Homebound Routines

The winds stirred yesterday just as the rains subsided. The two dance in and out with each other, in a number that includes the sun and a newly full "pink moon."

While all these weather phenomena play across the stage, I've been comparing notes with friends about what they are doing during this shelter-in-place.

One Dad is building a treehouse for his kids in his backyard. He's got the platform built in the nook of a tree but he worries that there are no guardrails. What if one of his young kids falls out and breaks an arm. This is no time to visit a hospital.

Another is converting a chicken coop into a playhouse. A new routine is in place -- you order the lumber online, make an appointment to pick it up, and they bring it outside to you for loading in your car. You don't enter the store.

They are among the lucky ones with enough space for these kinds of building projects.

Numbers of people are sewing or knitting things for each other. Sidewalk chalk remains a major new means of communication for the homebound.

Some friends report a paranoia, as the gravity of this situation settles in on us like a Tule Fog. It's getting hard to see anything clearly,  especially for the elderly who await "non-essential" cataract surgeries. This kind of surgery is usually performed in both eyes, one at a time, usually about a week apart. But now all such medical interventions are on indefinite hold. "We'll call you," is the last message you heard before your eye surgeon closed up shop.

If you are alone or even if you are not, book clubs are a fabulous option. Anyone can organize one, and they thrive virtually -- by Zoom, or FaceTime or Skype, etc.

I've mentioned home-cooked meals before. The ingredients can be delivered to your doorstep. This can obviate the need to go out and shop for groceries. But of course for many people, in many cultures, shopping for food is one of life's sensuous pleasures.

Last I heard, in Peru, men could go out on M-W-F and women on T-Th-Sa. No one could go out on Sundays.

Back to the subject of deliveries, who wants other people to choose your fruits and vegetables for you, not to mention your cuts of meat. Diligent shoppers are giving up a lot of their freedom of choice in this crisis.

One of my journalist friends reports there is a theory California may have been hit by coronavirus last fall/winter when so many of us suddenly got sick at the same time. Did we achieve herd immunity then and is that why California seems relatively unscathed by the pandemic? Or is the early statewide lockdown courtesy of Gov. Gavin Newsom the reason?

As daily life rearranges itself within these stringent parameters, many people are discovering their innate creativity.

Of course, all I have to offer here are snippets of stories. These are just whiffs of ideas flowing past like dandelion seed puffs.

Sometimes my dreams wake me up in the dark. Last night I dreamt a romance. Two people who already have known each other for a while meet up and discover they are now attracted to each other. They are an unlikely pairing on every level, particularly mismatched by age.

So all seems impossible for them.

But they meet outside and maintain the proper social distance. They migrate to a park where they each sit on a bench near one another yet appropriately apart. One of them just can't take it anymore. "I want to violate the social distance protocol with you!"

Thus begins a beautiful but dangerous love story.

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