Homebound Ramblings

Today, I just wanted to write here so you’d know two things about me that are still relevant to the discussion:

1) I’m alive.

2) I’m keeping as busy as I can. I’m writing music. I’m doing some editing. And I have some ideas for stories about Bruno and Sarah, but they need to get out of the gestation stage so I can write ’em down. (Still, I’m thinking and I’m whipping up plots. It’s not all bad.)

Now, the reason for doing this is, of course, Covid-19. It is rampaging its way through Wisconsin, and the numbers we have are far lower than the actual ones because of the difficulty in getting tests.

So, I stay home and do all of the above I mentioned in #2.

What’s strangest of all about my experiences thus far with Wisconsin’s shelter-in-place order (excepting the above reasons) is how dislocated I feel from everything. It’s the end of March. Baseball season would normally be underway, but because of Covid-19, it’s not. When I drive anywhere, the roads are much less crowded than usual, which is both a blessing and a curse; when I go into any place besides the grocery store, the sense of quietude is almost overwhelming.

Of course, I’ve been abiding by the Wisconsin shelter-in-place order as much as I possibly can. I have gone out to shop, to see my mother (I shop for her, too), to go to the doctor, to visit the lake (I see that as an almost spiritual exercise), and I’ve done a little walking here and there, too. I’ve also visited a friend, sitting six feet away from her, and chatted; this has helped me feel a bit better, even though maybe it’s not as strict of a social distancing as some would wish. (I have limited myself to just this, though. Everything else, and I do mean everything, has been done over the phone or the computer.)

All of this feels wrong, though. It sounds wrong, too. It’s like I went to bed one night, and woke up in another universe. It’s one I hardly know, and can barely understand.

And I can’t stand it.

I didn’t expect to feel this way. I am an introvert. (Granted, I’m an introvert who enjoys people and likes to talk to them, one-on-one.) The jobs I do in music and writing and editing are ones you have to be solitary-minded to appreciate. (Or, in the case of playing in a band with others, you have to be able to fit in with how the rest of the group is playing the music or your own music won’t make any sense.) And I’m used to being at home, because I work from home.

Still. I do not like being cooped up in the house. It is very frustrating to not have the opportunities to go out and do things, even though at this particularly stressful time I realize social distancing and flattening the curve means I need to stay home as much as possible.

I realize that if you’re a parent of young children, you’ve got it way worse than I do. (Most especially if they were in a traditional school, but now have to be de facto homeschooled for the rest of the semester with only the teacher’s guiding prompts.) And I have great sympathy for you, as I do for anyone who is frustrated with the Covid-19 pandemic and wonders when, if ever, it will end.

As I’ve said before, I think we all need to do whatever we can to help others. But I also think we need, somehow, to keep our spirits as high as possible. Read books that make us think, or laugh, or better yet, both; watch movies and shows that enlighten us, entertain us, or at least amuse us; listen to music that makes us think, makes us feel, makes us care, and makes us understand that we’re all human and we’ll all get through this.

That said, I wish I could do more. Say more. Be more. Listen more. Help more. And again, do more…because people are hurting right now, and I hate it that I can’t fix what is broken. (Only the epidemiologists, scientists, and other medical personnel can do that right now.)

But I’m here to listen. And if you want to talk, chime in and let me know…the floor is open. (Or at least, the blog’s comment section is.)