A perfect day, pandemic or not.
An angel statue in Sylvester Cemetery, East Atlanta.
I took a mental health day, my first in years, and boy was it invigorating.
I am a planner. I schedule everything and I generally know what most days of my life looks like, months in advance. Obviously my days have looked like more of the same recently. I generally select some combination of: work, exercise/outdoor time, dinner with family, Zoom with friends, TV, reading, writing and baths. My life has never been smaller and my day’s brochure of offerings as limited. Even still I’ve had structure and purpose and I’ve held myself accountable to responsibility every day throughout this pandemic. Until this week when I took a (planned) “day off” and it was magical.
Knowing I’d be leaving Atlanta soon, I selected the nicest day of the week, so I could maximize my time in the sun and soak up as much of this nice weather as possible. On Tuesday I woke up, made coffee and headed out of the house before Gavin was even awake. The weather was glorious, the birds were chirping and it was the first day since I can remember that I had no agenda.
Aside from my personal commitment to spend as much time as possible outdoors I was freeee. I wanted to see some new sights too, having walked the same streets for days, so I took some roads less travelled, towards a nearby neighborhood cemetery I wanted to explore. Along the way there and back I discovered new streets and new neighborhoods, new dogs behind fences, new moms pushing strollers, new abandoned cars that hadn’t been moved for weeks. In a time when our sightseeing is limited, it was exciting and refreshing to feast my eyes on new-to-me things.
After a couple of hours I made my way back home to drop off my coffee cup and continued on my way, chatting with friends and catching up about the latest developments of the week. I called my friend Kati, a high school English teacher, as I saw the alert that Massachusetts schools had closed for the remainder of the year. It was something we all knew was coming, but it confirmed the extended timeline of the situation–the final nail in the coffin of the school year had been placed. Basically two more months of parents playing teacher and teachers struggling to navigate their expectations amid distance learning while trying to maintain their purpose behind limited screen time. Perhaps another silver lining in all of this is that people realize the tremendous work that teachers do everyday and they actually start getting paid an amount that reflects that.
But a digress. Back to my picture perfect day… 73 and sunny, birds chirping, flowers in bloom, their scents stopping me in my tracks again and again as I walked aimlessly through East Atlanta. Hours later by legs began to ache and I headed back to the ranch. I’ve been eagerly awaiting a piece of mail from my sister so I checked the mailbox, nothing from her, but two other letters addressed to us that proved equally as exciting. After properly disinfecting the envelopes and removing the contents I was overwhelmed by what I found. First, a generous check from an old family friend of Gavin’s who knew his business had been affected, and second, two photos of my stepbrother Brendon’s recent Special Forces graduation, making him an official Green Beret. I was both overwhelmed by these acts of kindness and oh, so proud of Brendon.
Six years ago Gavin and I attended his basic training graduation at Fort Benning, just two hours south of Atlanta, when we were living here. Unfortunately we couldn’t be there to celebrate with him in Fort Bragg this year for obvious reasons, but it meant a lot to receive that mail, especially in Atlanta, a place the three of us had initially grown close. I was flooded with happy tears.
By this point I had spent at least ten minutes inside so it was time to get back out there, my sun clock was ticking. I grabbed my copy of Fahrenheit 451 and made my way to the back deck. An hour and a half later I had finished the book, the first I had completed since 2019. Fahrenheit serves as an essential piece of American literature, and I found myself thinking that books are perhaps more essential than ever.
As we struggle to find meaningful experiences in our limited world, at least we still have books. Books to transport us to other lands, teach us new things, introduce us to new concepts and ideas, remind us to stop, think and question. As Guy Montag said “We need not to be let alone. We need to be really bothered once in a while. How long is it since you were really bothered? About something important about something real?”
Well today we are finally bothered. Our complacency is being challenged and the status quo has changed. How can we use this experience to shape a more beautiful, responsible, honest, empathetic society? All that deep thinking exhausted me, and with the sun beating down I succumbed to a lovely outdoor afternoon nap. I’m not sure if I actually went to sleep or just found deep relaxation but either way it was lovely.
About twenty minutes later I came to, slowly opening my eyes to reveal the nearby rosebush that has come to give me comfort and strength these last few weeks. I realized the sun had moved across the sky and I got sad for a moment, knowing how fleeting this perfect day was, wishing I could stop time to enjoy this feeling forever. But alas, life is impermanent and this pandemic is too.
Soon after I was on the phone with my mother, speaking at lengths about our shared gratitude for everything we have, most importantly our people, and crying more happy tears. We reflected back on where we came from and some of the experiences that shaped us, knowing this chapter will come to serve as a defining one too. Above all we are comforted in knowing that this too shall pass, one perfect or imperfect day at a time.
This week’s Headlines: The Coronavirus in America, the Year Ahead; Schools Transform into Relief Kitchens, Death over money: The cold calculations governors will have to make before reopening; U.S. explores possibility that virus started in a Chinese lab, Gov. Brian Kemp allowed gyms, barber shops, hair salons, tattoo parlors and bowling alleys to reopen in Georgia; Trump faces fallout from dangerous comments about consuming disinfectants to treat coronavirus (I still can’t believe this is real life).
Some feel good news: Our local Martha’s Vineyard lunch ladies Jenny DeVivo and Nisa Webster came in second on the latest season of the Great Food Truck Race! Plus they are doing an amazing job keeping the children and families of MV fed while school is closed.
Something that made me happy: This beautiful story of an elderly couple that means at their countries’ border to see each other, because love knows no boundaries.
Something that made me sad: This week we made the decision to leave Atlanta on Monday. I’ve been having a lot of anxiety about the return home, including the drive getting there, life quarantined in a 400 square foot house and the realities of this situation I’ll have to face once my “vacation” is over. Plus I’m really going to miss my family here.
What I’m watching: We finished Season Three of Ozark this week. Wow. We also watched the newly released extra episode of Tiger King with Joel McHale, wow again. Then, just as I had wanted to take a break from heavy dark content, we decided to watch Outbreak. What a good movie, and surprisingly it made me feel better about our current pandemic.