Category Archives: Communities

Leaps of faith, acts of hope

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Spring’s first crocus arrived yesterday in the back yard, a bright purple beauty that, astonishingly, is still around today. Astonishing because our wild rabbits seem to love crocuses (I know, croci, but really?!), and the purple ones are their favorites. You doubt me? Years of experience have taught me that the rabbits’ dining preferences are an exact match for my aesthetic ones. They love a purple crocus flower best, followed by a white one, and least of all the yellow, which sometimes get left in place when all the others have been devoured. As with most things in my garden, I don’t begrudge them, though I’m always sad to lose the cheery crocus blooms, which are for me a true sign of spring.

Inside, my seedlings have begun to sprout, sending delicate stems stretching up from the dirt to remind me that life goes on. I’ve planted mostly vegetables and greens inside: kale and kalettes, chard, summer squash, basil, spinach. In addition to the raised bed, they’ll fill pots on the patio alongside edible flowers like marigolds and nasturtiums. I’ve started sunflowers indoors this year, too, a first for me. This is an experiment because the critters usually get whatever sunflower seed I direct sow outdoors. Again, I don’t begrudge them; even this year there’s extra seed left over, plenty for everyone. What else will I direct sow? Beans, lettuce, herbs, bee balm, and other seeds I can’t remember without hauling myself out of this chair right now to look.

Spring is my favorite season, a renewal, regeneration, start of the new cycle of life. It always cheers me, and this year I think I’m trying to escape the world by turning my eyes to the garden. I’m looking for reasons to be hopeful, and nature always provides.

It’s election season, which means postcard-writing season for me, and this year that has been an act of hope more than one of faith. I don’t know that I trust in the electoral process right now, but I refuse to surrender it. And so yesterday I dropped 100 postcards to swing-state voters through the mail slot at the Post Office that the current federal government wants to shut down. (That’s fewer cards than my usual contribution, but I’m plagued by a repetitive stress issue in my writing hand right now and wasn’t sure I could commit to more than 100.) Mailing GOTV postcards is always a joyous moment for me, and this year a somewhat defiant and very determined one.

Today I’m grateful for:

  • People who love and organize
  • Spring sunlight
  • A single purple crocus

Political action in place

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Yesterday, my husband and I put stamps on 200 postcards we wrote urging voters in Wisconsin to get out and vote (or stay in and vote if they can!) in that state’s April 7 primary. I’m a bit of two minds about this now, when I know how important it is to maintain social distance. But voting is, to me, both a right and a responsibility.

The last public place I went was to my polls two weeks ago, and I went after I already had cloistered myself at home in every other circumstance. I went as early in the day as possible (to avoid crowds), voted mostly with my gloves on, and still used hand sanitizer when I was done. But I went, and I voted, because my opinion matters and my vote counts. The presidential nominating process might be effectively over (though still not sure what the Democratic convention will look like), but down-ticket races matter, too—in some ways, I think, they matter more, because my single vote is even more important there and because local candidates go on to run for state and federal offices later.

So yesterday my husband went to the Post Office (early, separated by at least 6 feet from other patrons, and assisted by hand sanitizer) to get our post card stamps for the cards that I wrote two weeks ago. They’ll go in the mail today or tomorrow (more hand sanitizer) and wing their way toward their registered-voter recipients. It gave me pleasure to sign up to write them, and pleasure when I finished the job, and I anticipate it will give me pleasure to drop them into a post box and know I’ve done something I consider valuable.

All politics is local, and in my house it happens sometimes at the dining room table.

Reconnecting personally, too—not all politics!

Also at the dining room table, I wrote and addressed a postcard yesterday to a friend, the first of many hand-written notes I hope to write while sheltering in place. I used to write long letters to friends and relatives, back in the days before mobile-phone packages and email became ubiquitous (I’m sooo old!), and I remember enjoying it. It’s a writing process not unlike any other, and I think it helps focus me in the moment and free my mind to think rather than ramble or flicker. My next letter will be, I think, either to a long-lost friend from college days or a cousin in Sweden, both of whom I’ want very much to renew contact with.

Meanwhile, I work long hours and try to make time and mind space to read. Mostly I’ve been reading poetry because it helps to center me and I’m having trouble focusing on book-length prose, possibly a sign of underlying anxiety. I’ve been reading Billy Collins and Mary Oliver, primarily, but also poems that come my way on Twitter and by email. If you have a poem I might read, send me a link in the comments or on social media; I’ll appreciate that.

Goal setting

I did well with yesterday’s goals—check, check, check on every one! Here are today’s:

  • Photo a day
  • Mail the postcards
  • Write to another friend
  • Reach out to a different specific friend for a specific reason that is personal and has no place here
  • Walk the dogs
  • Quality time with my husband

That lists feels pretty modest, and I have some stretch goals as well, including creating, dinner with a friend via FaceTime if I can knock off work on time, and exercise. But since I can’t fully control the length of my workday, I’m trying to be realistic.

Photo of the day

Rolo, pretending to be a much younger dog.

Signs of change

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I hope it’s not business as usual for anyone at this point, at least not anyone in North America. We need to change our behavior and follow advice on social distancing. I’m disheartened by my Twitter feed, where people say this isn’t happening where they live. Here in the Chicago suburbs—at least in my very left-leaning community—it definitely is.

A couple local signs of change:

  • A 30-in, 30-out policy at Trader Joe’s, with a line of people outside the door standing 6 feet apart. (Way to go Trader Joe’s!)
  • Increased quiet, with much less traffic on the busy street a block away
  • Seen while walking yesterday: Dad out biking with his two kids, all three bundled up against 40-degree temperatures

Shelter-in-place orders

Illinois’ governor issued a shelter-in-place order that takes effect at 5 p.m. today, extending across the entire state the restrictions ordered by my local community a couple days earlier. We join residents of California, New York and Connecticut, where similar (not identical) orders are in place. I expect more states will follow suit.

I hope it works. We’re all in this together, and we need to look out for each other. Those in low-risk groups may survive COVID-19 with only mild symptoms, but their grandparents and neighbors with disabilities face higher odds. My social distancing is less for my benefit than for those I would otherwise come in contact with who have elderly parents living with them or loved ones who are immune-compromised. I don’t know these people, but I care about them. So I stay in.

Today’s goals look like this:

  • Make the chicken pot pie that was supposed to be dinner last night before I got pulled into an urgent project for work.
  • Walk the dogs, and walk for exercise. (With my two old dogs, these are not the same thing.)
  • Do laundry.
  • Place my seed order.
  • Read.
  • Create…something.

That doesn’t feel very ambitious. Perhaps I should be concerned abut that. Is it a sign of social isolation that I don’t have higher goals for my day off?

I wonder how others are spending your increased time at home. Meditation? Yoga? DIY projects? I’d love to hear from you.

Midwestern spring

Meanwhile, the garden grows, on schedule, unworried about any coronavirus. My lilies are mad for spring, and the peonies are sending up shoots. One hyacinth is readying a bloom, and I’m wondering if the others are still hung over from winter or got carried off by squirrels to someone else’s yard. (The crocuses are nowhere to be seen.) My forsythia is covered in buds, holding its bright yellow beauty at bay, but not for long. Today’s high temperature is supposed to be just 1 degree above freezing, but that’s spring in the Midwest. We can take it.

Sheltering in place

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What a difference a day makes. As of last night, I’m officially living under a shelter-at-home order. It’s not draconian. In fact, it’s pretty reflective of how my husband and I have been living since the end of last week: staying out of public places except to shop for necessities (food, pet food), not getting together with anyone but each other, walking the dogs but steering clear of others we come across while we’re out.

It feels different, though. My village government issued the shelter-in-place order yesterday evening after receiving notice of the first confirmed case of COVID-19 in the community. That was followed shortly (this morning) by news that two emergency room doctors at the hospital nearby also have the disease. None of this is surprising, and I’m not in a panic, but it adds a different perspective to the situation.

My typical day

Today was much like any other day this week: I brewed my morning coffee and then settled in for a day of work upstairs. I found a 20-minute window with no meetings or urgent work tasks before the rain arrived, and took a quick walk just to get a minimal amount of exercise. I already had sent the husband out to walk the dogs, knowing I probably wouldn’t be able to get away long enough to do that before the weather turned bad. I got on a conference call minutes after returning home, then worked straight through until 7 p.m.

This has been my pattern all week, except for the timing of the walk. It’s going to be my pattern through at least next week, and I have a feeling it won’t change for quite some time. I suspect this is the new normal. I’m to sure what to think of that, nor what to expect it to do to my psyche.

Seeking a new kind of social

Tank, right now

We’ve canceled travel plans to see family a few hours away at the end of the month, and I’m disappointed by that. It’s a trip I was looking forward to, and I realize I’ve no idea when it will be possible. So what to do instead?

For starters, I’ve asked the husband to research online gaming apps, to see whether we can find tabletop simulations for games we like to play with different groups. The family we would have seen on this canceled road trip plays dominoes and euchre; can we find online versions that will connect us with them in real-time for conversation? What about our friends locally? Can we pull together virtual game parties to continue sharing our lives with each other?

I expect I’ll do more texting and emailing with friends, too, but I want to hear their voices also. At the most local level possible, I’m hoping to coax my next-door neighbors (are you reading this, folks?) out onto our front porches for Friday or Saturday evening socials—but not this weekend, because the temperature is supposed to fall to near freezing.

And yet I’m grateful

I’m not complaining. I’m healthy so far, and so is my husband, though I’m waiting with baited breath for word from others I know who have symptoms of illness. Ultimately, I expect we all will know people who fall ill with COVID-19. I hope against hope that we won’t all know people who don’t survive.

Ultimately, I’m thankful for my community’s response. I’m thankful for the school districts that are canceling classes for the next month or even longer. I’m thankful for closed restaurants, shops, and museums. I’m thankful to my employer for making telecommuting possible, and for every other employer that’s doing the same.

I miss my library, but I’m thankful for governments and public institutions that are pausing their operations to keep people from gathering when they don’t need to. I’m also enormously thankful for those who are serving essential functions, whether from home or their regular workplace: the election officials who oversaw voting on Tuesday, the guy who answered my email last night when the village servers crashed just after they issued the shelter-at-home order, and the doctors and nurses and other workers who are keeping hospitals operating. And I’m thankful for every person who is actively social distancing or sheltering at home.

Yes, you. If you’re in the same situation I am, if you feel like your world is starting to close in on you because you hardly leave your house, but you’re doing it because you know it’s the right thing to do…thank you. From the bottom of my heart, thank you. I only hope that a month from now it looks like it was an over-reaction. I hope it works.

Today’s photo

Today’s photo is sidewalk art from my neighborhood, with a message from the artist:

The kids are alright…today

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March for Our Lives rally Chicago - March 24, 2018I’m back from Chicago’s March for Our Lives rally and utterly overwhelmed by the promise of our future. This was a rally by kids, for kids, featuring kids, and they were amazing. They were eloquent, inspiring, empowered and empowering. They stood on a stage in front of tens of thousands of people, and they spoke with grace, with dignity, with power. They spoke in prose, in poetry, in song. They spoke in many voices, at different volumes, some a bit hard to hear over the background noise of the crowd. All spoke with urgency and grace; none was cowed. Continue reading →

Magical thinking: A celebration of the Chicago Cultural Center

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I wandered into the Chicago Cultural Center yesterday and found magic.

That’s usually what happens to me at the Cultural Center. Yesterday, magic took the form of the Dance-Along Nutcracker, which drew aspiring ballet dancers of all ages to don leotards and tutus and dance together to selections from The Nutcracker (and The Grinch) played by the Lakeside Pride Symphonic Band. I’d never heard of this event, but the sweetness of it literally had me near tears. Continue reading →