We went out to The Hive on Sunday to have our last public beer drinks before self isolation for the next few weeks. We’ll still have to go out and pick up the occasional grocery item (yay for Fred Meyer’s having “click-list” where you purchase online, go to the store, and someone delivers your filled cart to your car for you) (if only the liquor store would do that) (one of our favorite brewpubs is offering delivery within a small radius) (parenthesis are like hashtags – they can go on forever).
Self isolation for my husband and I means: life as we normally live it but with slightly fewer trips to the craft store, grocery store, or hardware store. We’re introverts by nature and staying home comes naturally but there is something about *having* to stay home that makes us a little bit stir crazy. “Wait, you’re telling us WE HAVE to stay home?”
Then the mind makes up a billion little errands you need to run.
If I could give any advice to you it would be this: keep your sense of humor. There’s a reason “a merry heart doeth good like a medicine” (Psalm 17.22KJV): there’s healing power in laughter. It won’t save you from the most dire of circumstances, but it will get you through most of the darkest ones. I suspect the reason my family sends out the most scathingly funny cards for birthdays and other celebrations is that both of my parents survived the Great Depression. Or maybe we’re just a sick people, I don’t know. We laugh.
A word on The Great Depression. Americans (I only know our history) were plummeted into abject poverty overnight. Crops failed, the Dust Bowl obliterated thousands upon thousands of acres of previously good soil, and food and gas rations were instated, You had to have rations to purchase food or gas. Sugar, flour, salt, dry beans – all rationed. The ability to travel where you wanted and when – stripped away.
By the way, those rights were reinstated after the Depression lifted, so we still have some hope that we will regain lost rights during this time of trial.
I have been messaging back and forth with my daughter-in-law as I write this. She has six children 12 and under and she is suddenly a homeschooling mom through the end of the year. I feel for her: this was never her plan. She wanted some time to herself to work on HER dreams and plans, and suddenly – kids. Six of them. Four boys, two girls. Two athletes, a couple artist-types, and two little hellions. Six different learning styles. Six different personalities. No husband to help her out as my son/her husband is deployed to a foreign country right now.
This is a small plug for a really dear friend. I met her years ago when I was first looking into homeschooling. I ended up in a support group for unschoolers, a philosophy that expouses children will naturally seek out that whick interested them and learn. John Holt is considered the Father of the Unschooling movement. I actually fell under “eclectic homeschooling” more than unschooling, but there is so much to be learned by studying the underlying educational philosophies.
On a side note, I have met The Homeschooling Mom in real life. Some of the writers for her website are also mutual online friends. These women have wisdom.
One thing I urge you to do is to NOT take this COVID-19 threat complacently. It’s not a conspiracy theory. It’s not a device to undermine a presidency. Do not post a meme asking how many of us “really know” anyone affected by the virus, please. I have 4 people as of today. 5 if I count the man who died. I won’t name names, but I know them.
One of my acquaintances is a young woman named Daniela, who lives in a small town in Italy. She was in a “red zone’ as of February 27 and wrote to a online group about her fears. Days later, the entire nation shut down. Days later than that, Italy declared that they could not handle the CORVID=19 deaths and anyone over the age of 80 would be left to die. Think about that.
Daniela is younger, is recovering, and I hope to read soon that she has been set free. She lost wages, but she had a certain online group that asked her to be accountable. Not everyone has that kind of group or circle.
Such a depressing post.
This weekend, we would go out to Bent Shovel Brewery and spend a few bucks for friendship, fire, and good brews. They are a very small brewery. My personal plan is to write them a check for what we would have normally spent there and to thank them for the hours they have poured into their brews.
It doesn’t have to be a brewery. A coffee shop? A breakfast dinery? a bar? Any place you go to every single week and spend money at.
Oh, and only if you ae on a fixed income and not hurting yourself.
Think I have rambled enough for tonight.
Jaci Dawn 
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