Dear Blog Reader.
I hope that this finds you doing well. I am fine. The family is still asymptomatic. The lovely Miss Beverly and I are finally starting to ease our anxiety levels. You see way back in early March the lovely Miss Beverly and I went to Hawaii to get away from it all. Yes the Covid storm clouds were gathering but nothing had changed yet. Change it did and quickly with each of our 10 days in paradise. One day the lovely Miss Beverly was sunning herself (ooh la la) on the beach. The next day, our fellow sun worshipers from Europe were reading texts that travel to their continent was ending. The day after, the mall was closing and we had to plead with a native in the drive thru of Star Bucks to buy a grande 2 pump mocha because we weren’t being allowed inside. I suddenly felt the sting that shirtless, shoeless Americans have endured for 70 years.
Bev and I started this strange disconnect from time while in Hawaii. We had booked it after Christmas as a needed respite from foster parenting. Things rapidly cascaded soon after we arrived, 10 days left. 9 days left. What day are we leaving? Was that the day we hiked to a gorgeous Pacific overlook, or the day the president declared a national emergency. Or both? Will they shut down domestic travel? Can we get home? It looks like LA is a hotspot. We are traveling through LAX. Should we? Shouldn’t we do this?
We did, and in the year since we have been back, our two week incubation period has passed. That has been a weight off of our shoulders. However, in waiting for those 14 days to pass the Sharritt train of time has completely gone off the track, as we’ve heard it has for many of you. Early in the fortnight, Chris, Grace, Maggie, Viki, Vaeh, the lovely Miss Beverly and I were sitting around the table wondering which of us we should eat first if we didn’t find something sweet to eat soon. Thankfully, the lovely Miss Beverly remembered that we had one can of pumpkin from last fall. It was agreed that a pumpkin pie would spare the weakest and slowest of us.
Then someone pointed out that it wasn’t October. We have a hard rule at our house. No pumpkin pie except for during pumpkin pie season; October. Sweat broke out on some of the foreheads around the room. I was hoping that I could change into tennis shoes before the great race began. Then Grace spoke up, “Its okay. Time is now meaningless.” Its true. How many days before the weekend? It doesn’t matter. While I may not sit in front of a work computer in the corner of my bedroom on Saturday and Sunday, I am not going any place. I will stay on the same acre of ground. I venture out to the 17 miles of asphalt on a bike, but the same 4 walls will be my landscape. Time will continue to mean nothing.
I hope that we have reached our nadir today. It was noon on WhateverDay and we hear the garbage truck down the road. “Oh no! We forgot it was trash day!” I looked out the window and the trash man was coming our way. We live 150 yards from the end of the drive—it would be close, but we had to try. Run Beverly Run! Off she sprinted to the garage. It was a hobbled sprint since she was only wearing socks and the limestone drive is brutal on anyone’s feet this early in the spring. The driver caught site of her, and waited. Thankfully, I could not find my phone or I would have taken a video and posted it under #ItCan’tBeThursdayYet #MonTueWedTRASHDAY.
Another set of days erased. Will we ever start tracking days again? Will we ever gain our rhythm again?
Very good questions. But we shouldn’t be surprised. I was listening to someone yesterday who described what we were going through as a collective national (international) grief. As R.E.M. once sang “Its the End of the World as We Know It.” When will we get back to normal? Will we get back to normal? Have we been thrown back to the dark ages? Do you know how to butcher your own chicken? Grief, grief and more grief. We know that we lose time when first immersed in grief.
We have experienced it a million times or at least dozens of times. Can you remember any of the days between a loved one’s death and the funeral? It was all a blur. Can you remember the days between that big break up and your fourth pint of ice cream? Can you remember what you did last weekend or any of the big projects you’ve plodded through at work to save the world this past last week? Of course not. It is grief. Grief erases time.
It is grief and it will pass. Time will come back. Sand of the hourglass will flow like the days of our lives again some day. (Did Salem suffer from a Covid outbreak? That would have been a good soap opera plot.) No this too shall pass and while we will not get the days back, time will restart. And in the mean time? Put some cool whip on that slice of pumpkin pie.
Take care.
Roger
