Covid Winter

Winter is here. Snow is falling; temperatures now dip below freezing, icy winds sweeping down from the Great Lakes region. Our kitty seeks out the toastiest napping locations, laps always preferred. Warm layers for me, the Cuddle Duds are washed and fluffed, ready for cold mornings. A scarf and zip up sweatshirt ive by my writing desk these days so I don’t have to hunt for them throughout the day. The hot hubby wears summer shirts all year round! The French press and tea pot sit poised for daily use at the coffee station on the kitchen counter.

As the hubby works from home and I write, the crock pot melts and warms the lasagna soup our friend Lydia made. Home from college and in need of income, she was good enough to put together freezer meals that would be crock pot ready for these cold weeks as I recover from a hand surgery. Buffalo ranch chicken, honey-garlic meatballs and German style potato soup are still to come. Seed catalogs have begun to arrive. I have sworn off seed buying this year, determined to buy our seeds and plants exclusively from local growers just as we did last year. But I am loath to recycle these green and colorful beauties, leafing through them in the mornings over coffee and in the afternoons over tea. They hold the promise my heart needs right now. Evenings are for sipping a luscious new winter find of fragrant masala cocoa. The rich chocolate and warm spices, served in a heavy stoneware mug made by a local potter, warm my cold hands and make for a delectable splurge.

It’s been weeks since we saw anyone in person except our family “pod.” Deep winter now upon us, outdoor and socially distanced visits with friends are a season of the past. Zoom gatherings, phone calls, text messages and social media are the way we stay in touch now as the ice clinks against the windows. At least now we can exchange messages about who is getting a Covid-19 vaccination. Mostly those are going to our friends in healthcare and our aging parents right now. I’m confused and angry that our school teachers have not been included, at least in our state, as front line and essential workers so they too could be prioritized in receiving the vaccine. If there is anything we have learned in this pandemic year, it is how little control in life that we actually have.

A few weeks ago we watched a new president be sworn in. A week later it was found the previous administration had no national strategy to combat Covid-19. A nation of scientists and knowledge, but no coordinated effort to protect the lives of the American people, to get our lives, our economy, our safety back on track. This was obvious as now well over 460,000 Americans have died from Covid; a disproportionate number of those are people of color. That is more people than died in WWII. Those are just the confirmed cases. How many elders with comorbidities have something different written on their death certificates?

For the first time in years, I finally feel able to watch a Whitehouse press briefings. In fact, I am now watching them almost daily. I prefer C-Span. I want to hear what is said without the talking head summaries and commentaries. All that added chatter rattles my concussed brain and raises my blood pressure. I appreciate and respect good journalism. After four years of the Abuser-in-Chief though, I prefer my information straight and unfiltered. I want to be informed, but I am just beginning to unravel the PTSD and layers of emotional distress of the last administration.

And so, this winter, more than any in memory, is one to hunker down. We have filled the gas tank in our Prius up once every 3-4 weeks at most. Our trips consist of the post office drop box, bank drive-thru, occasional porch pick-ups between friends, supply deliveries to parents and medical appointments that cannot be done virtually but cannot wait. Curb-side grocery pick-ups are few, as we stocked the pantry and deep freeze throughout summer and fall. Fresh produce, dairy, coffee beans and yes, chocolate, are the primary grocery and farmer’s market pick-ups on Saturdays. A friends’ well loved ducks are laying and we are so happy to get a couple dozen farm fresh eggs each week. Their beautifully colored shells and rich golden yolks are a treasure in the midst of February’s polar vortex.

So much has changed. I feel both contentment and unrest. I am content with staying home and having a quiet, focusing on the smallness of our current life. Until this pandemic, our days were so packed and structured; there was little time to “just be.” There are moments when I think I may be getting to the other side of the grief of having had to close my business. Then I think that life has been so changed since first the concussion, then the pandemic, that I will not actually know where that grief lives inside me until we return to some sort of life outside the walls of our home. Unrest comes from deep concern for our friends on the front lines: teaching, working retail and delivery, on production lines and now even vaccinated the compassion fatigue of our friends and colleagues in health care and mental health. New strains of the virus emerge. Our parents, now only partially vaccinated, while trying to be safe, still find reasons to go into the world more often than we would wish. Covid is much closer to home than the abstraction it was early on. Friends and some family have had it. Some have lived. Some sustained long term health ramifications. We now know people who did not survive.

And so, we continue to hunker down. We practice safety, double masking and using hand sanitizer for any errands or medical appointments and staying home 95% of the time. We live a “virtual life” on Zoom and devices. We await our turn for the vaccine and help less tech savvy older friends get registered for theirs. We will keep the crock pot full and warm, the tea kettle at the ready and while we wait, we find a way to keep living. Covid winter is here. Spring will come.