I have become a different type of person in the COVID world. For one, I find myself prone to mood swings. One day I am mired in the agony and rebellion of not getting what I want. Another day I watch, fascinated, as history unfolds and sacred cows, from lifelong habits to open borders, come crashing down in a pile of dust. Then I sink into the most boring (and hopefully fleeting) mental state of all--low-level depression.
All these are starting to recede as we find our new rhythm and regain some stability. Crashes still come nearly every day (today's was the delayed opening of Isle Royale National Park, our destination for many sailing trips) but we have been shocked so often we're getting used to it, and it doesn't hurt as much.
Go to our website homepage for Amicus Adventure Sailing updates, and sign up here for our Sea Change newsletter. But if you're looking to get personal, here's an update on the Gordon family.
After 10 days of staycation, we were ready for school! We have been getting up between 7 and 8 a.m. Mom and dad do yoga/meditation, then go for a jog (we used to call it a run). The girls get up and actually RUN, then stretch. We all end up in the kitchen roughly around 9 am., fighting for the stove burners. ("Burner hog" is a serious term in our home.) I started it, so I can't complain--but everyone has their own preferred breakfast. Cedar goes for the gourmet egg variations. I stick with lentils, rice, and eggs. Mark pops an egg into hot cereal, and Lamar has returned to egg-and-toast. We are all at our computers at the dining room table by mid-morning.
Then, it's quiet. Anyone live-streaming uses headphones. The occasional chuckle breaks the silence as a THHS (Two Harbors High School) teacher cracks a funny and a girl laughs (see this awesome video message from teachers to students). Mom goes about her regular business of advancing a better world via Citizens' Climate Lobby work and an expanded role with Two Harbors community radio, and Sea Change planning (this one has changed dramatically). Mark works on United Church business, takes occasional lone trips to Amicus II to prepare it for water, dreams up legal lonely destinations for us to sail to, and keeps the household running.
Afternoons get more active. Mark and I walk around the Lake and in town. Cedar and Lamar finish schoolwork, read on the couch, go outside to pepper volleyball or shoot hoops, bake cookies and muffins, and practice guitar (both have decided it's time to learn, in earnest). They each cook dinner once a week.
Monday night is games, Tuesday night is documentary night. We take turns picking.
Wed. night we all go to the church and record the weekly service with Pastor Paula and a few others.
Thursday we have dinner across the street with my parents who are obediently staying home and seeing no one but us. After dinner we play trivia.
Friday is still my radio day, and I've added a live check-in with Greg Ruberg, CEO of Lakeview Hospital, at 10:30 a.m. Only one of us can come to the station at a time but our services are indispensable to the community (in my opinion) and I fervently hope they are allowed to continue, for the health and wellbeing of everyone.
Saturday is activity day and movie night ("Walk the Line" and "The 100-Foot Journey" are two recent favorites). We skiied Sugarbush the last day it was do-able. This week we hiked up to Shovel point and ate a chilly windy lunch on the cliff top.
Sunday is hard for me. I loved our Sundays before, with its regular time of worship together at United Church, an afternoon viewing of Off the Left Eye, and leisurely self-made meals. Now, the girls lie in bed late. Mark and I read together, eat pancakes, and go to church at 10:30 to ring the bell, even without a service to follow. Some habits are very ingrained. Sunday afternoons used to be blissfully empty. Now they are just empty.
Kenny Blumenfeld, a Minnesota climatologist, humorist,and writer, gives us his COVID commentary in his weather blog. He reminds us that the tornado is not the siren. Much of our anxiety and fear may be stemming from the sirens.
What is the actual tornado, he asks? "...the concern of course, is not that everyone is going to die, or even that we all stand a high chance of dying, or that we are on the brink of being wiped out as a species. It is not that all or even most of us are going to get unusually sick. ... all of this reaction is because of a new virus that spreads fast and is especially dangerous to the most medically vulnerable segments of our population, and we are trying to slow the spread of the virus among those folks so that our entire medical establishment does not become overwhelmed for weeks or months. All of these extraordinary precautions we're taking and witnessing are to prevent a widespread and prolonged failure of urgent and emergency medical care-giving to people who really need it. We love our parents, grandparents, co-workers, and friends so much that we have agreed to cancel everything to help them avoid unnecessary hardship."
Here in Two Harbors, we live in a COVID world in which the sirens, and our responses to them, are front and center. The tornado itself exists only in the media, and in our communications with others. Don't get me wrong--I am not saying there is no one with the coronavirus here. I know there will likely be dozens, maybe hundreds of people who are affected or asymptomatic before a seriously ill person gets tested. But there are no confirmed cases in Lake County as of April 7. This is so different from heavily populated areas with much more tornado! Here in Two Harbors, life is continuing on, and we thank our lucky stars for the lower anxiety rates and for the fact that that we can go outside and breathe fresh air. We are also continually grateful for our elected officials in Minnesota, who give us direction and reassurance, and who lead by example. We are heartened with the most recent news that "staying at home" is working, at least in Minnesota, and projected surges are dropping as well.
When COVID-19 recedes into history, we will not be the same. And you know what? We needed a shake-up. Maybe this will help us turn a couple corners that really needed a push from behind.
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