I’m sure that the Coronavirus pandemic will become a chapter in history books. They’ll list statistics about the number of people infected, the number of deaths, the number of borders closed, the number of jobs lost, the plummeting stock market prices. But the facts are rarely effective in telling the full story. The facts won’t tell you about the runners who trained for the Tokyo Marathon and never got a chance to run. The facts won’t tell you about the recovering alcoholics who couldn’t get to an AA meeting. The facts won’t tell you about the small, every day things we took for granted up until a few days ago. An office to go to, your daily conversation with the barista at the coffee shop, running with a group of people, turning on a hockey game at the end of a long day.

My story throughout this pandemic is one of extreme privilege - cancelling a trip to South Africa, though heartbreaking in it’s own right - is not the same as losing a job, losing a house, or losing a loved one.

But I would like to chronicle this time - on the brink of 30, and moving back to my childhood home for an indeterminate amount of time.

I hope you can relate to some of what I write. I hope you can laugh at some of it. I hope it can serve as a brief distraction. And I pray that we can all get through this.

DAY TWO

On Sunday night I swore I was going to stick to a schedule and wake up at 6:30 to workout, shower and eat breakfast before reporting to my laptop for work from home day one.

That was before I drank beer and stayed up past my bedtime :) So instead, I rolled out of bed at 7:15 and was working out by 7:30 - still giving me enough time to shower and pour a cup of coffee before 9 AM.

A dream deferred

Then, it was time to face the reality that I was going to have to cancel my trip to South Africa.

I can’t even estimate how many hours I spent planning and dreaming up this trip. The amount of blog posts and news articles I’d read. The number of bus schedules I’d looked at and menus I’d perused. The number of Google Map routes I’d explored.

I’d planned out everything - there were 30+ confirmation emails I had to go back and find. Some were as simple as clicking a cancel button, but a lot required emails and dates and confirmation numbers and booking references and questions about re-booking and refund policies and I’m sure I’ll be going back and forth on some of this for weeks to come.

Each time I sent an email or clicked the cancel button, I felt my eyes well up with tears. It might sound dramatic, but I had spent so much time planning and picturing myself doing all of these things that it was a pretty devastating way to spend the morning - making it all go away.

The good news is we will likely get to reschedule our trip - but I’m not going to lie if I say the thought of redoing all the work over again fills me with excitement. I think I need some time before I’m ready to get excited again. Plus, there is so much uncertainty right now surrounding my schedule and what life will look like in the coming months that I honestly am not sure that a 3 week trip will be possible at any point. The trip may look different when we re-plan it, and I’m giving myself some time to process that.

If anyone is interested, I might post the itinerary I had put together- because it’s quite impressive if I do say so myself.

lunch break - a quick trip out

My mom and I took a quick trip to CVS so I could buy some tampons, shampoo and more Emergen-C.,,the essentials. It’s really crazy to see the empty shelves where the toilet paper, Lysol wipes and hand sanitizer used to be.

After we got the necessities we drove over a couple of parking spots to Crazy Beans Cafe. I had to laugh - it strikes me as so suburban to drive across a parking lot instead of keeping the car parked where it is and just walking. I got myself an iced vanilla dirty chai latte and 4 pieces of multigrain bread because they have the best bread ever (and refuse to say where they get it from!) Just a casual $12, oops.

While I waited for them to make my drink I thought of some of my other favorite dirty chai lattes - they’re usually my go-to treat at the top of a hike or when I’m getting a mid-day pick-me-up on vacation. It made me wish I knew when I’d get to travel again. Or hug my friends!

A definite up-side to the quarantine business is that people seem to be going on a lot more walks! My mom and I drove to the beach and did a few laps of the walking trail, it was chilly and windy but sunny.

Then it was back to work - a few phone calls, but unfortunately not much good news.

What was good, was my turkey sandwich. You know I love a good turkey sandwich. Like, really love.

We made them on the crazy delicious multigrain bread from Crazy Beans - turkey, American cheese, mustard, bread and butter pickles, spinach and avocado.

I will admit that I might have dozed off in my bed for 20 minutes or so in the late afternoon.

Dinner was a big giant Greek salad, because my mom and I are insisting on some healthy meals up in here. Greens, chickpeas, dill, feta, dolmades, tzatziki, carrots, onions, cucumber, tomato - mmm I was a happy camper!

Then it was time to wrap up my Gotham City Writer’s Creative Nonfiction 101 Class. Sad that we didn’t get a chance to say a real goodbye to our professor and classmates, but really glad that instead of outright cancelling, we were able to call in via Zoom for one last 3-hour lesson.

I’ve been trying to think of companies and industries that are benefiting from this crisis, and Zoom certainly seems to be one of them - along with online streaming services like Netflix and at home workout streaming services like Peloton!

THINGS THAT MADE ME SMILE

I highly recommend revisiting some of NPRs tiny desk concert series while you’re home! It brought a lot of joy to my day. Harry Styles’ dropped yesterday and I also took some time to listen to Maggie Rogers and Dermot Kennedy.