Coronavirus diary

We’re not hiking right now.  I could definitely find some photos to write up one of our older trips, but I’m too distracted.  We live in New York City suburbs, one of the country’s densest concentrations of coronavirus.  The constant news coverage isn’t easing my distraction.

We hardly drive anymore, and shop rarely.  We reminisce about going to restaurants.  We make long phone calls to our families.  Although we are technically working from home, our concentration is short.  We sigh a lot.

When the weather cooperates, we go out for walks in our local streets.  Our neighbors are outside too, waving at us from a safe distance and shaking their heads at the bizarreness of it all.  A few weeks ago I said that we avoided each other’s eyes.  Now we’re all in it together.

The other day, we were walking and our path crossed a father with a toddler in a stroller.  The child started shrieking as we approached .  His father calmed him down, explaining that we were keeping our distance and there was no need to worry.  How do you explain this to a small child?  Or an adult, for that matter?

Our usually peaceful neighborhood is shaken a few times a day by sirens.  Last night two ambulances and two fire engines arrived at the next street over, and we could see their lights strobing blue and red.  No idea why they needed fire engines, but it can’t be good news.  The danger is very real and very close.

Despite that, we’re pretty lucky.  We have a comfortable house, and supplies for the next week or two.  We don’t need to make the choice between going to a job that exposes us to a dangerous public or going without pay.  Our investments have suffered, but we’ll survive.  It could definitely be worse.

This year we had some exciting trips planned.  I hope we’ll get to them towards the end of this year, or maybe next year.  Can’t plan anything.

One of my best “bright side” stories is my high school’s Facebook group.  Several months ago, they planned a reunion at the last minute and practically no one was able to attend because of prior plans.  This past week we had a virtual event, and pretty much everyone who saw it said “yes, I can make it.”  So we had a Webex-based event.  Weird, but fun.