it entirely in the family — just like embarrassing baby photos, spectacular meltdowns, and certain instances of bad behavior.
4. Fourth: By keeping it in the family, the very few people we had to tell were people we really like. The only worse thing than waiting for your own test results is waiting for the test results of those people. Fortunately, they tested negative. They still really like us.
5. Fifth: No one — and I repeat, NO ONE — wants to hear the words “surprise” and “COVID” in the same sentence. Trust me.
6. Sixth: When you lack taste and smell, you do not want to eat. When you do not want to eat, you lose weight.
7. Seventh: The science suggests that the virus compromises the cells supporting taste and smell, not the actual taste and smell cells themselves. These senses return. So does the weight.

But before all of this and the excitement of self-quarantine, I had yet another colonoscopy, the frequency of which is a bona fide booby prize of colon cancer. (For those keeping score, it was my third colonoscopy in 18 months.) As it turns out, I had nodules at the site where the two ends of my colon had been surgically rejoined, and despite all of the assurances of my gastroenterologist that a biopsy would almost certainly be normal, I went into Dr. Google overdrive. If a colonoscopy is merely inconvenient after cancer, a biopsy is terrifying. The worst case scenario of this one, at least according to my on-the-hoof online medical education, was that the two purportedly healthy ends of my colon had actually been eaten up with cancer on the molecular level, meaning that my colon was a time bomb waiting to end my life in a few short years.

I fretted like crazy.

For no good reason.

But I did walk away with diagnoses of a couple of chronic conditions that could be treated with diet and exercise — which prompted the unthinkable: I now cook.

My years of not-cooking have not been a subtle way of metaphorically shooting the bird at the patriarchy. Not at all. The sad truth (and one that has largely been kept entirely within the family) is that I am, or at least have been, a terrible cook. I cooked some when we first got married until Chris practically begged me to leave the cooking to him.

(Am I crazy? Like a fox, my friends. LIKE A FOX.)

Leaving the cooking to Chris seemed like a good idea. My mother loved to cook — albeit with the slogan that “Everything’s better with Blue Bonnet on it!” — and I grew out of childhood with the far reaches of my vegetable universe’s being bounded by canned green beans and corn. Even if Chris does not salute the undeniable pleasure of a handful of Cheez-Its, he is a wonderful cook, and I now have the taste buds of a grown-up.

But with Chris’ cooking dinner, asking him to make lunches, too, seemed monumentally unfair. So I have set aside Sunday afternoons to prepare two or three lunches for the week. Today we had tabbouleh, a word I never once said growing up in Moultrie:

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I will grudgingly admit that I have come to like the fruits of cooking, namely the enjoyment of a lovingly made meal in the middle of the workday. That — and frequent and now (finally!) moderate exercise — feel like flowers placed on the altar of the body.

It is not the same body as it was five, ten, fifteen years ago, and since I last wrote, I have cleaned out my closet. There was no half-cocked “cleaning” like I have done in the past, mind you: This time, I bid farewell to clothes that no longer fit or suited who I am now. When you are self-quarantined with a virus in a pandemic, clutching tightly the perfect size 6 Nanette Lepore cream boucle skirt with Chanel-type styling no longer seems that important.

Actually, that sentence makes it seem that important. (Alas! It is gone.)

A few years ago I listened to an interview with a couple of professional organizers, who opined that people have trouble letting go of things because those things often reflect the person that they still want to be. Closets thus become treacherous battlegrounds between one’s current and ideal circumstances. I get that, for I have held on to so many objects for dear life. But I usually feel these days like the person I want to be. I credit the clothes I make: They fit me so well, both physically and psychically. And now I have dozens of empty hangers, the motivation to continue making clothes, and the lightness of not being overwhelmed when I get dressed in the morning.

I do not dress much like a lawyer most mornings these days, for there is no court, and I now rarely see my clients face-to-face. These are the people whom I typically advise that while they may find themselves in a situation in which they do not want to be, they would be colossal idiots not to reflect and learn. I have been trying to do this myself over the last few months. There is the food, yes, and the letting go, and the spending less, and the near-constant self-reflection that accompanies having plenty of time on one’s hands.

The self-reflection has not always been a good thing, and it was not on my birthday a few weeks ago. I was grateful to make it another year against all apparent odds (as it sometimes feels), yet the crushing fatigue of isolation and worry left a bitter taste in my mouth.

If you were to hold my phone and scroll through is photographs (which simply is not going to happen in a pandemic), you would see so many pictures of hydrangea. I dismissed them as old lady flowers when I was young, which perhaps explains why I like and photograph them so much now. I love that they are like a litmus strip in the dirt, where they change colors to reflect basic or acidic soil, and that they can survive a walloping in the heat and humidity, flagging at times but erupting with enormous and extravagant blooms. I finally finished my large hydrangea painting and had arranged to sell it, and then Chris said he would rather me hold onto it. Why? The painting is his favorite. Thanks to an understanding buyer, it remains with us.

The day after my birthday, I woke with a sense that it was time to channel my inner hydrangea: To adapt to the soil, accept the beat-downs from the sun, and blossom extravagantly nonetheless. But what to wear?

I often find that purchasing fabric and sewing are two entirely different pursuits. I worry that my nicest and favorite fabrics will be relegated to the markdown table at my estate sale, ultimately to be tossed furtively in a Goodwill bin by a child praying desperately not to be haunted by the ghost of mom. So I did it. I cut into my favorite fabric (a crazy oversized red zinnia print from a Finnish designer) and made a dress that I had absolutely nowhere to wear. I added accessories, all of which made the cut during the closet purge, and I spritzed myself with perfume. In the golden hour with the finest light quality of the entire day, I walked into the park across my street and made Chris take my birthday photo. And in the few minutes of dressing, sliding on bangles, stepping into my shoes, tossing my hair, and cheesing it up for the camera, I felt positively joyous. I think you can tell.

It was a good feeling, but a fleeting one. I have felt so worn down by everything, a long haul with an even longer haul ahead. It is hard to keep my spirits up during this never-ending slog. But there are things I can do, and I just need to keep doing them. Write. Reach out. Wear a mask. Eat well. Let go. Paint. Cut the good fabric. Hone my strength and resilience. And when all else fails, toss on a fabulous dress and yellow patent loafers, enjoy the clink presented by an armful of wooden bracelets, finally catch a whiff of my favorite perfume, and pretend.

This won’t last forever.

ALC