I’ve heard from friends who are having trouble sleeping, and now I’m one of them. I’m uncertain why. The possibilities are numerous, and of course they include the difficulties of the world—these are extraordinary and trying times. But they also include working too hard and eating ice cream too close to bedtime. And I have occasional bouts of insomnia in normal times as well, so who’s to know?

Whatever the case, I got about two hours of sleep last night. On the bright side, I don’t need to drive to work.

Insert smiley-face emoji here.

I’m too tired to find and add the emoji, but coffee is brewing and Rolo has awakened with me, so it’s not all bleakness.

Glory days

One of the many social engagement games floating around the Internet is the question, “When this is all over, what will you never take for granted again?” My honest answer, I think, is hygiene; my approach to cleanliness has always been…lax, but I suspect those days are gone. I’m not saying my house will be spotless, but the nearly hourly ritual of washing my hands might already have changed me forever.

My first serious thought, though, when I heard this question a few days ago, was “Baseball.” Yesterday would have been opening day. In years past, I would have been at Comiskey Park, rain or shine, cold or warm (and believe me, cold and rainy was not uncommon). In recent years I’ve gotten either wiser or less intrepid and begun watching the season’s first game with friends in a pub. Wherever I am, it’s an annual ritual.

This year, of course, is different. There’s no joy in Mudville because Mighty Casey can’t pick up a bat. Earlier this week, the husband and I pulled out our 15-year-old DVD set of the White Sox’s 2005 postseason and began watching. It’s a very different experience when you already know the outcome, but we’re having fun. All of the players are long-gone now, and we’re reliving happy times with them. I’ve never watched sports reruns on television, and I don’t think I’m going to start, but a once-in-a-lifetime World Series championship? I’m in.

I read a lovely poem about opening day yesterday that someone shared in a closed Facebook group. I can’t link to it it here—closed group and all—but it reminded me that I wasn’t the only person missing this annual celebration. That was helpful. Still, poetry can’t replace baseball. I’m looking forward to sitting again in the open air for three straight hours, with nothing to do other than watch people chase after a little white ball.

Goal setting

I’m too tired to care much about goals, but I do believe they’re helping me keep from stagnating in this extended period of isolation, so here’s my reckoning from yesterday: I’m giving myself a score of 4 out of 6. I didn’t manage to write to a friend, and while I spent extended time with my husband, and even with friends via FaceTime, I think I was wound so tightly from work that the term “quality” just can’t apply. So my goals are very modest today—or, rather, highly prioritized:

• Sleep when I need to
• Engage socially with one friend
• Walk the dogs if weather allows (rain in the forecast)
• Read a poem
• Photo a day

Photo of the day

Once again, I took several photos yesterday. I’m too tired to choose the winner, so you do it: Rolo sheltering in place, or a shy friend I saw on my walk:

A lot of us are finding out that working from home everyday is vastly different from working at home occasionally. I have an office job, normally, and work the occasional day from home to focus on specific projects I need to get done without distraction. Now, like many across the United States, I’m doing it full-time.

I’m lucky to have a job that makes this possible. For too many people, the reality is either a layoff or continuing to go out into the world to work, exposing self and loved ones to a potentially deadly virus. I’m blessed to have both a job that can be done remotely and an employer who understood the coronavirus situation early on and made working from home an early option.

That doesn’t mean it’s always easy. It’s hard not to blur work and home life when you don’t leave the house to go to work. That may be exacerbated now because we don’t go anywhere else either, except on an occasional supply run. (My husband is the designated shopper in my house, so I don’t even do that.) I suspect depression is also a threat due both to social isolation and the potential monotony of the unchanging environment.

Tips for the home office

There are ways to make it easier, though. Here’s what I do to keep work time feeling like work time, and distinct from home time:

• Have a designated office space that’s used only for work. This might be a whole room or just a corner of one. Mine is only the size of my desk. But it’s a place I use only when I’m “at work,” and that’s what matters. Mine is where I used to sit to write this blog. No longer, I’ve given it over entirely to me job, and I know write everything of my own from a different space.
• Establish, or keep, a routine that sets aside at least a small amount of personal time. I start my morning writing in this blog, or writing poetry, usually with my first cup of coffee (although today I haven’t yet brewed that). I sit down to work at about the same time I would be doing so if I still drove to the office every morning. Depending on the weather, I might take a mid-day break to get the dogs out for a walk—particularly if rain threatens later in the day. More often I work straight through the day.
• Let co-workers know when I’m “leaving” work. I started doing this because I have a job that’s ramped up enormously due to COVID-19, and much of the work that comes to me is urgent. Letting my boss and my co-workers know when I was leaving to walk the dog or shutting down for the day was a courtesy intended to make sure I wouldn’t leave them in a lurch. As it turns out, it serves me also, by giving me peace of mind to have personal time. I carry my phone with me on walks, and sometimes people do need to call me. But they know that I’m away from my desk, and they don’t expect me to rush back to it immediately. Once I’ve checked in and received clearance to take 45 minutes off or call it a complete work day, my time away from my desk becomes mine again in a substantively different way.
• Shower and dress for work. My mode of dressing for work is much more casual than office attire, and I revel in the ability to wear sweatpants that are in tatters and can’t be allowed out of the house. But I don’t stay in pajamas or a bathrobe, and I don’t wear what I wore the day before. I expect mental health professionals could tell me why this makes such a difference in keeping my spirits up; I just know that it does.
• Get out of the house to exercise every day. I fear rainy days because they will make this harder; I’ll probably try substituting yoga and sitting out on the covered front porch to breathe fresh air.
• Keep following whatever are your normal workday rules about drinking alcohol (or using other recreational drugs). I don’t drink alcohol on work nights or during work days. Now that work nights look and feel pretty much the same as weekend nights, it’s tempting to ease that rule. I don’t.

Goal setting

My habit of goal setting isn’t about working from home but about coping with isolation. But I recommend it also.

I did pretty well with yesterday’s goals:

• Photo of the day—check
• Read poetry—check
• Dog walk (snow be damned)—check
• Don’t eat too many cookies—well, nobody’s perfect
• Stretch goals: I did the exercise walk and ate dinner at a normal hour, but didn’t create anything but a blog post.

For today, here’s my plan:

• Photo of the day
• Read poetry
• Record a poem to share with others
• Dog walk and exercise walk
• This blog post
• Figure out if I need to go to the Post Office to purchase stamps
• Dinner with friends via FaceTime if I’m able to quit work on time
• Check the status of my seed order

Photo of the day

My world was blanketed in snow when I woke up yesterday, and I knew it wouldn’t last. It was really heavy, wet snow, so I knew the trees would be better off with it melted. But it was pretty. I don’t think I captured it well, but I’m fairly pleased with this shot of my largest garden ornament.

It’s back-to-work Monday. For me, that means installing myself in the front bedroom, which serves triple duty as office and sometime family room, at the drafting table I inherited from my dad. I have a window next to me and usually a dog on the bed behind me. Life could be worse.

That’s how I feel about the world these days, too, and I hope it stays that way. More and more people are sheltering at home across the country, but not yet enough I fear. Yesterday during Church of the Informed Citizen services, I came across a site that provides state-by-state data models indicating best- and worst-case scenarios for battling COVID-19. It’s positively frightening. In most states, the “point-of-no-return” date for the state to take action that can prevent the healthcare system from being overwhelmed is sometime this week. That’s true even in a state as rural as Wyoming.

Once again, I’m thankful to live in a community and a state where this threat is being taken seriously. Being isolated isn’t a lot of fun, but it’s the right thing to do, and I’m glad our public officials have taken the approach they have. Even so I worry, especially about my own family. I know that’s normal, but normalcy doesn’t make it easier.

Making the best of it

It snowed here yesterday, as predicted. This is the Midwest, and snow in March isn’t unusual; I’m not going to complain about it. The day didn’t seem terribly cold, despite temperatures near freezing, and we spent plenty of it outdoors. But we didn’t actually break out the fire pit as planned.

Instead, because it was really wet, fluffy snow, I made miniature snowmen for my neighbors and anyone passing by. Three of them, all on my porch railing, one facing the sidewalk, and one facing each of my neighbors’ houses. Little snowmen make me happy; that’s all.

Goal setting

I did pretty well with the goals I set out for myself yesterday:

• Photo of the day—check
• Spaghetti carbonara—check (plus oatmeal cookies!)
• Create something—check
• Read—check
• Laundry—check
• Tidy table—check

Today is a workday, so I need to be more modest. Work aside, here’s what I’d like to manage:

• Photo of the day
• Read poetry
• Dog walk (snow be damned)
• Don’t eat too many cookies
• Stretch goals: exercise walk; create; dinner at a normal hour

Photo of the day

It was a lovely snow. I took a few pictures.