The Long Wait

A lot on my mind this morning. For one thing, I don’t think that this, my 62nd birthday, will be forgotten anytime soon...2020 being the year of The Long Wait. On the other hand, considering the state of decline into which my memory has fallen, perhaps it will all be forgotten by Christmas! It will be strange without family on my birthday. I miss my sisters. I miss my brother. I miss my kids. Sure, I see their faces on the computer screens, but what I really want to do is embrace them, hug their necks. But I live in Virginia. It may be a while.

I miss the noise and clamor of my office. The new normal there is two or three at a time, for short stints. We’ve taken to group texting, but my particular style of trash-talking banter doesn't translate well in that medium. 

I miss my church. I miss the people, the crowd on Sunday mornings, the sound and smell of it. I miss the message. I watch it on Livestream but it feels different, muted somehow. David and Pete look immobilized and awkward, strangely tethered to some invisible thing.

I miss the thing that I have never spent one second thinking about until the past four weeks...my liberty. I miss the freedom of movement, the possibility for whimsy, the spur of the moment decision to run over to Yen Ching for dinner. The new restrictions feel oppressive to me, because as an American, any restrictions on my freedom of movement and association would feel oppressive. As a nation we don’t do restrictions well in general, and these lockdown quarantines specifically. But, we are all going to have to learn how to quickly. Lives are depending on it.

But, there’s one thing I don’t miss...the bland anonymity of my neighborhood. Something marvelous is happening here, and not just here, I think. Suddenly, the group of streets where my house sits doesn’t feel the same way as it did before. It has been transformed into a community. Don’t misunderstand. It’s not like it was a horrible place to live before...not at all. I think that in America we have become insular. We each live in our bunkered homes. There is so much to distract us inside...entertainment, communication tools, etc..sometimes we don’t venture outside as much as we did when I was younger. Now, all of that has changed. All of us have bored of the four walls, the screens have lost some of their magnetism. We are now turning our attentions outward. A couple of examples:

We are blessed with wonderful neighbors next door, a young couple with three adorable kids all under the age of 10. Our bedroom window looks across the way to the oldest child’s bedroom window. Pam decided to post notes in our window to send the kids messages. Yesterday it was a question: Tomorrow is Mr. Doug’s birthday. How old do you think he is? Their answers were priceless:

Pam replied, of course, by awarding Kennedy a “star” for being the closest guess, forever the teacher:

Then, we get an email from someone in the neighborhood suggesting the idea of a scavenger hunt. Since everyone is out walking and riding bikes like never before, why don’t we all put a stuffed animal in one of our windows for the kids to find. 80% of the homes in Wythe Trace have complied. Here’s Pam’s display:

When the histories of the Coronavirus are written, much will be made of the politics of it, the economics, the deaths, the disruptions to society great and small. But, hopefully there will be something else. Maybe they will write about how it drew us closer to our neighbors. Perhaps someone will write about how we became more outward, less insular, more caring about the people across the street. I can already feel the difference when I turn off of Pump road onto Hazel Tree Drive. Its the strongest it has ever been...I’m home.