Changes Under Covid

I was musing on this as I was #coronacleaning up the back yard this morning — covering the furniture, digging out the dead annuals, planting bulbs last minute like a squirrel (2 weeks ago I was lovingly layering them and putting in bone meal and measuring and such, today I was digging holes and tossing them in and what do you want to bet these will look better?)

I was offered 2 sets of theater tickets to shows I wanted to see this weekend — A Christmas Carol at the Guthrie and the tour of Oklahoma at the Orpheum. In both cases I had to turn them down because there was too much packed into the weekend already. But I am not sure I made the right choice. I wonder if seeing one of those shows would have been better for (Beatrix's and my) mental health than poop-scooping the yard. But the poop-scooping needed to get done, and needed to get done now.

I don't think any of us like the pandemic changes. I suppose a few — like a new appreciation for Taylor Swift, or more time with family, or a love of puzzles — are pretty good. But the general grind of worry/(dread), of watching thousands of people die a week, or even of general inconvenience and things taking longer, of wondering about long-term implications, has gotten to be a grind for all of us. I don't know anyone who is their best self right now, most certainly not me.

I don't know how to recalibrate, but I think it's needed.

In the meantime, the yard is (almost) done. And many of the other things going on this weekend are pretty great, so it's not like I am just buried at home with weak tea and reruns of Fuller House. But as we settle in for the longer term of this, it give me some things to think about.

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