If you want to scare your husband, I recommend that you tell him that you and your daughter are driving three hours in the rain to a trailer park, where you intend to meet a strange man to look at a puppy that you saw on Craigslist.

Trust me. It works. I speak from experience, for that is the conversation that Chris and I had last month.

So with a perfectly reasonable explanation (“in case they find our bodies hacked into bits”), I handed Chris a small green post-it note with a street address, a lot number, and the man’s ubiquitous first name. With that, our daughter Squirrel and I loaded into the car, with a promise to return by dinner.

There is no force on earth that exerts the pull of a puppy in the heart of one who desperately wants a dog. Our daughter — after an indifferent time as a high school student — spent a few years clearing trails through the wilds of Montana and then Arizona, only to return home with a fire in her academic belly. While her grades have been great, her spirit has flagged during this extended period of isolation. Her biggest solace has been Emmet, who currently is edging out the dishwasher as the real MVP of the pandemic.

(Spoiler alert: We survived. And when we arrived, the seller had other family members in the home to monitor the transaction; apparently he, too, had his Craigslist-based concerns.)

The puppy — a 14-month old standard poodle now named Nora — was one of seven dogs in the home, a pack that included two of her puppies. She had been crated with an intact male, only to find herself pregnant at nine months old during her first heat. I think the owner thought that we wanted to breed her, for he touted her abilities as a mother and assured us that the reason she had only two puppies was because she was so young. When the Squirrel and I walked out of the house to discuss whether she wanted the dog, we had to carefully keep Nora inside: The dog clearly had made up her mind. Watching us from behind the storm door, Nora looked for all the world like a small-town girl in a Journey song, a dog willing to take the red sedan to anywhere. I don’t know how a dog managed to look like she had her bags packed, but she did.

When we paid our money, the seller told us that we had gotten a good dog. I mentioned that she was going home with a good person — the Squirrel — as a reward for good grades. The 17 year-old girl in the house, the one holding an infant, asked if she could get a puppy if she made good grades. Someone replied that she had already gotten that baby for high school graduation.

With that, we loaded our own young mother into the car and drove back to Savannah. Over the next few weeks, we discovered that Nora had worms; nails so long that she could not stand correctly; and the soft, smooth paw pads of a newborn puppy. She could not stand correctly or walk for any length of time on a leash without hurting her feet. She needed to be groomed and spayed and conditioned to walk outside and housebroken. (One bright side: Despite all the nicotine exposure in her former home, Nora did not need The Patch.)

Even as a dog who apparently had been kept inside and possibly crated almost all of that time, she has such a sweet disposition.

Emmet, Nora’s new uncle-brother, promptly showed her how to beg for food.

It was a relief to have one happy child.

But you’re only as happy as your unhappiest child, and I still had a son to contend with.

Chris and I had been unabashedly joyous empty nesters for a few years before COVID hit. Now, we have had at least one child at home since March, and the children seem to pass the happiness baton back and forth. I don’t think we are bad parents: We feed them, we love them, we support them. It’s just that they’ve had a taste of the good life by living on their own, secure in their situations with a parental credit card in their pockets just in case. (We have too, albeit without the parental credit card.)

So on one hand: The Squirrel went back to school with her own dog in a small house in Athens. On the other hand: Our son’s Peace Corps plans fell through due to the pandemic, and his apartment lease ended in late July — leaving him at home with his parents, looking for work under their steely gazes, and unhappily catching up on “Wheel of Fortune” re-runs. He lives on his own floor of the house, in the converted attic, and just to reinforce the feeling that he had descended into hell, the roof sprang a leak over his bed in late July, and his air conditioner gave out in late August.

The roof should have been easy. On a Sunday afternoon Chris opened a window, walked out a third floor dormer onto a flat roof, and then climbed carefully onto the sloped roof to reach the top of the house. While he was up there, he thought he saw something. And then he was sure he saw something, for Emmet nosed him. Once you realize that a 52-pound standard poodle is standing on a third-floor roof to assist in roof repairs, it is apparently impossible to complete those roof repairs. Being far cooler than I, Chris acted like it was no big deal to have the family pet 30 feet up, and he sauntered back down the roof, onto the flat roof, and through the open window, with Emmet happily beside him every step of the way.

But everything got fixed in our son’s room. And then everything got fixed on his employment horizon: He has been offered a job in Philadelphia. He starts in a few weeks, which in his estimation is not nearly soon enough.

For a brief moment, I had two happy children.

Then I decided to try a different dog groomer. Emmet’s old groomer made him feel like a million bucks. He would walk out looking like the opening sequence of “Saturday Night Fever,” pausing for passers-by to tell him how handsome he looked. But being an utter idiot, I decided to try someone new — a groomer uniformly recommended on Facebook.

I knew better, but I did.

I went into shock when I saw the dog. I cannot describe how he looked other than to say that he was shaved in places that a dog should not be shaved, including his tail. Emmet hid from me for three solid days, and for the first 24 hours, tears welled up every time I looked at him.

Even worse, I went into Full Southern Woman Overdrive when I picked him up. This is a principle that compels me to act like everything is fine — JUST FINE — when confronted by a situation where it most certainly is not. So barely able to speak, I paid, tipped, and scheduled the next appointment. Which I still need to cancel.

So there I was. Back again with an unhappy child.

My sister reminds me that we all get bad haircuts. She did: When she was 9, our mother read a magazine article saying that if you gathered your child’s hair into a ponytail and cut it off just above the elastic, it would fall into beautiful layers. This was a lie. A tremendous and vicious lie. My sister’s hair would have looked better if she cut it herself. And our mother — who knew it — cried.

I suspect that Full Southern Woman Overdrive describes my approach to this entire pandemic. Are things fine? Most certainly not. I had fallen completely out of practice in hands-on mothering, with tying my own moods to the ebb and flow of ever-present young (and now typically irritated) adults. I had forgotten how it felt to add their boulders to the own bag of rocks that I carry, and I had been blissfully ignorant of exactly how much it costs to keep a tall 22 year-old man well-fed. (Don’t even ask.) I miss occupying all the space I want in my own home, Chris’ undivided attention, and setting completely my own schedule. I have been trying awfully hard not to let on, but now you know.

I find that I miss other things, too. Like my daughter, who is now four hours away. And no doubt I will miss my son when he is a plane ride away. They are mine, and I am theirs, and rather than try to force ourselves into the old roles, we all need to make way for the new.

Like a second puppy! You know, a sister for Emmet to reward him for his help in weathering the storm!

Chris, alas, says no. He suggests that happy children moving on with their own lives and the return of small but tasty dinners for two will do the trick.

No doubt he is right.

But I still want a puppy.

ALC

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:

• 

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

A few weeks ago, on a random Wednesday morning, I selected from the closet a navy skirt with green apples on it. It was the first time I’d worn it since the spring of last year, and as I held the hanger in my hand, I grappled with the question that changing seasons always brings: Will it still fit?

I wish that warm weather brought even better questions, like: How many times will I walk on the beach next to someone I love? Or this: Will I sit in the backyard under the stars, talking late into the night with dear friends as cicadas whir? Or even: Will I get a slight sprinkling of freckles across my nose and onto my cheeks, so that when I look into the mirror, I can catch of a glimpse of my face as a little girl?

But no. It is a truth universally acknowledged that a woman pushing 52 views last season’s clothes with a bit of distrust, a potential let-down hanging innocently from a slender hook. So I will allow that this skirt — purchased around 2005 in a size that would make me hot-foot it far down the rack — actually fit. And right in the middle of my closet, I did a little dance, a little raise-the-roof combined with a little hip-shimmy. No matter that the waist was a little higher, the hips a little tighter than last year. It fit.

I remember that that began a particularly good day, although for the life of me, I cannot remember why. I think that was the day that I received in the mail a doctor’s appointment postcard I had addressed to myself. I had no memory of what led to this decision, but that was just fine:

That may have been the day I shopped a trifecta at the grocery store: toilet paper, hand sanitizer, disinfectant wipes.

I am certain that it was a few days after my daughter’s 21st birthday, a celebration that her friends made particularly meaningful with socially distant plans — even though her brother forgot to wake her up for the parade outside her window at 11:30 that morning. There was no fancy dinner, elaborate cake, and good manners out, just a lovingly prepared meal, a heart-shaped cookie, and fairly hilarious discussion in. This picture captures the mood:

And I think the day that I remember was the very day that my son took his last college exam in the empty office next to mine, and then let out a war-whoop and gave me a hug.

Life has gone on. While I have spent so much time fretting over the last 10 weeks, some things are undeniable. I have a wonderful family. I have a home. I have a job. I have plenty of food. I have lost no one I love to this virus. While the celebrations are very different, they are still celebrations.

It all got a little easier for me on that random Wednesday, for that may have been the exact day that I listened to a podcast discussing how people with lonely childhoods tend to fare better in the pandemic. I have parents who love me very much, and I never wanted for anything, but I am not kidding when I tell you that I had an awkward phase that lasted from age 10 until age 45. I remember feeling terribly isolated during the endless days of summer, with the only decision to make was whether to stay in the house or venture outside. Left to my own devices and with few distractions in the sweltering summer heat of small town Georgia, the days drug on and on and on.

Uncertainty is the pits, so when I realized that I had been in the middle of something like this before, it got a whole lot better. I outgrew those summers, and I will make it through this. But I will give those long summers something: They forced me to develop a rich inner life, which I suppose is the person I’m still trying to develop today.

My grandparents survived the Great Depression, a fact especially apparent every time I visited one of their homes. My grandmother would never throw away any empty yellow plastic tub of margarine, for there was always one more use to get from it. This irritated me as a child, for if I opened the wrong cabinet too quickly, the tubs would rain down on my head and clatter onto the floor. She made up for the occasional sneak attack by leaving out a plate of extra bacon strips every day during our visits, a fact that my younger brother and I still speak of with awe: There was bacon, on the counter, available for consumption without the requirement of frying or parental permission. We lived high on the hog indeed.

I can now sense the beginnings of my own yellow tub obsession. To recap my last six years: I survived the very bottom of the U-curve of human happiness, only to have a cancer diagnosis. I survived a cancer diagnosis, only to find myself in a global pandemic. Whether due to fear, uncertainty, anticipated need, or merely an empty cabinet, I find myself holding tightly onto my family, my friends, my dog, my savings, my creative endeavors. I have lost the drive to take over the world. I now think it’s a great day when the little food pantry down the street is filled or when I can look at a blank canvas, envision what I want to paint, and rush it with a brush and pigment, delighted to embrace an old friend.

This will be an odd summer, to be sure, and it may be an odder fall still. And I think I asked myself the right questions earlier. There will be beach walks, and friends, and stars, and cicadas, and freckles. There may be physical distance, but there will be emotional closeness. I continue to walk fast, then faster, past the person I was ten or 15 years ago, a person who had no real idea of what was important.

If that person saw me now, would she even recognize me? I like to think so. If nothing else, I can wear the same skirt, the navy one with the green apples on it. And that counts for something these days, too.

ALC

Emmet’s favorite window in the house is the one in the foyer at the bottom of the stairs. My series of photographs of him at that window function like a growth chart; see his size as he defends the house against the next-door neighbor, a mail carrier, and dogs on leashes who are cheeky enough to walk by. It is at this window that I have painted him. And it is at this window that I begin to wake up the house every single morning, pulling up the blinds and assessing the day that awaits.

On Sunday morning, Emmet and I padded down the stairs, and through the lights beside the front door I saw where the squirrels had once again been digging in the front planters. As I pulled up the blind on the foyer window, I was immediately greeted by a squirrel on the fence post. With a certain degree of irritation, I rapped the window’s glass with my knuckles and watched the squirrel leave.

This was not enough for Emmet, who clearly wanted to reinforce the idea that the squirrel should not tarry. As soon as my knuckles left the glass, the dog lurched forward with an MMA-worthy punch that cleanly knocked a large semi-circle of glass right out of the pane. It was like a cartoon. The dog, who was not hurt, stepped back in wonder as I involuntarily yelped. Together we surveyed the damage as I told Emmet that this was coming out of his allowance.

Emmet learned how to punch from play-fighting with his human brother. These fights had been fun, complete with a lot of growling and tail-wagging, until Emmet learned the secret of felling a male opponent four times his weight. At first it seemed like an accident, and then I watched him sail across the living room rug in a canine karate pose, much like Hong Kong Phooey in the 70s Hanna-Barbera cartoon, and after the fourth KO, the play-fights suddenly ended.

It was not a moment too soon for my son, for in addition to hoping to have a family one day, he began to experience terrible mouth pain. He is recovering from oral surgery that occurred at 9:30 this morning, and if you have ever had your wisdom teeth removed, no doubt that you are involuntarily cupping your jaw as you read this. Sadly this is the first of two dental procedures on his slate, and to make matters even worse, he has final exams next week.

Even in near-isolation, life goes on.

At the end of last week, the state of Georgia famously opened some businesses: beauty parlors, nail salons, bowling alleys, gyms. Also opening was Emmet’s daycare, a once-a-week treat for a dog as spoiled as he is active. His daycare is well-managed and careful, with low employee turnover and great customer service. It is a business that has thrived, and until a pandemic hit, its biggest concern was whether it would beat a rival doggie daycare in the newspaper’s annual Best of Savannah polling. The owner sent a message that a limited reopening was the only way to keep her shop in business and her staff at least partially employed. So with a new protocol for drop-off and pick-up permitting zero human-to-human contact, it reopened.

In normal times, the owner works at a desk; the employees take active management of the dogs. But last week, when I picked up Emmet there she was: hands-on, thinner (and not in a good way), and stressed. That I continued to work almost normally seemed a tremendous luxury.

There have been things that I have not minded about the quarantine. I have genuinely enjoyed a quieter life. I am spending less and driving less, and there is time to tackle the yard, the closets, the unmade curtains. It has been a pleasure to see my neighbors out walking, yelling hellos across the street and waving. A woman with two small dogs — strangers to me, all of them — blows me a kiss every time she sees me with Emmet. I like having clear priorities: When this ends, I want to see my friends and family, occasionally eat fine meals in good restaurants, and travel.

But through it all — the punching dog, the dental woes of my son, the sadness I felt for the daycare’s owner — this week has been a good one. This week I got tired of feeling helpless. There is a saying that I love, that I first heard when I was a baby lawyer: When you don’t know what to do, do something. So I did.

In gratitude for our firm’s clients, I made a donation to Second Harvest Food Bank.

Looking for the satisfaction of doing something on a micro-level, I began buying groceries to stock a small food cupboard a few blocks from my home.

I told the daycare owner not to charge my prepaid punch card, but allow me to pay for these sessions and hold onto my punch visits.

I bought yarn that I did not need from both of the local yarn stores.

I gave a pansy painting to a friend, since every time I looked at it I thought of her.

I baked banana-versary bread to celebrate some friends’ wedding anniversary.

I sewed masks for my mother-in-law, my brother, and his wife.

I reached out to a different friend every day, whether by a porch visit, a text, or a call.

I dusted off my Good Habits Checklist and got back to work on my own good health.

These are small steps, but to be fair, the only person that I can change is myself. Sure, I am doing this to make myself feel better. But it’s still kindness, even if it has an ulterior motive.

I saw the power of thinking small when Emmet and I walked this morning. There is a high school a few blocks from my house, and over the past week, I have seen parents decorating the chain link fence that surrounds it with pictures of their children who are graduating this year. Today there was a parade of decorated cars that stretched for four blocks, and I followed the line to its terminus: the high school. Assembled in front was a group — probably teachers — holding signs, yelling, and applauding for all of the students in the cars.

As the cars passed me I raised my hands and clapped, and the drivers honked. It all about made me cry, but I knew that if I started, it would be ugly — a torrential downpour of six weeks worth of tears.

But I held it together. There is the overwhelming specter of the virus, and there are punching dogs who prey on larger opponents desperately in need of dental work. There are fissures and divisions and uncertainty. But there is community, and compassion, and plenty of small acts of kindness that still need to be done. Since I have some time on my hands, that is what I will do. The closets can wait.

ALC

When the children lived at home, Chris and I were committed Publix shoppers. But when they fled the nest, we changed our allegiance to Whole Foods. Don’t worry: We make fun of ourselves. We call it “Whole Paycheck” and wonder exactly how much it costs to achieve a well-lighted warehouse-type space that looks both frugal and expensive. I ultimately embraced this change due to the homemade Biscoff gelato sold at the coffee bar, for a single scoop keeps me from a Price Is Right-like running commentary about the relative costs of the same items at both stores. As an added bonus, getting a treat at the grocery store reminds me of how my mother would buy me a little red circus box of animal crackers on our own shopping trips, a shameless bribe to keep the child version of me well-behaved and engaged in happily biting the heads off of hapless tigers. (I apparently have a pretty low price tag, and it is comforting to know that some things never change.)

If you have ever shopped at Whole Foods — or, as the store probably puts it, enjoyed the Whole Foods experience — you will understand the importance of bringing your own shopping bags. Years ago, as a devoted Publix shopper, I made my own shopping bags out of leftover brightly-colored fabric, and in addition to being washable and sturdy, the bags bring me pleasure. They are happiness with two straps. Luckily for me, Whole Foods pays you to bring your own bags, and the day when one of its clerks told me that they were the greatest grocery bags she’d ever seen, I felt like I had won the Olympics. (Perhaps that was just the sugar high from the gelato kicking in. Who knows?)

Apparently forgetting that the children were home, Chris and I went to Whole Foods yesterday for groceries. There was no gelato. Instead, at checkout there was a clerk in a mask separated by a giant Plexiglass shield, and as I went to place my bags on the conveyor belt, she yelled at me. “I CANNOT TOUCH YOUR BAGS. DO NOT PUT THEM ON THE BELT!” She yelled at me so loudly, so vociferously, and so unexpectedly that I actually startled and jumped slightly. When she saw my reaction, she softened: She didn’t mean to scare me. (Or at least that’s what I think she said. I couldn’t quite understand her through the mask that covered her mouth but not her nose.)

This is, of course, an understandable rule. I just wish either I had thought of it, or Whole Foods had warned me with an expensive sign. (Yes, Whole Foods corporate has sprung into action with a whole lot of professionally and tastefully printed placards, stickers, and warning signs, while humble Publix has resorted to blue taped Xs and arrows indicating aisle flow and store-printed signs all over the place.)

Just when I think I have fallen into the new normal, something like this happens.

I have done my best to embrace my circumstances. Sunday afternoon was overcast, and having done a lot of gardening that morning, I declared it pajama day, watched terrible TV, and even took a nap. Sewing anything but masks seems so stupidly optimistic and beside the point right now, but I made myself complete a skirt that I had cut out, finishing just in time to wear it to Publix last week:

I have set a routine. I have even given myself leeway on that routine. (Indeed, one of the homeless men that Emmet and I walk by on our way into the empty office told me this morning that I was running late.) I bathe daily. I exercise almost every day. I eat my vegetables. I wear mostly clothes that I made, which are much happier than clothes that I buy. The garden looks bonkers.

I have given up on feeling bad for myself, mostly since my days somewhat resemble my days before the entry of the stay-at-home orders. But being an overachiever, I have compensated by feeling terrible for my children. It is dawning on me — which means it probably dawned on them several weeks ago — that there is no snappy, short-term fix to this long-term problem. I may have some anxiety and discomfort, but this situation is not plunging me into a full-fledged existential crisis. I don’t think I can say the same for them. They ask for advice, and for once, I just shrug my shoulders. I have no answers, no suggestions. I cannot do their laundry, pack their cars, and wave as they drive back to school. My usual fixes — to see things you’ve never seen before, to work a hard job that leaves you tired, to spend time with friends — are failing me. I cannot put them in a car and point them westward and tell them to see the country. At least not for now.

The closest I have come to getting into a car pointed westward was this Monday afternoon, when Chris had an appointment to see an elderly client in a remote corner of Chatham County. She needed to sign documents, and he needed me as a witness. With masks and Emmet loaded into the car, and my navigating to our destination, I saw a pull-through nursery on the right hand side of the road, shimmering like a mirage. We met with the client on her porch and shuffled papers across a wide round table and signed documents. (We let her keep the pen.) Back in the car, masks down and Miracle-Gro coursing through my veins, I very sweetly asked Chris to drive back to the nursery so that I could get some plants.

For 20 wonderful minutes, it felt like normal. I got a yellow rose and some salvia, a few Shasta daises, some Mexican sage, and a butterfly bush. It felt less normal when the owner REALLY kept her distance as I practically shouted my credit card information. On the ride home, the sun shone, the car smelled of roses, Emmet propped his head on my shoulder, and the radio played a local university station’s Jazz Cafe’ (tagline: Real Jazz for People Who Feel Jazz). It was a moment of perfect contentment.

My children have been passing the existential crisis baton, and as every mother knows, you’re only as happy as your unhappiest child. My son — who should be in his final few weeks of college right now, preparing for the rest of his life — held that baton in a death grip on Tuesday. Summoning every bit of maternal authority I could muster, I handed him a shovel and told him to start digging, and for an hour that afternoon as I barked orders, he dug up a patch of pesky liriope and moved a holly fern to a better place. We did not talk much — for what could I tell him? — and focused instead on the welcome relief of physical exhaustion.

Like a lot of things right now, a flower garden feels like a foolhardy endeavor, a bit of frivolity in a time of suffering. I am aware. But I cannot help myself. See the blossom as it cranes toward the sun, and that will tell you everything you need to know.

ALC

I went out this weekend, which is to say that I worked in the yard. Front yard, back yard, side yard: It was a veritable extravaganza of yard! My Grandma always said that your front yard is for your neighbors, and your back yard is for you, and like many things that she said, she was absolutely right.

As I worked in the front yard, neighbors streamed by, and we invariably had some variation of this exchange:

Neighbor: Hey! The yard looks great!

Me: Well, I’ve had a little time on my hands.

(Both parties chuckling and waving)

This contact buoyed me. But as I walked back into the house, I noticed this sight under one of the planters by the front door, and my blood ran cold:

In a time where casual trips to Home Depot to purchase spring plantings were out of the question, there were shredded marigold blossoms. My ornamental kale was ornamenting the porch. I raised my tiny fist of rage and shook it as I bellowed to the sky, “SQUIRREL!”

My long-time enemy was no respecter of crisis.

I love our house. Apparently squirrels do, too. What’s not for them to love? We have an enormous pecan tree in our back yard; fruit trees all around; several bird feeders and bird baths scattered about; plenty of soft, well-amended soil that makes for easy digging; and little brick ledges and fences that serve as wonderful places to perch. So shortly after moving in 20 years ago, I christened the house “Squirrel Estates.”

Every morning I pad down the stairs and open the blind in the foyer immediately to the right of the last step. This is almost always the first thing I see:

SQUIRREL!

No doubt I could put cayenne pepper in the bird seed and planters, but I don’t quite have the heart. And this weekend — after several weeks of worrying exclusively about this stupid virus — it was a pleasure and a relief to channel my irritation at a long-time foe.

It was also a pleasure and relief to be outside: the sunshine, the neighbors, the physical labor, the time to think. Mostly I thought about my Grandma. She loved to garden, worked with her husband, sewed a lot of her own clothes, and was always up for a cross-country trip.

Does this sound like anyone you know?

As I have gotten older, I wish that I had known her better. I remember mostly being dropped off at her house as a young child, when we lived close and she lived in an apartment over my grandparents’ hardware store. Grandma would bake bread with you, make cookies, allow a mess. On special occasions, she would break out her fine china — Fiestaware — and let you choose your own colors. And there were purses and jewelry to be explored.

But we moved, and I grew older, and I kind of lost her in the divorce. At my grandfather’s funeral, she told me that when she looked into my eyes, she could still see the little girl. This may have been the finest thing anyone has ever said to me. And then she passed on, too.

At 51, I find myself missing my grandmother. Like — REALLY missing my grandmother, especially when I garden. There are so many things that I want to ask her, especially now that I finally see the size of her footprint in my life. And as I get older, I see her as less of a one-dimensional character and think of her as more of a person.

This was all brought into focus for me when a long-time friend of mine lost her 99 year-old grandfather this week. How fortunate she has been to have that connection for so long. And as I trimmed the boxwood and dug up the spiderwort and exchanged pleasantries with my neighbors, I thought about my friend, too.

I probably would have left it at that, but the pandemic made me do something different. I picked up the phone, and — miracle of miracles! — I did not send a text or put a Facebook message on her wall or email her. Instead, I dialed her number.

It amazes me how much harder phone calls have become with all of the technological advances at our fingertips. This strikes me as ridiculous. I remember the days when long-distance was a carefully rationed and expensive proposition, a 25-cent per minute endeavor. I rejoiced at a phone plan in law school that allowed unlimited calling between Athens and Atlanta after 9 p.m. on weeknights for $15 per month, and how Chris would call from Atlanta after 9 p.m. and hang up after one ring. Even without caller ID available, I would know it was him and call back. I would lie on my back and twirl the cord and luxuriate in screwing over Bellsouth on a flat-rate plan.

And now I find I confine my expressions to a few words in a disappearing medium.

This cannot be.

So I called. And yesterday we spoke. In a time where everything seems so isolated, I cannot tell you how immediate and comforting it felt to hear my friend talk. As I walked the dog, we chatted easily about our grandparents and our children and ourselves. And after we had solved all of the world’s problems, she — who was working from home — announced that she planned to sneak into her garden for a few minutes, that working there reminded her of her grandfather.

We are friends for a reason, and after I ended the call, I silently wished her sunshine and good soil and only the politest of squirrels.

ALC

I really want a drink. I really want a glass from that fine bottle of bourbon high on the shelf over the refrigerator. Almost to the point that I can hear the ice clinking in the glass, smell the heady caramel aroma, and feel the knot of tension clenching my chest like a fist simply dissolve. I really want that warm Kentucky hug.

I stopped drinking in August or September of last year. It was a decision motivated by health concerns; some studies have linked alcohol consumption with cancer, including colon cancer, and since I really wasn’t supposed to have cancer the first time, I didn’t want to do anything to help myself get cancer again. I didn’t drink at all for a few months after my surgery, and when I resumed, I started to drink less and less — to the point I wondered why I was drinking at all. So I quit.

I made it through college football season. (As an SEC fan, that’s really saying something.) I made it through the holidays. (As a Savannah resident, that’s also really saying something.) I have made it with ice melting in my Coca-Cola or La Croix. I have made it as a designated driver. I have made it as a fully sober conversationalist.

I have made it. I haven’t really missed it.

And now: I really want a drink. I really want a glass from that fine bottle of bourbon high on the shelf over the refrigerator.

I haven’t. And I won’t. What’s left of my colon is safe.

This all hit so hard and so suddenly that I have a difficult time remembering even a few weeks ago when I could do things like hug my friends. I have found it hard to paint, and I have mustered only a first draft of an essential component of this pandemic:

Since it is unfinished, and perhaps will never be finished, I refer to it as “1-Ply.”

“1-Ply” was a half-hearted attempt during a binge watching of “Tiger King” with my daughter — in particular, the episode about Carole’s husband who either (take your pick) disappeared or was murdered and fed to tigers. I was stuck inside, sure, but at least I had that necessary realization that things could be worse. I have not been fed to tigers. I have not been saddled with an unfortunate mullet and a droopy eyebrow piercing. I have not resorted to writing country songs about tigers, a niche genre if ever there were one.

I have knit obsessively, to the point where my arthritic hands have forced me to expand on my two crochet lessons. This is an ever-growing market bag that will be fully washable, another practical sign of the times:

And in perhaps the most terrifying sign to my family, I have started to bake. (I do not cook, mostly due to an edict from Chris many years ago that we would all be a lot happier if he cooked.) But there were blackened bananas, and we miraculously had the ingredients, and in an hour, there was banana bread:

(I have noticed that Chris purchased six bananas at the store on Saturday, and as of Thursday, none of them have been touched. That’s enough for two loaves of banana bread this weekend. I’m no dummy.)

I am fortunate. I have a yard. I have my hobbies. I have a job. I have plenty of work to do. I have a dog. And I have my health.

But still: I kind of feel like I’m falling apart.

Hence, I really want a drink.

I have been calling my mother daily. Her health and mobility make her #1 past-time riding around in a motorized cart in big box stores and then getting lunch. Her social circle consists of a few neighbors and about a million store clerks, fast food workers, and waitresses. I have walked beside her as she drives, and it is true: She knows everyone’s story, the names of their children, and the latest crisis brewing in their extended families. It has taken a bit of evangelizing by my siblings and me to impress upon her the seriousness of what is going on, and while I like to think she is being largely compliant, there are chinks in the armor. She tells me stories of her days at home, but then things magically appear, like the off-hand reference to new plastic storage boxes in yesterday’s talk.

I have given up scolding her, and I just listen. She has become the cheese on my anxiety sandwich.

But all is not lost. My daughter is at home, and she wants to talk to me, usually as I’m trying to go to bed. We have been working on a puzzle — an incredibly savvy purchase at Target a few weeks ago — and when I try to quit, she uses her powers of persuasion to get me to puzzle just a little more. (“Power of persuasion” is a pretty low bar when dealing with one’s mother.) I have been staying up too late yet still getting up early, and yesterday I did something I never do: I took a nap. At one moment, the clock said 3:00, and at the next, it blinked 6:08.

It is easy to forget about the power of sleep. But there it was.

This morning Emmet and I set out on our walk to the now-empty office. I am my mother’s child, so I smiled and waved at passers-by, the garbage collectors, the man mowing the grass in the park. They reciprocated, which doesn’t always happen. As we reached the point in the park where we hang a left to walk the last three blocks to the office, something caught my eye.

I thought at first that it was a bat, and then a baby bird dipped in pollen, and finally I realized it for what it was: a sign of life. An attempt at a connection. A real Boo Radley moment — albeit one without claiming the prize — in the middle of Forsyth Park.

When we got to the office, I looked out my window. I saw this:

In the middle of a stay-at-home order, the city is issuing parking tickets. It was a street sweeper night for that side of the street, and appearances must be maintained. For a moment, everything felt as it used to: A world patrolled by ruthless meter readers. My old boss, the Judge, always told me that if meter readers ran the town, we would have the nation’s most efficient city government.

So with that, I started to write. Because just in case you’re a little anxious, a little worried, I wanted you to know that I am, too.

ALC

Social distance has mostly begun to settle over me, probably because I have carved out a meager routine that gives my day order. There is hot tea and knitting while watching 15 minutes of The Great British Baking Show, a sentence that no doubt ages me several decades. Emmet and I then walk to the office early in time for the postal carrier, and I work in silence until Chris arrives. (Thanks to his introversion and the current lack of co-workers, I work in silence after he arrives, too.) There is an hour of exercise at home, 30 minutes of national news, an evening walk, dinner, and mindless television before an early bed time.

I find that I can knit just fine, and I have begun to sew fabric masks for my RN friends. The masks are designed to fit over N95 masks and survive repeated hot water washings, all to the end of prolonging the lives of the N95s. If my friends were expecting a sudden outburst of good taste and solemnity, they will be sorely disappointed.

I find that I cannot paint. I chalked it up to the fact that painting is such an act of joy for me, and right now I feel like I am treading water. But there may be another reason. During this morning’s knit-tea-baking show extravaganza, I looked at what was on my easel, that very large painting of Emmet at the window. As a refresher, here it is:

This foyer window is Emmet’s favorite spot in the house, and I have a series of photographs of him standing there and looking longingly. So in addition to the painting’s merely capturing that pose, its story reflects a dog in a comfortable and colorful house, standing next to a plant, a poor and confined substitute for the larger world awaiting him. Within the painting itself, I had saved the best for last, like Emmet and the explosion of beauty outside the window. The dog was to be solid yet wreathed in light, but now he is ethereal, looking as if he will waste away to vapor and simply float outside. And the color and pattern of the outside was to be riotous and put the inside of the house to shame. These are the things left to paint. Now I simply cannot.

Several things spring to mind here. First, I took too many art history courses in college. Second, the story of the painting feels a little too close to home. Third, perhaps I should try a still life instead, for if anyone can capture stasis right now, it is I.

It is harder on my children. This is — or maybe was — my son’s final semester of college, and for all of his big talk about how he was ready to be out of college, he is so disappointed about missing the last few weeks with his friends and the cancellation of commencement exercises. My daughter will be 21 in a few days, and for some reason, buying a bottle of wine at the liquor store and sharing it with her father and brother does not convey the celebratory air of a night out with friends.

There have been a lot of pep talks and Pixar in our home.

But a couple of nights ago, there was Monopoly. My daughter insisted that we all sit on the floor. She and her brother made it look easy, and Chris and I made it look hard. I sat on a pillow, falling onto it at the end with an inglorious thump, and Chris sprawled out, chest down on an ottoman. As three of us sat upright, he looked like a puppeteer. I have found that being a wife and mother conflicts mightily with being a ruthless capitalist. I nearly cried when Chris declared bankruptcy. And when my daughter told me her heart’s desire — to own Boardwalk (which I held) to match her own Park Place — I abandoned all reason and made a bad trade that I justified with the facts that she had only $32 in her bank (so she could never buy houses) and that in decades of playing Monopoly, I rarely landed on either of the blue spaces. Many rounds later, and three visits to the hotel on Boardwalk, I was out of the game. And with the grace of a 2×4, I arose from the floor.

Perhaps it is the combination of last year’s private health crisis with this year’s public one, but I sense that these weeks (possibly these months) will change my life. I suppose there’s that feeling of sufficiency, to make do with what you have. I am speaking, of course, about the food in the freezer, the acceptance that the grocery has only green beans instead of the brussels sprouts that sounded so good, the relief of having any brand of toilet paper.

But I have begun to look askance at the caches of fabric and yarn I have accrued — materials that I purchased simply because I could. It seems so wasteful now, and I have started working on using things up. There is the skirt that finished off some small pieces of black and white fabric, some red gingham bias tape, and a whole lot of yards of ball fringe.

And the shawl that has consumed two full skeins of yarn and half a dozen little pieces.

I whittle away, removing pebbles from the mountains. Don’t get me wrong. I like what I have made. The focus on using what I have forces me to be more creative, more adaptable — but I also think of how nice it will be at some point in the future to need something, figure out what that is, and hold out for exactly what I want. It may take a decade, but I will get there.

A final word. I have seen the meme proclaiming that WE ARE THREE WEEKS AWAY FROM FIGURING OUT WHAT EVERYONE’S HAIR COLOR REALLY IS. You have seen what my hair color really is, the result of a very long period of growing out the color. If you find yourself in this same boat, you will have to transcend hair. I did not do that very well, until suddenly I did, and on the other side, I realize that life is not a beauty pageant. But it is beautiful. This is lucky for you, because you are also beautiful, and you will be fine.

Which reminds me. Until about a decade ago, there was a small spray-painted legend on an undeveloped building that sat at the end of the one-way dead-end street on my way home every night. In small letters, it said EVERYTHING WILL BE OK. I later saw that stencil everywhere — notably, a dumpster — and it brought me great relief and courage. There is no need here for acts of vandalism, but these are good words. Everything will, in fact, be okay. There will be hugs and health and parties. Toilet paper will even be flung again in branches. The painting of Emmet will be finished (even if that means that it is declared finished as it is). Things will be plentiful, and I will not be wasteful. But for now, we will all have to sit tight. Very tight. And tonight I will try to paint.

ALC

I have spared you from the things I have written over the last few days.

You are welcome.

I have spent the last few days spinning the Wheel of Disaster, a caffeine-fueled, sleep-deprived hellish game involving a steady diet of news coverage and escalating panic. It was a good thing that I was largely isolated, for no one would want to be around me anyway.

But today — oh, glorious today! — I went to the grocery store at 8 a.m. I figured I would beat the crowd, buy what I needed to feed my family, and quickly slip home. These goals were largely unmet. There was an immense crowd; I bought what I needed to feed a family that subsisted on a slightly less healthy diet than normal; and the trip took 90 minutes, including a 20 minute wait in the checkout line.

Fortunately I dressed for the trip. I had on a red bandana and red shoes, a handmade denim skirt with red buttons, a navy T-shirt with Y’ALL in white letters, and my red gloves. I applied red lipstick in the parking lot and realized that the red lipstick matched almost everything else, including the gloves. This amused me, so I took a picture.

There was no toilet paper. There were no lemons. There were no bleach wipes. There was no broccoli.

But there was my stockbroker, who was smiling. I figured that if she could still smile, I could too. There were people who needed help, so I pointed out the crystallized ginger and the bundles of asparagus. There were people who thought the shirt was funny, and there were people who noted that the lipstick matched the gloves. There were a number of grocery store employees who needed to be thanked for keeping food on the shelves and my family (or a slightly less healthy version of my family) fed.

Apparently no one wants to buy extravagant plants during a pandemic, so Publix had marked its orchids down to $4. Some of the orchids had been worn down by captivity, shriveling up and dropping flowers. Me? I bought the two best-looking plants, noting that they had adapted to their confinement in a protective plastic wrap and still bloomed.

Perhaps there’s a metaphor there.

This has been a difficult week, and it’s only the beginning. But in a lot of ways, it has forced me to confront that I have enough. My family is together. We are fed. The yard enjoys the attention. So does the house.

I thought I would miss things. And I do. I miss our local restaurants and stores, and I ache for their owners and workers. I miss hugging my friends, having an empty nest, working out at my favorite gym. I really miss the dream of retiring at 62.

But I do not miss the news. I have turned it off except for the 6:30 national news, although I sometimes skip even that. (I substitute the Great British Baking Show, with a cup of tea and knitting, for much of what I used to watch.) I have found that a good Pixar movie takes the sting out of sibling rivalry — even when those siblings are in their 20s — which is why we watched “Monsters, Inc.” on Thursday and “Monsters University” on Friday. Yard work cures a multitude of ills, and plants still grow from seeds and multiply from splits. (If anyone needs basil, let me know, and I’ll bring you some in a month.)

On my walks around the neighborhood, I see children and their parents playing in the parks. I see friends walking and talking across the distance. I have happily sat on people’s front steps to enjoy some leisurely conversations. And my own block is having a Social Distance Happy Hour every night at 5:30. (The advantage to getting there early is that you can claim a spot on the bench.) I saw on the news that people were putting up their holiday lights as a gesture of cheer and hope to their neighbors, so I did my part on Thursday night:

But Thursday night was also the night that I bottomed out, and so early in the game. After a night of tossing and turning, it struck me that surviving the quarantine but coming out of it with an anxiety-induced heart attack or a terrible case of agoraphobia was a shallow victory. So I have reminded myself that in the strangeness of this time, some things seem to have become much simpler. While happiness seems harder to muster, it feels less elusive. Walking, catching sight of friends, enjoying deeply discounted orchids, tending a garden, matching lipstick to gloves: These are all things that have filled me with joy. I have just had to look in smaller and different places.

ALC

And I thought February had been a strange month.

There was that encounter with tourists — an older couple — who stopped Emmet and me and asked for directions to the Mercer House, an inquiry akin to asking a New Yorker to point the way to the Empire State Building. I trotted out my best Moultrie accent (after all, tourists have certain expectations) and gave stellar directions. At that point, the husband consulted his city map and started arguing with me: According to him, I had given them bad directions. The map, he said, led them to Bull Street, while I had sent them to Whitaker Street.

My initial thought involved the words “map” and “shove it,” and my second thought involved a destination several miles away on Bull Street. But then my fine Moultrie accent (and the spirit in which it was invoked, as well as the memories of growing up in a small town) prevailed. As you may recall, I said, my directions led you to the back of the Mercer House. I felt pretty confident that from there you could follow the signs directing you to the front of the Mercer House. His wife (who I suspected had had numerous conversations like this with her beloved) grabbed him by the elbow sharply, and they set out.

Then there was the encounter with someone working at the house next door to our office. There has been a frenzy of apartment construction across the street, which apparently has necessitated Savannah’s very own Big Dig. There is a side street entirely torn up, dirt exposed; a barricade and flashing lights; a parade of heavy machinery; the occasional bleeding of a water line; and a number of construction workers shaking their heads and pointing. Do any of us have any idea what is going on? Absolutely not. But the worker next door stopped me and asked, closing in on my car as I was getting out. As I responded to his question, I looked down. In his right hand, he had a knife with a 6 or 8 inch blade held by his thigh. I stopped talking and decided that it was the perfect time to step aside and get Emmet out of the car. I got the dog, and the man realized that he looked like a serial killer, and an already awkward conversation became even more so.

And then: passport renewal. It took four different trips to three different drug stores to get an acceptable photo. In the first round, the photo was blurry and my face partially obscured. Although I am no State Department employee, even I could tell it would be rejected. In the second round, the first shot of me was at a distance of 20 feet or so; I was pretty certain that the regulations provided for no full body shot. I came back as directed to meet with Kelly, the assistant manager and apparent Keeper of the Passport Photo Flame; she imposed a series of rules resulting in the worst case of RBF I’ve ever displayed or even seen. I had no doubt that that face would keep me out of any country in the free world simply on general unpleasantness grounds. Why, a face like that would yell at a thousand waiters, quarrel with customs, make hoteliers cry, break in front of beleaguered tourists in museum lines, haggle with merchants, and wear obnoxious fanny packs!

Wait.

So at the third drugstore, I got an old pro — an apparently well-traveled Hinesvillian who knew that there was to be no smile, no drop earrings, no glasses and hair pulled off the face. He was a man who kindly looked away as I slipped in a smirk, yet who had no idea of the psychic damage that ensued after I compared my passport photo from a decade before (taken by someone who apparently did not know the rules) and my current one, a display that fully documented the passage of time:

(Even though I look like a traveler who stuffs Kleenex in her cardigan sleeve, I’ll still be wearing the fanny pack.)

February left with a bang as I fell into March — literally. I was delivering an old but working printer to the nearby high school when I suddenly and unexpectedly found the printer airborne as gravity asserted its pull on my body. There was a tremendous thud, a sheepish-looking cleaning woman appearing out of nowhere, a ruined printer, and some pretty spectacular bruises, both on my knees and on my pride.

When I complained to Chris that it had been a rotten month, he replied, “Everybody hates February.”

And now here I am in March:

Yes, those are the gloves that I never use when I wash dishes, gloves that now seem entirely appropriate to push a cart around Target to buy food for an extended stay at home. (I already had a new bundle of toilet paper at the house, a purchase occasioned by need, not panic.) Welcome to social distance and life in the time of a pandemic with a 51 year-old extrovert who has been treated for asthma in the past.

I started a blog five years ago because I had difficulty processing my life. Writing helped, even when it hurt. (I could not have survived my cancer diagnosis, followed by a &*%$ appendectomy a few months later, without it.) But life lately had been so happy, and I had been so content, that I had been engaged in the joyful expressions of painting, sewing, and knitting. Here, for instance, is an enormous canvas of Emmet currently on my easel:

But all of the paint, fabric, and yarn in this world will not help me process our collective current situation and deal with the resulting anxiety. I’ll be checking in — a lot, probably — as I maintain social distance and avoid the situations (like disbelieving tourists, knife-wielding maintenance men, passport photographers at varying skills levels, and flying LaserJets) that make life so much fun.

Stay well, friends.

Sending you a virtual elbow bump in solidarity,

ALC