Week Fourteen… Another week “quarantined”. We’re leaving only for exercise or essential foodstuffs. We’re handling groceries with gloves and walking to the other side of the street when we see another pedestrian. My parents drop things off on the porch and then chat with me from their car in the driveway while I sit at my living room window, a safe distance away. Doctor visits are being conducted over the phone. I try to work out with Amanda sometimes through Zoom, and I watch live feeds of yoga to continue my practice. I don’t know that this is bleak, necessarily, but it’s different.
And we do it all in the name of civic responsibility so we don’t have to feel like we’re doing it out of paranoia.
We ordered takeout a few days ago and the delivery man’s hand touched mine when he handed me the receipt. I scrubbed my hands while reciting the SVU opening and now I’m tracking the days in my mind that have passed since that contact. They say symptoms can take fourteen days to appear. Eleven more days to go before I’m in the clear.
Sunday
It’s a mark of how much we’re finding value in our walks that we went for one when the weather was so wet and windy. There was about a forty-five minute window for a dry outing, and we spent about twenty of it making it around a few blocks.
We went down a street we don’t normally walk, and that’s when we stumbled upon this gem. I don’t know when this sidewalk was last fixed, but I know it was when a four-legged friend decided it was time for a walk.
Monday
This is what we look like going grocery shopping now. Usually I go, but the neurologist told me I shouldn’t be leaving the house other than for solitary exercise far away from other people.
He also told me he doesn’t think I’ll be returning to school this year. I’m not sure I believe that yet…
Tuesday
I took a long walk. Longer than usual. After spending most of the day staring at myself in a Google Meet window, waiting for whichever student was supposed to be working with me, I need to get up and stretch my legs.
Wednesday
The parkway was right behind us. And beyond that the sloping streets of Cornhill were filled with block after block of houses and apartments, each separated by the width of a single car driveway and a small strip of grass. Even in this time of social distancing and closed doors, there was plenty of noise from vehicles on the parkway at the hour we went for a stroll, and the noise seemed excessively intrusive. It’s like we’ve been packed away each day in our homes and we’ve gotten used to the sounds of the world being muffled by the walls protecting us and isolating us. And so we turned away from all that and listened to the water flowing down through the trees and under the small bridge beneath us.
Thursday
I ran through the golf course today. As badly as I want to live elsewhere sometimes, during this strange time of social distancing, shut-downs, and self-quarantining, I am thankful I live in a city that offers places like this — places with greenery and solitude — within walking distance of my home.
Friday
The flowers have returned. We can all feel spring coming and we’re anxiously awaiting it.
Saturday
This is not my cat. This needy fellow clearly used to belong to someone, based on the ratty old collar and the affinity for human companionship. He’s a little mangy, and I feel like I have to decontaminate after spending time with him, but if he’s still around when things open back up and the world returns to some kind of normalcy, I will try to bring him to the vet and see if I can’t find him a home.