Pandemic Truths

I am caught up on the laundry, which is a small miracle.

I make elaborate breakfasts. Seriously, like Belgian waffles with homemade whipped cream and eggs cooked in all manner of poached, boiled and fried. 

My kitchen is clean. 

I call my parents every morning.

I ask the kids about their day, while they’re still in the middle of it.

I have Zoom chats with college friends spread all over, and others with friends who are only a few miles away. 

My dog has logged more walks in these last few weeks than probably his entire life. I’m sad to admit that. 

The cat has no idea anything has changed. 

My teenagers talk more than they grunt.

My husband holds my hand.

It’s quiet.

There’s something going on. Let me clarify. There’s a lot that’s not going on. The weeks are not flying by full of errands, softball and soccer practices, dance and theater rehearsals, school, hurried dinners, meetings, deadlines, missed phone calls with family and friends.  

Instead the days stretch long, the weeks even longer. There are twenty-four hours in a single day. Did you know that? I must have forgotten because I find myself at one o’clock in the lull of an afternoon shocked that it’s not time for dinner. So I mosey downstairs where the kids are in their bedrooms and also in school. My son has pulled his desk into the middle of his room. For him, the classroom setup is a hard habit to break. Not so for the girls. I have to remind them to get out of bed, that productivity, while tempting, is not necessarily better when prone.  

It’s quiet. And not in volume because we are a loud family with emotions that we find easy to express. It’s quiet in the way I forgot existed. I can hear myself think. I think I can even hear the teenagers think. It’s not Pollyanna, trust me. There have been tears and fights and words we wish we could take back, but there’s also been mediation and compromise, forgiveness and listening. There’s been much more of that perhaps because there’s been more time. More time to think about others, time to worry about loved ones, time to wonder about those who have lost jobs, or don’t have a safe home or those who don’t have a home at all. Time to think about everyone in the medical field, selflessly going to work, or those who deliver our mail, empty our trash, restock the shelves, keep our heat on, make the toilet paper.   

It’s the kind of quiet that comes when nearly everything we fill our days with has been suspended. It is forcing us to learn how to be together without distractions and busyness and schedules to occupy our thoughts and direct our actions. Last week, we lost our Internet for three days and it didn’t even phase us. Instead we watched old family videos and laughed at how young we all were. 

I miss the world as it was. I miss my friends. I miss hugging my mom and dad. I’m sad that school trips have been cancelled for the kids, that they’re losing important formative time with their friends and teachers. But I think that losing some things means we’re gaining something else. For us, it’s time, and a quiet that draws us closer, allows us to see each other in more detail, the good and the bad, and the things we didn’t even know until we asked. 

Don’t get me wrong. I want this to go away. I want our world safe and for scary things to get pushed back under the bed where they belong. But I’d like to take a piece of this quiet with us when life resumes. I question why we have made our lives so busy in the first place, and I mourn all the quiet bits we’ve moved right past without even knowing, in favor of staying busy.

So I want to remember how in the quiet of this time, we reached out to others, answered phone calls we would have allowed to go straight to voicemail, gave money to organizations in need, supported local businesses because we didn’t want to see our community suffer, did something about the homeless, the abused, the addicted, the isolated and alone.  

I want this to be over. But I hope that we remember the quiet and take it with us when our calendars fill yet again with softball and soccer, theater and dance, meetings and work. I want to remember that in the quiet, we were compassionate and thoughtful, that we circled the virtual wagons, appreciated our neighbors and friends, that we were kind to each other and loved without expectation or greed. 

And when everything does go back to normal, there is one other pandemic truth I hope to take with me. One piece of domestic life I’ve never fully conquered until now. 

The laundry. 

I hope I can forever be more caught up on the laundry.