Distancing

We are not staying away from you because you might infect us.  We are staying away from you because we might infect you.  We don’t think we are infected, but there’s no way to tell for now.  And with a 2 to 14-day incubation period, we won’t know for another two weeks.

Yesterday I went to pick up my dry cleaning.  If everything shuts down completely, the jackets would be there when it opens up again.  But I didn’t want to face the apocalypse with loose ends.  The woman at the cleaners wiped her hands with sanitizer before taking my ticket and wiped the pen and counter after I’d signed the receipt.  I appreciate that the service is still open and that she is being as careful as she can be.

Andrea and I are settling down again.  We’ve been anxious, fearful, depressed, relaxed.  I think we are settling in for the long haul.  We are very fortunate — more fortunate than many.  We can get food delivered.  We have clean water when we turn on the tap.  We can turn the lights on.  We can connect by telephone and internet.  A lot of people are working so we can keep doing those things.

And we’re healthy, relatively, for our ages.  And there are a lot of people working to keep us that way.

Andrea spent the last few days helping people learn to use Zoom.  Yesterday she set up a Zoom meeting so our choir members could meet and perhaps sing together even though we are all in our own houses.  It was nice to see everyone’s face (and a little of their houses), but Zoom doesn’t work well for singing together.  It expects only one person to speak (or sing) at a time.  Dale, our choir director, is researching other ways of doing this.

We also Zoomed with our daughter and with Andrea’s brothers.  And texted pictures to our son and his kids.  How wonderful that we can connect without being personally present.  Humans are social animals, after all.  Even introverts like me need to make those connections now and then.

The skin on the ends of several of my fingers has split, reminding me — once again — how many nerve endings we have in our fingertips.  And reminding me — once again — to put hand cream on them.

I’ve read that the Navy has relaxed their standards on hair length in order to reduce person-to-person contact.  As an old military person, this means it’s serious.  When I was on active duty, I usually knew I needed a haircut when my hair got long enough that I liked it.  Andrea has begun taking a picture of each of us once a week so we can document how long our hair gets before we can get it cut.  I’m hoping this will be over when I have a Harpo Marx hairdo, and not a Lady Godiva one.

The Navy has also suspended all promotions, waiting out the crisis.  And the Army has suspended all change of duty stations that require a household move.  This is not just your favorite hangout closing.

The weather here is still beautiful.  The forecast calls for rain next week.  The pictures today are from my walks through the neighborhood yesterday.

Be safe.  Hug your housemate.  Call your friend.  Do some art, whatever it might be.

– Kate

P.S. for Hélène: