Global Pandemic - Month 1

Every year on 9/11, I remember waking up to my mom's call letting me know the twin towers were hit, my college professor running out of class crying, and being glued to the TV and radio for days. I have a distinct memory of reading George Bush's address to the nation in my "Introduction to the Internet" class with a mixture of fear and patriotism. I remember hearing stories of people in wheelchairs on the top floors waiting to be saved and others jumping from windows high above the ground. I remember crying a lot.

I had celebrated my 21st birthday two months prior and was a junior at Cal State University, Long Beach. The following spring I would drop out of college, just shy of my senior year. At the time, I never put those two things together. It was a car crash and subsequent surgeries that led me to retreat to the mountains for the next three years. In retrospect I wonder if 9/11 played any role in my eagerness to escape.

Fast forward twenty years. Coronavirus entered the general consciousness of the American public roughly a month ago, and since that time, every measure of normal life has been upended. Schools are closed, work is online (if possible), and every single event on my calendar has been canceled for the foreseeable future. Most Americans have adopted some version of social distancing where we stay more than six feet from anyone who doesn't live in our homes and avoid leaving the house except for walks around the block and necessary trips to the store. One month ago, I was at Disney on Ice with thousands of people packed into an arena. Coronavirus was a passing thought. It was already ravaging China and initial cases had developed in the US, but none of us were taking actual precautions. I wasn't yet wincing if my kids used a handrail, and we weren't wiping down seats with sanitizing wipes or washing our hands after every interaction.

Three days after Disney on Ice, our family headed down to St. George for a legal conference that never happened. Within hours of arriving at our Airbnb on March 11, Robert got an email that the convention was canceled due to Coronavirus. Since we had already rented the house and family vacations are a rarity, we decided to stay in St. George for 4 days, hike Zion, and enjoy some low-key family time. There were only a handful of cases in Utah but during our time in St. George, the reality of coronavirus settled in on the nation. On March 12, we were informed that all University of Utah learning would move online for the rest of the semester. On March 13, Salt Lake City schools were closed for at least two weeks and later for the rest of the semester. These were shocking measures to us, unprecedented in our lifetimes.

Family pic in Zion's Narrows. 

In two days, our family will have been alone together for exactly a month. What has quarantine felt like? An odd mix of normal and surreal. As of today there are 396,863 cases in the US, far and away leading the world in confirmed cases. Tests are still hard to obtain so there's a general sense those numbers are wholly inadequate to capture the true reach of the virus.

In Utah, where there are about 1,700 cases, coronavirus still feels a bit like an abstraction. We don't know how long it will last or the various ways it will affect our lives. To date, the economic pain is probably felt more acutely here than the public health component. If your job is waiting tables, cutting hair, or anything that can't be done virtually, your income dried up in an instant. Many people who can work remotely find it difficult either due to having children at home or dealing with mental and emotional stress.

I'm feeling my privilege acutely in this moment. My husband and I both have the ability to work from home; I have live-in childcare so I am still able to get the necessary things done that need to be done like recording online lectures and answering critical emails. We have a warm and cozy house with a backyard playground and a stocked pantry in a lower density state that allows us to escape into nature frequently. Our family has no underlying health issues or co-morbidities. This privilege, however, doesn't release us from fear as we read projections of how coronavirus could kill millions of Americans in the absence of extreme social distancing. That our inability to move freely could be the new normal for 18 months or so until enough people get sick and a vaccine develops to gain herd immunity. That our parents are at particular risk, the healthcare system will become overwhelmed, and that we don't have enough masks to keep doctors safe or ventilators to keep the afflicted alive. None of us know how bad it will be or how long it will last and if our personal story will be one of waiting or one of survival or tragedy.

So we keep living our semi-normal lives. My COVID-19 schedule with the kids includes a daily art project, Cosmic Kids yoga, lots of cooking and baking, reading books, a walk around the neighborhood or park (but not the local playground where the virus can live up to two days), and lots of cuddling and giggling. Screen time restrictions have loosened significantly, and we have watched Frozen 2 or Cars every day for the past two weeks. I keep telling my husband that I am living every stay-at-home mom fantasy that I've ever had, but it's all in the shadow of the unknown. Is this our new normal? Will I be able to go up for tenure this year as planned? Will our new au pair be able to arrive in May as scheduled? Will I ever get to hug my parents in California again? Will we be okay? It's confusing and scary while simultaneously comfortable and cozy in a house with the people (and dog) that I love most in the world.

Some pictures from our first month in quarantine:

Eating a rcok

Look of love for our amazing au pair, C-Game.

Making mint and chip slime in the bathtub

Counting spruce cones at Hillside. Stan is thrilled to have all his people home all the time.

Mint and chip bath

Little Cottonwood Canyon

These moments steal my heart.

Harper: "Aidan is going to break his collarbone again." 

Playing hot lava in the living room. Harper is Captain and Ashton is crew.

Don't touch the lamp post! Don't touch anything! No more walks for you.

Wasatch Hollow

Unexpected tree swing. Probably covered in coronavirus.

The Great Salt Lake 

Tree pose on a tree.

Snapshot of isolation

Great Salt Lake from Stansbury Island

Homemade Play-Doh

Static electricity

Backyard Camping

What better time to potty train?

More Play Doh. Sorry these photos aren't perfectly in order. 

Taking a work break. My kids have very little respect for my home office hours.

Totally useless sign on my door

Makeshift home office

Tripped on an invisible toy. Giant goose egg.

Almost daily hot tub fun. 

Batman!

Playing ball at the park.

April at Silver Lake.

Same season. Different elevation.

In case you haven't noticed, Harper wears this Elsa dress every. single. day.

"Rock snowman family"

Little Cottonwood gave us an awesome structure to play house

Lost in the woods

Everything right now feels so monumental and generationally defining that I can't help but wonder what I'll remember about coronavirus in 20 years. More importantly, what will my kids remember? What behavioral and psychological remnants will they hold on to? Will they be compulsive handwashers? Social distancers by training? Or will they look back and say that this was the happiest time in their lives where we tromped around in nature, played endless card and board games, baked cookies, got crafty with things we found around the house, and ate dinner as a family every night? For now we're taking things one day at a time, and trying to make the most of this unexpected abundance of family time.

Stay well, my friends.