Quarantine Diary May 4, 2020

It's Day 47 of Quarantine here in Wisconsin (counting from when the schools closed). We're staying pretty busy here in Maison Martin. Patrick is teaching, of course, and Minh is studying. Christopher's birthday was on Friday, so I made him a cake and took it to Stevens Point. It was strange to see him but only get close enough to hand off the cake. No hugs or kisses. We did stand and talk for a few minutes. But, he works at a Starbucks inside a grocery store and even with a mask, is likely to get Covid-19 eventually, so I let him keep his germs to himself.

I'm not nearly so anxious about the epidemic these days. For about a week, I was taking a small dose of an anxiolytic during the day so I could get some stuff done, but I don't need it anymore. It helped get me over the hump. I've learned to modulate how much news I take in so I can process it emotionally. I'm also getting more exercise and have given myself permission to eat carbs when I need to. Now that I've eaten all the carbs in the world, though, I'm back to eating a low carb diet and feel better.

My anxiety was never because I was afraid of Covid-19, although the more we learn, the more there is to fear about the disease. Strokes in young people? Yikes! I'm somewhat concerned about Christopher because of the kind of work he does, but I have to trust that he's young and healthy and the mortality rate for his age group remains low. The rest of us have low exposure risk, although we know that it's not zero.

No, I've been anxious because this is something outside of my control and I can't participate in doing anything about it. In bad influenza years when I was working, I took care of influenza patients. I was part of helping. I had some input. Sitting on the sidelines is hard. I don't even sew, so I can't make masks. (Although Lydia did find some elastic and bias tape in my sewing box, so I was able to contribute that to the cause!)

And I'm concerned about our fracturing society. People are afraid. On one side, people are afraid enough about their financial circumstances and don't know enough about the medical situation that they're demanding that the government allow them to go back to work, despite the risks that it poses to them and others. While other people are more disturbed about the risks of opening up our economy and in fear of the havoc the virus will wreak if we do go back to business as normal.

I've heard that the Bible tells us "Fear not!" 365 times. But fear is a real and healthy emotion. Fear tells us that something is wrong. Fear tells us to slow down. God tells us to "fear not" so we can turn to him for direction.

It's normal and OK to be afraid of this pandemic. It's normal and OK to be afraid of having no income. But, we shouldn't act out of our fear. We need to stop and say, "OK, what now, God?" I can't tell you what to do, but God has made it clear that our family can get through this pandemic by sharing our resources while others are losing theirs. We can also provide emotional support for others. Each of us has different roles in this crisis. (But, I think none of them should include assault rifles in public. But, that's just me.)

Other things to include in this installation of the quarantine diary: We finished watching Handmaid's Tale and are eagerly awaiting Season 4. We're into watching Zoe's Extraordinary Playlist which is lots of fun. And, Patrick has us watching Firefly, which he has seen, but I've only seen bits of and Minh hasn't seen at all. I just finished The Escape Artist, which is a memoir and I loved it. I listened to Godshot on Audible and also loved that. Our library is now doing curbside pickup for stuff in their library - nothing from other libraries in the system yet. Nonetheless, I'm thrilled!!

Grocery trips are a real treat, but the weather is nice so going outside is now a daily event. My headaches have actually been a little better for the last ten days or so. Yippee!!

What are you doing during quarantine? Anything fun? Is there anything you need? We're happy to help in any way we can!

Catherine