World Turned Upside Down: My New Normal

Pre- and post-mulch. 

I had several blog posts running through my head during the decade that has been March. Have you ever seen time come to a screeching halt at this rate? From dashing from day to day we suddenly have fallen into a temporal pool of bewildering quicksand* in which we are worrying about having enough toilet paper but have all the time in the world.

What even is this?

In two weeks we have gone from "you might want to wash your hands" to a mandatory stay-at-home order. So how do we react when there has been a seismic shift in well, everything?

I can only speak for myself, of course, but after about a week of flailing around and pandemic baking (scones, cinnamon rolls, two kinds of cookies) I am seeing a glimmer of settling into a routine. That is a good thing, since this is not going to be a small blip in our lives. I mean, judging by the rate at which March passed, we may have gone into the year 2507 by the time April is over. We will need a new normal.

My new normal is this: Do some stuff every day.

That's it. My whole plan. I mean, except that I am a two-time loser in the endangered category game (age, clotting issues that led to lung issues), I am the person least affected by the pandemic. I am not a health care worker--sincerely, God bless them. I am not the parent of small children now trying to keep them socially distanced and occupied. I am not the sole provider who has been laid off of a job. I am not the minimum wage retail employee who can't work from home, but still has to figure out child care. 

In spite of my how easy this should be for me, that first week when we discovered how bad this is was really crappy and I felt the oily black fog moving in around my feet. I spent a lot of time panicking, and I binge-watched all of "Tiger King."**

So now I am working on my coping methods that include prayer and exercise and writing, and I'm doing stuff that I honestly did not have time for a month ago.

This morning I pulled out an old piano book and worked on a Bach two-part invention and one of my mother's favorite songs ("Narcissus") that she would play while Much Older Sister and I danced around the living room. How long has it been since I worked to play the piano better just for the sheer joy of playing?

Husband and I spent Saturday morning spreading two pick-up loads of cedar mulch in our formerly desolate back yard. Our genius landscaping guy's crew had laid sod back there in the fall but in the shaded area around the maple tree he recommended mulch, which we hadn't anticipated we'd have time to install until at least after April 15. Guess what? Already done!

My oldest and dearest friends are working on a project that has us writing an essay every day, with the prompts working through the alphabet. We're already up to M. (Or N, if you don't take weekends off, which I do.)

I've planned a cleaning schedule that will go into effect...soon-ish? And I have a stack of t-shirts that I'll be making into my seventh t-shirt quilt. I've learned how to Zoom meet-ups with friends, and now have three of them scheduled each week. In addition to my regular exercise bike and walk routine I've added a Silver Sneakers Live Facebook session three times a week. Highly recommend.

So I'm doing stuff. It helps.

What are you doing? Is it helping you?



*Here I'd normally insert that meme that says "When I was a kid I thought that quicksand was going to be a much bigger problem than it is," but you've seen it, and if I were that meme's creator and obeying a stay-at-home order I'd spend all my time looking for people I could sue for copyright infringement. 
** No regrets on this front, although I was ready to break stay-at-home to drive to Oklahoma to extricate my Boy#4 from that state. But it was worth spending those hours with my jaw dropped full open just for the memes. No, I'm not going to link the memes. You can Google that yourself.

Dear Baby Wonderful: The World Turned Upside Down

Dear Baby Wonderful,

Before you were born I had imagined a whole new world with you in it. I imagined how just knowing you were here, with your brains and your personality and your potential, would change my entire outlook. I imagined the books I would read to you, using different voices for every character and not even caring if you decided to turn the pages right to left instead of left to right. I imagined tucking you in and singing "I'll be loving you, always..." to lull you to sleep just like I did your daddy and uncles. I imagined a clean junk drawer in the kitchen.

(Not really on that last item. But two weeks ago I was suddenly struck with the irresistible urge to organize the drawer under the coffeepots that has always been the repository of birthday candles, the upstairs hammer and pliers, pizza coupons, picture-hanging paraphernalia, gum, and other miscellaneous stuff. For years that drawer hasn't opened except under duress, but that day I had HAD it with that mess. Seven hours later I saw your face for the first time. Nesting: It Isn't Just For Parents.)

(Also, since we're being all parenthetical now, the reason there's a picture of the junk drawer instead of the one we got yesterday of you grinning in your sleep and wearing a HI! onesie is because your Dad and Mom are understandably reluctant to share the innermost workings of your life with the internet. I think that's an excellent decision, but may lead to some interesting illustrations.)

Anyway, you were the big news that day but since then you've been knocked off the front pages by...what do we even call this turn of events? Circumstances, let's say.

The very day we kissed you goodbye and headed back to the House on the Corner we began to find out that the scientists had been correct, and shockingly, the politicians had been wrong when they told us there was nothing to worry about from that virus clear across the world. (Here is your first bit of English instruction for today: You notice the word "shockingly" in the last sentence? That's known as sarcasm, and you'll find that your grandmother fights her tendency to use sarcasm but that the sarcasm often wins.)

The very next day we started washing our hands every time we saw a faucet, and since then we've stopped hugging, kept our distance from other people, and now are having lunch with our friends through the Zoom app on our computers.

It's been quite an adjustment for me. Schools have been cancelled, so I'm not working. All of my regular groups and clubs are not meeting. Music contests and lessons were called off.

I vividly remember taking out my phone and deleting every event on the calendar, one after another, for the next two months.

Your parents have been wonderful about FaceTiming every evening so we can see you--what a beautiful boy you are! And five whole ounces above your birth weight! (Your doctor said you're a "champion eater," so we know with certainty that you're part of our family.)

You're often asleep during those video sessions and every once in a while you suddenly throw out an arm, or kick a tiny leg. I understand this is quite normal, as your nervous system begins to figure out the world.

That kick, that startled jerk, is what I've been feeling as we begin to figure out our own new world. Our schedules, the daily-ness of our days, was the womb that was nice and tight around us to make us feel secure. (That, dear one, is a metaphor.)

We're figuring out life, just as you are. It's still spring so it's lovely and bright, but there are times when it's quite scary and we have to train our reflexes. In this case, we're taming the impulse to be social so that we can get back to the parts of the world we miss--the hugs, the handshakes, the smiles.

We're fighting the impulse to be scared.

The "before" world we had just a few weeks ago has been turned upside down, but the "after" will be a world with you in it. You'll come visit the House on the Corner and we'll read books and bake cookies and I'll let you get a piece of gum out of the junk drawer as soon as you have teeth.

The snuggles and hugs with you will make all of this staying apart to stay safe worthwhile.


And I'll be loving you, always, 

GrandmaQueenBee

Dear Dad,

This picture is from 2017, and it still makes me laugh. 

My father is 93. He still swims every day, lifeguards at the fitness center pool twice a week, faithfully participates in church and is the lay leader once each month, and never misses Rotary. And he is the poster child as the perfect COVID-19 target. Not only is he in the worst possible age group, he's also had quintuple-bypass surgery and is on a variety of medicines for various age-related conditions. 

Dad did not believe the coronovirus advisories were aimed at him, and too much exposure to Fox News led him to believe it was probably a hoax anyway. Two days ago my brother had a hard conversation with him that included mentioning his children were ready to confiscate his keys to keep him on the farm. Last night I wrote him this email, and my Much Older Sister thinks it might be helpful to some of you, my dear reader(s). Feel free to copy and adapt to your own circumstances.

March 18, 2020

Dad, I'm honestly so sorry about all the disruption to your daily schedule. I know you are not good at "doing nothing and doing it well," so it's especially hard on you. You like activity. 

I had been finding myself kind of flailing around with the lack of structure and activities, so I decided to give myself a daily schedule of things I needed/wanted to do and can do without leaving home or coming into contact with people, and I wondered if something similar might be helpful to you.

In my case, I listed the things I like to do or want to do--knitting, writing, reading, exercising (long walk and time on the exercise bike), playing the piano, deep cleaning several rooms in the house, getting rid of old clothes, working in the yard, etc. Then I decided I'd do at least three things from the list every day. So far it's working. Yesterday I exercised, worked in the yard, and wrote a blog post. Today I've exercised, worked in the yard, written a press release for an event, and worked on organizational stuff. 

I wonder if you could make a similar list? If I know you, things on the list would include writing entries for your StoryWorth project (I can send you a long list of questions), walking at the football field track, playing Solitaire, doing a jigsaw puzzle, working in the yard, Bible study, doing crossword puzzles, going through paperwork in the office and throwing out duplicates, etc. You might want to go through your clothes and make bags of things that you don't wear any more for donation to the Economy Shop, or set a goal of reading the Bible Genesis to Revelation.

I'd also suggest that you'd be great at writing emails to people who might be bored during this time--I know you have at least four grandsons who would be delighted to get personal emails from you, and there's a good chance they might write back. 

You know yourself, so you know what kind of things you might be able to add to the list, but get a list going, and pick three things off of it every day. I plan to make this a habit for the next several weeks, because I want to see my grandson again and if people are NOT staying away from other people COMPLETELY, there's a good chance the virus will come my way and keep me from ever seeing him again.

May I also suggest you not watch Fox News? The information they are spreading is often untrue, and is almost never in your best interest. If you must watch the news, I can give you some recommendations for news outlets (PBS comes immediately to mind).

I love you, Dad--this is our new World War II moment, but we're all in this together. 

Much love, 

Me

I'll Love You Forever

Dear Baby Wonderful,

It was a week ago, almost to the minute, that your father sent the text:

"Hi, all. (LovelyGirl#) went into labor last night, and they admitted her to the hospital this AM. If all goes according to plan, Baby Insertnamehere will arrive sometime today."

Oh, my.

I was in the second day of spring break, so I had been having a leisurely morning, exercise bike and a walk before the New York Times crossword and a large cappucino. I shrieked and grabbed the phone to call your grandfather, who was just coming out of a meeting with a client.

"So what do we do now?" he asked innocently. I was not so gentle in my answer.

"GET IN THE CAR!"

Within minutes I had showered and we had thrown overnight bags together. (You would think that having gone through four births first-hand we would have known to have those bags ready, but we apparently had forgotten that babies don't always wait until their due dates.) And then we were on the road for the six-hour trip to where you were about to make your entrance. Boy#4 marked the moment in our ongoing family group text:

Racing Speeding GIF from Racing GIFs

"Mom and Dad right now," he texted.


Not really. We drove safely and carefully, like, well, like your grandpa and grandma do, and by late afternoon we were within half an hour of the hospital. A text came from your father: "How far out were we?" I turned to my husband--"I think we're grandparents."

Sure enough, when we walked into the hospital room, there was your mother, sitting on the bed looking tired but beaming, holding a tiny baby-burrito bundle. I gave my son a quick, hard hug, fighting back tears as he told us that you had been named after your two grandfathers.

Then I bent down to look inro your face for the very first time.

Your eyes were open, and you were looking around. Without exaggeration, you were the most beautiful baby I'd ever seen. Your father and uncles were in my heart, grown under it and possessing it from the time they took their first breaths. But they were not beautiful.

You? You had perfect skin, lovely features, and those eyes. They were wise and attentive, calmly taking in what must have been an overwhelming variety of sights.

"Oh, it's you," I told you. "We have waited for you for a long time, and you are so, so beautiful."

Later I would let you know that you also appeared to be smart and kind, just so you wouldn't get hung up on physical appearance. But you only get one chance to make a first impression, and in that first millisecond I fell in love with you.

Later we would find out that your warrior mother had been in labor all of the previous day, but didn't want to go to the hospital too early so she went to work, then made it through the night. You will know an important thing about your parents when you realize that they waited, timing increasingly frequent contractions, until the polls opened so they could be voters 3 and 4 in the state primary.

The next day I cried again when we left for home. The emotions at seeing my child holding his child were just too overwhelming to not leak out of my eyes and trickle down my cheeks.

And then, of course, the world changed completely. What had just a couple of days before been laughed at as a hoax by people who should have known better finally was recognized as the threat it had been for weeks and weeks. We were told to stay at home, to not touch each other, to not gather in groups.

If you had decided to wait until your due date to enter the world we would probably been kept from greeting you and holding you, but now I have the unforgettable memory of cuddling you into my neck and whispering to you.

Today your parents make a point of calling every night and turning the FaceTime camera on you so that we can watch you sleep, or kick your long, narrow feet. I do color commentary on every changing expression of your face--"Look! He's smiling!" "Was that a yawn or a frown?" "He's changing so fast!"  I croon to you, hoping you'll recognize my voice the next time we see you--"Hey, Baby Wonderful!" "Hey, Big Fella!"

It will be a while before we are able to hold you again. It looks as if things will get much worse before they get better, and while I'm doubly furious at the people who STILL aren't taking this seriously, your grandfather and I have taken to heart the two catchphrases that meant nothing even two weeks ago--social distancing, and flattening the curve.

We want to stay safe and healthy because we want to be in your life for a long, long time. I want to read every book in the world to you, and comb your hair funny, like grandmas do.

I can't wait to hold you again.


Much love,

GrandmaQueenBee

He Is Wonderful

Two hours old

The Lord bless you and keep you, 

the Lord make His face shine upon you 

and be gracious unto you,

the Lord lift up His countenance upon you

and give you peace.

You Will Be Born in the Spring

Dear Baby Wonderful,

This morning I took my usual walk that circles the three blocks nearest the House on the Corner. You know that walk--it's the one that comes after I've spent half an hour on the exercise bike in the basement, when I go out to cool down and pretend everyone has suddenly been struck blind and can't see me in my workout clothes.

We had thought, as we do every day now, that yesterday might be the day we would get the call that would catapult us into the car and down the road toward where you'll make your appearance some time very soon. It wasn't your day, though, and as I walked this morning I saw earthworms that had migrated to the sidewalks after last night's showers, and rhubarb poking its wrinkled leaves through the rotting leaves of last year's crop. I saw a robin making a breakfast of one of those worms, and even though it was kind of gross, it made me smile.

And I was glad you hadn't been born yesterday, because until today I hadn't yet been struck with the wonder: You will be born in the spring.

You see, we're having kind of a crappy time on earth right now. Some day you'll read about it in history books; maybe your dad and mom will mention it when they tell you about your birth day. All over the world people are scared to touch each other, so we bump our elbows together or wave nervously across a room. The global economic system is scared, too, and is wiping out a lot of the resources us old people have worked to retire on. And in our country people are just so angry, so tired, so filled with rage at the political system.

I saw a wall plaque once, though, that said "Babies are God's opinion that the world should go on."

If you know me at all by now you know that the sentiments on most wall plaques make me roll my eyes. Today that sentiment made so much sense to me.

Even with everything that's going on, we have spring. We have rhubarb and robins and showers that lull us to sleep.

You, my Wonderful? You have even more than that. You have a mother who made me wish you would be born on the International Day of the Woman--she's so smart and strong, so persistent. You have a father who feels things so deeply and takes care of all of us, and who will protect you fiercely. And they're so, so funny, so compassionate. So kind. Don't ever forget how important that is.

You have a world out there waiting to go on, waiting for you.

And you will be born in the spring.

Much love,

G.

Dear Beatles: The Answer Is 'Yes.'

We interrupt the unremitting barrage of delighted baby-anticipating squeals to answer the question  articulated best by the Beatles in 1967:

Will you still need me, will you still feed me when I'm 64?

Well, Paul McCartney (who apparently first asked this question at the wise old age of SIXTEEN, holy cow), in the case of the handsome guy seen above, the answer to your question is an unreserved YES! Let me explain.

Sunday afternoons are sacred to me, in that I take a holy nap every single Sunday afternoon. Last Sunday after church and lunch I set the volume of a 1940s-era movie to "soothing," pulled a cozy afghan up to my chin, hit the recline button on my chair, and drifted off sleep. Two hours later I woke up to find Husband had put a note on the book still open in my lap.

"I'm at the office but I'll be back at 5:30. Be ready to go."

What?

Then at 5:15 he called--"Are you ready to go?" Well, no, not unless you count pajama pants and an old sweatshirt as ready to go. "Just put on some jeans."

By that point I was completely baffled. He knows I don't go out in public in jeans (see also: People of Walmart I Don't Want to Be) so we weren't going to the movies. We had seen an interesting house with a "For Sale" sign on it, even though we have no plans of moving from the House on the Corner--were we going to relive our first dates when we trolled open houses even before we knew we'd be sharing one?

Finally his pick-up pulled up at the back door and I got in. At the first corner we turned right, then right again, then after a few blocks right again, into Small Town's most beautiful park.

And then he parked at a picnic table and pulled the cooler out of the back. In it was a red-checked tablecloth, plates, silverware, bottled water,  and a full fried-chicken meal from the local grocery store.

"It was such a gorgeous day, we just had to be out in it, and I know this is your favorite," he told me. We sat there and ate the carbs-be-damned delicacies, in the most perfect weather, with the company we most prefer in the world. He knew, and remembered, that I hate plastic cutlery. He knew, and remembered, that I love the crispy fried chicken. He knew, and remembered, that I can't abide bugs so this is the best time of the year for me to enjoy a picnic.

And while I do love the big gesture, it's this--the remembering, the attention to detail, the thinking of me first, that made me fall in love with the accountant.

Yesterday this guy turned 64. The first line of the Beatles song was a little on-the-nose prophetic ("When I am older, losing my hair....) but the final verse rings especially true.

I could be handy, mending a fuse

When your lights have gone

You can knit a sweater by the fireside

Sunday mornings go for a ride.

Doing the garden, digging the weeds, 

Who could ask for more?

Will you still need me, will you still feed me,

When I'm sixty-four?

I do, I will.

Who could ask for more?