coronavirus

Pandemic fall

/ Meg / 1 Comment

We picked out pumpkins on Sunday.

It was a simple thing — something entirely normal in 2019, and 2018, and every year prior. But in 2020, the pandemic year, it felt amazing. Rebellious, even.

I keep thinking about Geraldine Brooks’ Year of Wonders. It was one of the first novels I read fresh out of college — back when the novelty of reading what I wanted to, whenever I wanted to was so exhilarating. Brooks’ historical novel — set in an English village during the time of the plague — is atmospheric, creepy, engrossing. It was deeply disturbing, too … enough that, though I’ve forgotten the exact language, I still remember the opening passages: how the fall of that year, the plague year, was redolent of rotting apples.

Man, I get it now.

Like just about everyone in 2020, I end most days exhausted. I fall asleep at 8 p.m. It’s not because I’ve had such a strenuous day … not physically, anyway. There’s the usual mental gymnastics of navigating full-time careers, the needs and desires of young children, the nurturing of relationships with family and friends. Then we spread on a layer of doubt and anxiety: the pandemic’s thick, unpredictable patina that seeps into and colors just about every aspect of daily life.

My 5-year-old son is in virtual kindergarten — “asynchronous kindergarten,” actually, given my husband and I are working outside the home full-time. So we try to keep up with the hours of daily recorded lessons from the school system at night, when I’m on my fourth cup of coffee. “Studying” is really just me scrubbing through the videos while the kids destroy the living room, or Spencer makes dinner, or I try to answer some emails.

I’m looking for any actual assignments … or some loose tidbit that could entice Oliver — a boy who barely pauses his activities long enough to eat, or use the restroom — to actually sit for a moment and watch. But he has no interest in observing his kindergarten teacher, a woman he’s never met or even seen in person, interact with 20 other kids on iPads who have no clue how to use the mute button. Because, you know … they’re five.

And can I blame him?

Of course not.

This is nuts.

Everyone is just muddling through as best they can. I trust that. But this sucks. He has zero interest in participating, and I have zero interest in forcing him. This is all weird and boring and unnatural for a naturally curious, busy kid. I don’t want to sour him on school before he’s ever actually stepped foot in a classroom. We also don’t have the wherewithal to attempt to develop a curriculum ourselves, and I’m barely hanging on as it is.

We’re not alone. I know this. The struggle bus is making all sorts of stops these days. Everything is weird and hard, and I want it to feel normal or find some sense of normal but I … can’t.

In the meantime, I’m in kindergarten again, jotting down sight words and studying math concepts. And it will be that way for the foreseeable future, at which time everything will change … again.

There are moments that I feel OK, though. Sunday afternoon was one of them. We weren’t out long, and didn’t do much … not even the morning on the local farm we’d planned, given the rain stuck around much longer than expected. But we made it to a tiny farm stand I’ve passed a thousand times along Route 5. Even in our masks, my fall-loving heart skipped a beat amongst the gourds and mums.

It isn’t a normal season. Not anything close to the fall we’d want.

But more than six months into this, the year of rotting apples …

Well, there’s still time to learn to make pie.

#COVIDCut: An anxious wife, a helpful husband, and the bob that brought them together.

/ Meg / 13 Comments

Meg at computer

With non-essential businesses shuttered in Maryland for the foreseeable future, some of us are taking matters into our own hands.

Matters of hair, anyway.

In the scheme of the COVID-19 crisis, being unable to get a trim is certainly small potatoes. Like most of us, I’ve been more concerned with finding toilet paper and bananas than any matter of grooming. (Don’t even get me started on trying to find “PAW Patrol” mac-and-cheese cups for my picky children.)

Generally speaking, I’m pretty low-maintenance. Though I’ve considered coloring my hair many times, I haven’t bitten the bullet yet to cover up the grays. My nails are plain, unadorned. I get an occasional pedicure, but that’s an easy one to go without.

When I decide I need a haircut, though, I need a haircut. Do not pass go. Do not ignore the need to chop.

That’s been my M.O. throughout adulthood: let it grow until it annoys me, then go in for the chop. My wavy, frizzy locks recently extended well past my shoulders. I’ve often thought about combing out my hair and trimming it myself. How hard could it be? Save myself $40. Be done with it.

My sincere apologies to the stylists of the world.

Last Saturday, I woke up with that itchy I need my hair cut feeling. I could have ignored it; this is a time of sacrifice, after all. I haven’t seen my family in six weeks. I “met” my sister’s new baby through FaceTime. I submit to a daily temperature check and wear a mask all day at my hospital P.R. job. I’ve been walking around with a pit of dread in my stomach since early March, worrying that I’m risking my health and that of my family each time I leave for said job. And I can’t even freakin’ wander the aisles of Target to relax.

So I wanted my hair cut. I just did.

With apologies for the sappiness, my husband is something of a renaissance man. There isn’t much he can’t do when he focuses on it and studies up. Of course, these tasks are usually in the realm of building custom-made flag boxes, repairing busted pipes, or solving the mysteries of life and the universe as a physicist . . . still.

I first floated the idea like a joke. “What would you think if I asked you to cut my hair?” I asked.

Spencer’s eyes widened.

“Just a trim,” I added. “Nothing complicated. I just really, really want it cut.”

I’ve asked a lot of the man over the years. Perhaps I’d now asked too much.

Still, I wanted the idea to percolate. I went to take a shower.

Twenty minutes later, I combed out my messy locks and eyed myself in the mirror. Yes, it was time.

—

I texted my husband from upstairs. Calling down would have alerted our children to my presence. They would immediately run in and paw through my cosmetics, inadvertently snapping jewelry and scattering beads like confetti. The kids don’t mean to be destructive, exactly, but they’re … busy. Creative. Relentless. Five-year-old Oliver, in particular, is the very definition of bull in a china closet.

Sooo what do you think about cutting my hair? I texted. Is that crazy?

My husband had apparently been downstairs looking up at-home haircut tutorials on YouTube. He found one of an adorable curly-haired woman who made it look easy-peasy.

I think I can, he wrote.

Dripping with confidence, then, Spence and the kids piled upstairs.

I started to chicken out when my husband grabbed the scissors usually reserved for his beard-trimming. I can’t say they were particularly sharp. Spence pulled up the YouTube video for me. It did look fairly simple … when someone else was doing it, anyway.

“Is this a good idea?” I asked, grimacing.

Spence shrugged. “It’s totally up to you. I mean, I’m willing to try it.”

“But do you feel good about it?” I pressed.

He gave me a look.

Well. We’d made it that far.

I offered my one piece of advice — fateful advice, as it turned out: just not too short.

We worked on getting my now half-dry hair damp with a spray bottle. Hadley and Oliver sprinted into our closet — usually an off-limits zone — to begin wreaking havoc. I sat on the edge of the bathtub with my back to my husband, who tentatively combed out my wild waves.

In hindsight, I really wasn’t nervous — and I probably should have been. The man is just so calm in a crisis, you know? I have never doubted that Spencer could build, repair, or transform his way out of any challenge.

But can he cut hair?

“Just a trim,” I said, over and over — an incantation, a prayer. “Just a trim. Don’t go crazy.”

How bad could it be?

I tilted my head forward, just as my longtime hairdresser would have instructed at my first cut-and-style at Nancy’s Beauty Shop circa 1994. I dug deep into my limited knowledge — reminding Spence to work in sections, checking to see if it was even.

The one thing I failed to mention? The critical information that my husband, having never cut hair before, had no way of knowing? Wavy hair shrinks as it dries.

As the snip, snip, snip of the scissors began in earnest, I did feel lighter. My hair is heavy and constantly in my face. When I’m busy or stressed, pulling my hair up is my first act to regain control. As it’s been growing, I’ve found myself depending more and more on the ol’ mom bun to just get it out of my eyes.

I couldn’t see anything while Spencer was working. If I had, I would have noticed one child strutting around naked in my boots (wha?), and the other buttoned up in about 10 dress shirts with a necklace as a belt. Hangers were tossed with abandon, along with my tops and sweaters. I peeked out a few times just to see a cackling kid striking a pose, walking foal-like in high heels. They fought. The hollering was deafening, as usual.

Through this chaos, Spence kept his focus. He was done within minutes. “Don’t look yet,” he cautioned, brushing hair off my back. “Let me just … ”

With eager fingers, I reached up to touch my hair.

And … there was none.

Well, OK — that’s clearly not true. There was some hair. But my “just a trim”? “Shoulder-length”?

I had a bob.

I have a bob.

Fighting the panic that was causing me to nervous-chuckle, I kept a smile on my face. Though I shouldn’t have been, maybe, I was truly shocked. My hair was in dark piles all over the bathroom floor. I hadn’t gone for a chop this severe since I went for the standard I’m-going-to-be-a-mom utilitarian cut shortly before my first child was born. I barely recognized myself.

When the kids rounded the corner again (still nude, in one case), they literally froze. “Mommy!” Hadley shrieked, again and again. “Your hair! Look at your hair!”

“Don’t worry — I’ll share growth potion,” offered Ollie, referring to a “salon” app on his tablet that lets you try new looks … with hilarious results.

Like mine, apparently.

“It’s OK, guys. I like it!” I chirped, meeting my frightened husband’s eyes in the mirror. “It’s … different! I feel lighter. It’s good! It’s all good.”

Spencer looked genuinely scared.

“It’s fine!” I soothed, now feeling badly that I’d put him in that position. “Really. I like it. I just … not too short, I said.”

“I didn’t think I was cutting it short! I was using your shoulders as a guide … or the base of your neck. What … happened? It was so much longer wet.”

Right.

“Curly hair shrinks,” I added weakly. “I thought you … I didn’t realize you didn’t know that. I guess it’s just something I’ve never not known, and I’ve never had to explain it before.”

I thought Spence was going to puke.

“Guess I missed that part in cosmetology school,” he joked.

As the day went on, it seemed to get shorter. I kept catching a glimpse of myself and remembering all over again.

I loved the way it felt, but not necessarily the way it looked. Much of that has to do with my own longtime hang-ups about my face looking plumper with short hair — more of an emphasis on full cheeks, a full chin.

But I’ve worked hard to get past that nonsense. And you know what? Hair grows.

At a time when everyone is beginning to rock luscious locks and turning to DIY hair color, I thought about warning my coworkers before I strolled in Monday morning. The change was … dramatic. And since I was still trying to accept it myself, I figured it wouldn’t hurt to give everyone a heads-up.

I forgot, though — until I walked in to find my boss at her desk early the next day. She looked up and gasped.

“Your hair!”

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I’ve heard that quite a bit this week. And I’ve told this story, in part, quite a bit this week.

I’m calling it my #COVIDCut. Or #CoronaCut. I’m not alone.

A friend said I look like a flapper, and I dug that — whether or not it’s even half true.

The Roaring Twenties … 2020s version.

Well, the decade certainly is off to a memorable start.

Masked

/ Meg / 1 Comment

 

I finally cried yesterday.

Save many a hormonal-fueled sob fest when I was pregnant, I’m not really a crier. My pain and anxieties manifest in other ways. So when the tears pooled and finally spilled, breaking the COVID-19 emotional dam I’ve been heaving around, I was surprised. And suddenly exhausted.

But I needed to get it out.

Yesterday was my first day wearing a mask full-time at the hospital. Working in a separate office far from patient care, I hadn’t been required nor compelled to wear one all the time — not at my own desk, in the office I share with just one person. But I do now. It feels like “it” — coronavirus, germs, illness, something — is lurking and, if I slip up just once, it’s coming for me next.

As one of millions of people who grapple with anxiety and OCD under normal circumstances, I’ve found the pandemic to be an interesting mix of eerie calm (my anxiety helps me function sharply in fight-or-flight situations) and total alarm (my anxiety exaggerates all dangers, or invents them completely).

Talking to my husband at the end of a long day, I realized where part of my panic was coming from: the mask itself. Being masked all day reminds me of being in labor with Oliver, when I was sick and terrified and had to wear an oxygen mask for the duration of my 15-hour labor and delivery.

I’m claustrophobic, and the oxygen mask overwhelmed me. I kept trying to rip it off so I could breathe, goddammit, but of course I couldn’t. Every scream, every shout, every cry was muffled and held tightly in that plastic pressed to my face. I didn’t have my glasses on; everything was blurred and strange. One of my sharpest memories after that ordeal was my relief when someone finally removed the mask so I could squint at the amorphous shape of my tiny baby, blindly pressing a kiss to his forehead before he was NICU-bound. Then the mask was back.

Approaching Oliver’s 5th birthday next week, my mind would have already been turning over and over these difficult memories — heavy stones now worn smooth with handling. This year is easier, because more time has passed; this year is harder, because we’re all cooped up now. Distractions are scarce.

Now that Spencer and I talked through why the mask has been freaking me out so much, I think I can accept that it was just the proverbial straw that broke the camel’s back. When I let myself shed some tears — for the past, for the changed present, for the unknown future — and accepted that I don’t have to always be so relentlessly optimistic during a worldwide pandemic, I can dust myself off and begin again.

Today is a new day. It’s Friday. Weekends don’t have much meaning at the moment, but I’ll be home with my family and helping my husband, who is shouldering so much of the parenting load right now.

The sky is tinged with dusky rose and pastel blue. I’m wearing a new necklace. In an hour or so, my children will be giggling while their dad makes breakfast and I pull into the hospital’s parking lot.

I’ll slip the mask over my ears, take a muffled breath, and go on.

Every tremor, every pulse

/ Meg / 1 Comment

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The work truck was parked on the shoulder, door ajar.

I saw it long before I actually reached Allens Fresh — a stretch of marsh off the Wicomico. My commute takes me straight through this lowland daily. I might not have noticed the vehicle on a “normal day,” when fishermen crowd this strip and drop their skiffs. But this wasn’t a normal day. This is life in the time of COVID-19.

The roads haven’t been empty this week, but traffic has certainly been lighter. I’ve continued to report to the county hospital where drive-through COVID testing is now set up, working on communications. I’ve had a low-grade headache since Monday. Adrenaline has temporarily replaced caffeine. Sleep rushes up at me hard every night, thick and dreamless. Everything is surreal.

I noticed the truck because our vehicles were the only ones on this stretch of road. He’d pulled over just by the bridge — the one wiped out in the back-to-back tropical storms of 2011, the floodwaters erasing everything in their path.

I noticed the truck because, these days, I notice everything. Daily life has halted. Routines are totally disrupted. I’m hyper-aware of every sea change, every tremor, every pulse. Like all of us, I am waiting.

The sun was just cresting the horizon, painting Allens Fresh with warm orange light. Everything felt still. I was listening to The Killers — my current COVID coping mechanism — and trying to tune my brain to only white noise.

At first I thought the man was sick. He was so hastily stopped, not bothering with hazard lights. Not bothering to close the driver’s door. His work van was crookedly parked on the shoulder, like he’d skidded to a halt just in time. He couldn’t wait another second.

He was taking a picture.

On that strange morning, he’d hopped out to catch the sunrise. He was still.

I slowed as I passed, looking over to see the clear morning as he saw it. Miles later, I stopped to take a different picture: the tractor, the message … a reminder in strange times. Maybe a hopeful one, too. If everyone sees it, will they listen?

I got back to work.

And yes, I washed my hands.

Life in the time of corona

/ Meg / 10 Comments

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What a week.

Has it only been a week?

Sort of. It’s really been longer. But only a week since what was once a distant, abstract concern sharpened into a serious concern that has dwarfed everyday life … making “everyday life” here in Maryland seem quaint.

It’s like a natural disaster is unfolding, only it’s a beautiful spring day. Like prepping for a blizzard, but without radar to monitor … and no obvious way to know when the danger will be over. At least after a hurricane, the sun can be counted on to guide us out of the gloom.

This is love and life in the time of COVID-19. Never have I felt so unsettled about what lies ahead. My human neighbors and I are all in the same boat. And I can’t distract myself or get away from it — not at home, certainly, where the kids are camped out. And not at work, where I’m still reporting to our hospital. The front of my office building has been turned into triage. Marketing, too, is needed on the front lines.

Even in my mid-thirties, I fight the urge in challenging times to run “home.” Back where my dad has a plan and a fridge full of food. Where my mom has crafts, People magazines, and a backlog of Hallmark movies on the DVR. Back where I am not in charge. Where I don’t need to worry about making the wrong decisions.

Despite the mounting concern and media frenzy, I’ve been trying to keep it together. For now, at least, I’m still needed and expected at work, and so is my husband. We have the relief of knowing the kids are taken care of, tucked at home while we wait to see what the rest of this surreal time brings.

When my mother- and father-in-law arrived, I thought I was going to cry.

“I can breathe now,” I told Spencer’s mom. “I feel like the grown-ups are here.”

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At home, I try to stay “normal.” We have been cleaning like crazy, finally cracking into some of the cleaning products we’ve had for ages because I keep dragging in more after forgetting we own them.

Though I don’t want pandemic anxiety seeping into the kids’ lives, there’s no way they aren’t picking up on it. Day care is still open but, with Spencer’s parents in town, we’re keeping them home in the name of social distancing. Hadley and Oliver are both old enough to understand the departure from routine; my son especially struggles with change. Still, with their grandparents visiting (thank god), Hadley and Oliver have company and novelty to distract them.

They have walks in the woods. Coloring books. Easter crafts. They have snacks and “Peppa Pig” and LEGO blocks for days. They have Play-Doh and puzzles. When desperate, they have tablets. And if I were home, too, I’d have my books.

Like parenthood, there’s a great lesson of life in the time of corona: so much is out of our control. Things that would have seemed unimaginable a few weeks ago — closing schools; shutting down restaurants and bars; postponing elections — have already happened. These are strange times, friends. 

I fluctuate between “everything will be fine!” and “wow this is bad,” and I’m learning to be OK with that. One day at a time. We can only stay calm, scrub up, and carry on. Give our phones a break. Pause the newscast.

No one knows what will happen, but we can hold on and help each other through a turbulent ride. So wherever you are and however you’re reading this, I’ve got a light on for you. For all of us.

May we see ourselves swiftly through to the other side.