Snapshots of Life in Isolation

It’s Wednesday morning and I begin the day by dragging two 15lb weights to my living room floor. My cell phone rings just as I finish pushing the dining room chair to the central spot by the fireplace. It’s my personal trainer, all smiles and chipper. Her voice vibrates into my hand as she excitedly asks, “are you ready?"

The workout is demanding and I realize half way through that I didn’t turn my heat down. Sweat pours down my forehead and pools under my eyes and chin. I miss the atmosphere of the gym space. I miss the background noise of clanking weights and the bodies that float in my peripheral pushing me to continue for fear of seeming weak if I give up. Instead I see my trainer’s encouraging face leaning against my fruit bowl and propped up by my remote control, so she doesn’t slide off my coffee table. My overhead lights are too bright exposing my pasty skin. I worry my fireplace looks dated and make a mental note among my reps to paint it white while stuck in this quarantine.

It’s Friday morning and the kids wake with excitement. On Fridays they can stay in their pajamas all day, and there are no restrictions on television or electronics. Fridays are take-out days and we spend the day rhyming off restaurants we miss and the meals we will choose for our dinner. Fridays feel the closest to the world we left behind, and so we all cling to the day with a little more energy that grows from the nostalgia deep inside.

The dinner is delicious, and we eat it in our screened-in room for a different atmosphere. The sun hangs low in the sky over the fence line while the dogs chase the bees in the yard. My husband and I linger and drink wine long after the kids head back inside, and the dogs collapse at our feet.

It’s Tuesday and I wake just before the 6:00 am alarm. I roll myself out of bed and down the stairs to let the puppy out of her crate and out the side door to pee. The birds are singing their morning tune and I sleepily lean into the door for her to wade back in, head low. She too is not quite ready for the day to begin. Together we curl up on the couch as the coffee maker kicks on at it’s timed start and we both close our eyes and drift off to the sound of drip-drip-drip.

The kids wake shortly after 7:00 am and we all head into the dining room shortly thereafter – a makeshift work station for the three of us. Each of us plunk ourselves down to our respective laptops while my husband kisses us goodbye and heads to work. Life hasn’t changed much for him, I think to myself, as I gaze at my cobalt blue electric car plugged into the house in our driveway. Suddenly I feel torn between two stark feelings; the longing to drive my car again mixed with a resigned feeling of not needing a second car anymore.

It’s Sunday and the music is playing through the windows while we rake the yard of pet waste and over-wintered soggy leaves. The beat carries a vibe of summer with twangy ukuleles and steel drums. I head inside in the early afternoon to prepare a lunch of homemade vegetable soup made with scraps from the previous night’s dinner, along with the sourdough loaf my husband has been perfecting, warmed with butter. Life has slowed the pace to the simplest of tasks. It’s satisfying if you don’t think beyond the day at hand. The afternoon slides by as the kids create chalk art on the driveway and I read my book on the front porch. I realize we are out of ingredients for dinner and, after hesitation, and many conversations with my husband, I decide it’s time to experience the grocery store for myself for the first time in a month. I’m met with masked people for the first time since the pandemic began, lowered lights and eerie silence in the large department store building. Hushed voices and averted eyes greet me at every corner. A new check-out line with arrows and spacing wraps around the dairy aisle and I reluctantly push my cart into the que.

It’s Thursday after dinner and we return from our evening dog walk with the kids. After weeks of not leaving the house I unplug my car and head north as the sun sets to my left. I pull into the parking lot of a department store and instantly spot my friends car. In my naive assessment of this new world I had chosen this spot assuming other cars would be here. Now our two cars stick out like a sore thumb in a world where we are not to be socializing with anyone outside of our household. I pull up beside her window and we giggle like two kids skipping school. We decide it’s just too dangerous to be so out in the open, and discuss a plan to meet at a local beach. The instructions were clear. I’ll follow her car, and when we get there, she’ll face the water, and I will back my car in so our windows face one another’s. We won’t get out of our vehicles, we’ll stay the mandatory 6 feet apart. As I drive behind her vehicle down back roads and remote outskirt areas I can’t help but feel scandalous. I recall a time in the early 2000’s when together we would drive these same roads looking for places she could smoke her weed. How times have changed, I chuckled to myself, that we could now do that out in the open without consequence, and yet, here we are hiding just to see each other for a moment of adult conversation, distanced of course. We're not true rebels.

It’s Monday and I’ve decided to start the week by showering upon waking rather than the routine I’ve adopted of showering at noon. Two online meetings are scheduled and so I allow my kids to watch t.v even though that’s against our rules. They seem giddy at the allowance. I string a blue internet cord throughout the living room and kitchen and plug it directly into my laptop in the dining room. I announce several times for everyone to ‘mind the wire’. Twice during my online meetings my laptop is pulled backwards followed by a distant “sorry I tripped!”. Three coffee cups later and the kids not particularly motivated to do anything else, we decide to get our raingear on and walk the dogs through the park. Signs everywhere tell us the park is closed, but from the pieces of daily news I’ve ascertained that we're permitted to walk in the park just not to stay or play there. Signs are plastered on the playground saying NO. We don't come across a single person in the park while we’re in there and am constantly questioning if I’m correct or if we’ll be fined if caught. My youngest points to pinecones on the ground and says "they're allowed to touch!" I spend the remainder of the walk lost in worry about my children's mental health.

It’s Saturday evening and we decide to find an old movie from the 80’s for the whole family to watch. We pop our own popcorn and pour heaps of melted butter and salt on the bowl. We pile into the couches with legs intertwined, hips jutting out of every corner and small hands resting on laps and bellies. I have a moment of immense gratitude for this little life I have created, and yet another feeling of sadness creeps in. I have not hugged my mother in so long. My kids have not been to her house, and I worry that she is alone and lacking human connection. I wonder how my Dad would have reacted to all of this had he still been alive. I wonder what they would be doing together while this strange thing happens to the world. I excuse myself and call my Mom. She announces she’s getting a kitten. Whew, I think. At least that’s something.