Blue-Footed Musings

Yesterday I wrote a to-do list that was entitled “Saturday To-Do.” After tackling most of the things on the list, I sneakily scratched out “Saturday” and replaced it with “Weekend.” That means I’m virtually done with chores for the weekend. Hooray!

But, though I feel like being a lazy slug today, and though I gave myself permission do it, I know I’ll be happier later if I get some additional tasks done now. So, first I must do all the things on my daily to-do list: make bed, do dishes and laundry, write a blog post, play piano, sit in the sun (if possible) for vitamin D, take a walk, and do anything required to keep children alive and well, such as feeding them.

After that, I’d like to clean my office, by which I mean…

• Finish folding and putting away laundry.
• Put away wrapping paper, craft things, and art supplies.
• Gather everything on the desk into one pile, then go through pile.
• Pay bills.
• Organize closet.
• Rearrange desk area.
• Vacuum and dust.

So, first things first, this post is my blog post for the day. Next I will make the bed and throw a load of laundry into the washing machine. Then I will head outside for some sun. With any luck, I’ll feel motivated enough afterward to continue crossing items off the list.

I wish everyone a happy, productive, and sunny day today.

I don’t think it’s accurate to say that the coronavirus has revealed the terrible inequities and cruelties entrenched our systems (cultural, financial, legal, educational, healthcare, etc.). Anyone who was paying attention already knew that those problems existed. What the virus has done is to make us pay a steadily increasing price in blood (nearly 100,000 lives and counting) for our collective failure to correct the problems.

It’s a harsh price, but the pain is temporary. It will wear off, likely sooner than any of us would care to admit. As a nation, we’re used to injustice. We’re used to gun violence. We’re used to corruption, greed, and mismanagement in our government. We’re used to poverty. We’re used to the rich glutting themselves while we fight over their scraps. Give us time, and we’ll get used to paying this new price, too.

We got a phone call from our school system this evening. It was a poll. They wanted to know…

1. If school were to open for the fall, would we need busing?
2. Given the pandemic situation, would we refuse to send our kids to school under any circumstances, send our kids to school if enough safety precautions were taken, or are we undecided?

The first question was standard business. They’re always eagerly searching for any students they can cross off their bus list. Eliminating even a single bus would save them a ton of money.

But question #2 was a shocker. To think we are living through a time when such a question even needs to be asked! It’s hard to imagine refusing to send our kids to school, even though we almost did that very thing earlier this year.

We’re months into this pandemic, but I’m still struggling with normalcy bias. And whether it was the normalcy bias that made me do it, or a lingering ember of optimism, I answered “undecided.” I doubt there’s anything they could do to make school seem safe enough, but I’m not ready to give up on the idea.

I am grateful to all the previous generations of human beings that caught and subsequently softened the common cold viruses into the mild diseases that they are now. Novel viruses are a bitch, as we are all learning now. Being first isn’t always best. When it comes to viruses, you want one that’s old and worn down.

Our day started a little earlier that usual, because my husband had to go to the school to return some books and also to pick up the stuff our kids had left there. It’s sad that the kids didn’t get to go back this year. It’s particularly sad for Marshall. That school was such a huge part of his life for so many years, and he didn’t get a chance to say good-bye to it. Most likely Livia will return, if not for 4th grade then for 5th, but Marshall will most likely never set foot in the building again. No time is a good time for pandemic, and all the kids have missed out because of it, but I think the situation is toughest for the kids in transitional phases, the ones who had just started school and the ones just about to finish.

Tonight I finished the book I’ve been reading for a while, Greenglass House by Kate Milford. The pace at the beginning of the story was painfully slow, but after a while I realized that part of the problem was that I was being painfully slow to read it. I was only reading a few pages each night before bed. You can read a book that way, but it takes forever, and it’s hard to become invested in it. If you want to enjoy a book, and particularly if you want to enjoy more than just a few books per year, you have to set aside time for reading. You have to turn off the TV, and the computer, and stop playing piano or whatever else it is you do when you’re not reading, and pick up a book. And read and read and read. Anyone who really loves reading knows that. Sometimes they just forget.

Some of my book orders came today. I will have to wait to look at them, though, because they’ve gone to quarantine, as most things have to do when they arrive. We also finally got the pulse oximeter that my husband ordered a while back. I’m glad that we have it, but I hope we will never need it. Excepting the arrival of those packages, the day was completely unremarkable. I suppose that’s a good thing, even though it’s dull.

I did almost nothing today. Doing nothing is starting to become the norm for me on Sunday. Some people might say that was a good thing, calling it a “day of rest,” but you only need a day of rest if you worked your butt off during the rest of the week. TBH, I haven’t been working my butt off. My butt’s still all there, and then some.

All their lives, my children have been told to stay away from the road. Roads are never safe places for children. Ours is a main road, with fast and nearly constant traffic, so it’s worse than some. But, it’s safe enough to walk along, if you’re paying attention, and my children are old enough to learn that. So, when they begged me to take them on the road for a couple of short walks, I did.

The first time was a great novelty for them. They especially liked crossing the road. It is a wide road, and long, but its size can’t be appreciated from any single point on the edges of it. Not until you’re out in the middle of it can you experience its vastness. And in that brief moment, you get a feeling of being somewhere you do not belong, a frisson of danger. Even I still get a tiny thrill from it.

Now the novelty of walking along the road is starting to wear off for them, and I’m glad. I don’t particularly like walking on the road, and I particularly dislike having the children with me. It’s safe enough, like I said, for walkers paying attention. My kids do not always pay attention, and I have to keep reminding them to stay behind me and/or to my left. Though I could probably learn to tune out the traffic, our safety also requires me to pay attention to all of the cars, just in case their drivers aren’t paying attention to us. I don’t like having to maintain that level of vigilance.

It was time for my kids to learn some basic road safety, so it’s good that I’ve taught them. But, all things considered, the road is probably riskier for us than the virus is. And let’s be honest: the virus isn’t going to disappear any more than the road is. As a country, we’ve had two chances to get the pandemic under control. We failed the first, and we seem to be failing the second. With no vaccine on the horizon, the virus is going to run its course. I am going to have to adjust to living with the constant risk that it presents, just as I’ve learned to accept the risks of the road.

I am in the process of acquiring masks for the family. Once we get them, we will have the option of going to public places, including the local walking trails. Then I will have to decide if that’s a risk I can adjust to. I hope I can. If I can’t, it’s going to be a long year ahead, even vaster in the middle than when viewed from any point along the edges of it. But, unlike the road, there will be no thrill in the crossing of it.