“I Have a Good Life”

The last six weeks has been an education. I have learned things about the world, my country and myself, both good and bad. Quarantine and self isolation has clarified some things for me, made me more thankful for friends and family. I saw my country, in the early days of the crisis, momentarily set aside the acrimony and division that has plagued us for so long, and unite around the shared sacrifice of the moment. Six weeks in, it’s all back with a vengeance, but it sure was nice while it lasted.

I’ve listened to the agonizing stories of my clients who own small businesses. They have felt helpless as the losses pile up. They feel a responsibility to their employees but wonder how long they can hold it all together. They are watching what took a lifetime to build slowly slipping away. It is an unprecedented type of agony.

Luckily, I have not lost anyone close to me to the virus, although a dear friend with troubling symptoms has just been tested and is currently waiting for the results. But, I do know friends who have lost parents who were in nursing homes and hospice, and had to suffer the indignity of allowing their Moms and Dads to die alone with no one to hold their hands.

With each passing day, my social media newsfeed grows more and more unhinged, unaccredited rumors and stories from bloggers I’ve never heard of passed along as fact...COVID-19 is a plot hatched in the deep state to take away religious freedom...5G towers are spreading the virus...Trump is going to cancel the election and declare martial law....post pandemic life in America will require a 70% tax rate...I take a deep breath and whisper a prayer.

The other day I was talking to my brave friend about all of this. She shares my profession and is trying to deal with all of this while in a life and death struggle with cancer, chemo poison coursing through her veins. Can you even imagine?? The exchange between us is an excellent summation of the daily battle that takes place within all of us in one way or another...

Me: Every single morning, no matter what hour I wake up, the news is overwhelmingly bad...with very few exceptions. It has been this way for over 6 weeks now. I’ve discovered that every single day, finding the motivation to move forward has to be an act of the will. I have to DECIDE to fight the negativity. It doesn’t happen naturally, I have to force it on myself by an act of the will. Does that make any sense? If I give in to what I read of the news of the day, I wind up wallowing in despair all day. It’s like getting stuck in the mud. Its not screwing on a fake happy face, but rather, a conscious decision to seek out the good, the positive. It takes great intentional effort.

Her: Yes I understand completely.  I’m the same way.  I have to remind myself almost daily that overall I’m doing really well!  I remind myself daily that even in the midst of the storm I’m so very blessed. I have a good life. But, it has been a lot for one person to endure. When you throw in a chilly rain, it makes it worse. Your dumb jokes make me laugh, which is a lot better than crying. The bottom line is, after I have done all I can do, I have to turn everything over to the Lord and trust him.

Me: Easier said than done...

Her: Yes, but it has to be done. Also, embrace joy wherever you find it...in Pam, your children, cookies, beautiful trees and flowers...Tomorrow is a new day!!

...This from a woman who is enduring unspeakable illness and pain every single day, and yet declares with astonishing confidence , “ I have a good life.”

Yes she does.

“How are you doing”?

I am perfectly aware that this is not an appropriate breakfast to be eating at 5:18 in the morning, or any other time for that matter. However, when you’ve been awake since 3:45 and get hungry, you eat what is at hand. These sea salt caramel/chocolate cookies were available to me and I was powerless to resist. But, I am told that eggs and milk were involved in their creation, two perfectly acceptable breakfast staples.

When people ask me how I’m getting along during this pandemic, my answer is usually some version of “pretty well, actually.” The reason that this answer is mostly true is because I am married to Pam Dunnevant.

Since the day that Henrico County schools closed on March the 12th or whenever it was, Pam has been home all day everyday. Like everyone else, the isolation has been troubling. She, like everyone else, is worried about the future, concerned for her family and friends. But, with her it feels and looks different. There is a calmness about her, a serenity about everything. After a half day in the office, I come home at lunchtime a bundle of frayed nerves, often with a vacant expression on my face. More often than not I find her busy with some project or another. She is cheerful, relaxed, calm. I pick up on it and it begins to calm me as if it’s contagious. I begin taking my cues from her. I begin to relax. I start thinking of mundane things, the daily plot of life, the relentless forward progress of things. Yes, rearranging the furniture in the den needed to be done. Yes, she made cookies, a new recipe she’s trying out and yes, I will have one at 5:18 in the morning for my breakfast. No matter what is happening around me, I see in her a cheerful confidence which is infectious and allows me to truthfully answer, “pretty well, actually. I’m doing pretty well.”

Knowledge Is Power

Granted, its not everyday when a photograph like this gets published in a real newspaper. I would expect this in The Onion or The Babylon Bee. But this story came to me courtesy of the New York Post with the terrifying headline...Can the Coronavirus be Spread Through Farts?

Apparently, two Australian doctors just completed a study on the subject, and like so much else on the subject of COVID-19, the conclusion was a definite maybe. Drs. Norman Swan and Andy Tagg sat out to determine whether flatulence in the Age of the Cornoinavirus can be both silent and deadly.

Luckily for humans, most of us wear what amounts to several different masks in the form of underwear, pants...etc, which serve as excellent masks to protect ourselves and others from “aerosolized feces.” However, there are no published data on whether flatulence alone presents any risk of transmission. Still, Dr. Tagg suggests not throwing all caution...to the wind. Instead he suggests keeping your pants on and considering them part of your personal protective equipment, just in case. Dr. Swan added the phrase, “no bare-bum farting.”

Look, I know what you’re thinking here, “You have got to be shi**ing me, right?” Sadly, no. This is real. I reproduce this story here because knowledge is power. Sometimes the “facts” about this deadly virus can be confusing, even contradictory. We shouldn’t be wearing face masks. Yes, we should be wearing face masks..etc. And, the last thing I want to do is spread fear. (When Pam first saw this headline, her response was, “Ok, I’m doomed, then.”)  But, we must not be afraid of where the science takes us here. Forewarned is forearmed, as they say.

So the lesson here is...we all need to isolate ourselves from beans, broccoli, Brussels sprouts, cabbage, and lentils. I’m thinking that bean burrito night at the local nudist truck stop would be considered a ground zero hot spot.

On a cautionary note, these two doctors are Australian...from down under. Make of that what you will.

What The Heck??

Ok, what in the Sam Hill is this fresh abomination? 

This ad popped up on my blog this morning for reasons that suggest that there is a bug in the algorithm. Anyone who has known me for more than fifteen minutes knows that I am not exactly what anyone would call a fashionista. My taste in clothing lies more in the direction of whatever is most comfortable, and what happens to be...clean. So, imagine my surprise when...this...monstrosity presents itself to me at 7:27 am. I mean...what is this thing??

First of all, the model is one of those androgynous blade-thin humans who still shave with a hot towel. Thankfully they cut off the picture at the bridge of his nose to save us all from having to stare into the abyss of those limpid pools!! After you get beyond the model, you have to contend with the fact that this dude is wearing a cravat of some sort—under a warm up jacket—wrapped inside a plaid sport coat. The color scheme here seems to be Dijon mustard left out overnight. This outfit comes to us by a company called Bugatchi, a firm with a sufficiently Italian sounding name to attract the people for whom this is illustrative of proper clothing. Luckily for us, this cutting edge get-up is ON SALE. 25% off we are promised, with the dangling carrot of the possibility of up too 50% off.

No...I didn’t click on this ad. I just sort of stared at it listlessly for a while wondering what occasion might be appropriate for me to show up so bedecked? Maybe the next time I am invited to an art gallery featuring avant guard revelatory finger painting. Perhaps one day I will be asked to attend a cocktail party at a Yacht Club fundraiser to benefit Youth Sailing Clubs in the inner city.

Now that I’ve posted my views on this subject, I suspect that some deviously clever member of my family will save this to their Christmas list for 2020.

Another Day in Quarantine

CoronaVirus Quarantine Agenda: Day 34

8:00 am—Coffee and a quick scan of FaceBook where I notice that Becky Baldwin has laid out a counter full of sour bread dough. I suggest that she place one loaf out by her mailbox that I will pick up later in the afternoon. 

8:30 am—Pam whips up a new breakfast recipe which includes sausage links, eggs and cheese buried inside a crescent roll: 

I immediately douse her creation with Salsa and heaven descends.

10:00 am—Since this is the third Saturday since my last vacuuming trip upstairs, I fire up the Shark Duo-Clean 2000 and pick up two full canisters of hair from this girl...

 

...who has decided that there is no place better for sleeping than our new comfy carpet.

10:45 am—I launch myself into a full cleaning of our bathroom. Nothing like the smell of Windex in the morning...

12:00 noon—I take the leaf blower ( Kobalt 80v with lithium battery ) and blow off all the pollen, oak tree strings, helicopter things and leaves from the deck. I will repeat this process three more times before the day is done.

2:00 pm—Go out for what turns out to be a terrible run. I had to stop twice, once for a cramp in my calf and second for a balky knee. These stops lead to a truly pathetic time. Oh well, some days you have it, some days you don’t...

3:00 pm—Naptime

4:45 pm—After one more leaf-blowing of the deck, I settle in for a fine adult beverage, when I am sent the following photograph from a friend who will remain nameless to protect his tenuous reputation...

Of course, I reply with a photograph of my own, far superior choice, Hardywood Singel...

...it has come to this. I have been reduced to debating the proper beer choice for Coronavirus afternoons on the deck with someone who thinks beer should be served in metal cans...by the quart!!!

4:45 pm—Becky Baldwin shows up at my front door with a still warm loaf of sour dough bread, my ingenious plan worked to perfection. I knew that all I had to do is plant the smallest mustard seed of a suggestion that would give Becky the chance to serve someone, and she would be powerless to resist. It was phenomenal!

7:15 pm—Dinner from Wong’s Tacos. Two episodes of creepy Netflix series called You.

9:45 pm—Continue what appears to be an unending quest to finish reading Middlemarch. It’s like War and Peace with no Russians and neither war nor peace...just stuffy British people who don’t seem to have anything to do. Yet, I persist.

11:00ish pm—drift off into dreamland.

And, just like that, the Dunnevant’s survive another day of social distancing, shelter in place and quarantine.

Lucy has clearly let herself go...bed head, ear ka-boom, and proud of it...

One Month

It has only been about a month since our Governor ordered all Virginians to “stay at home.” I have been in strict compliance. Since I’m considered essential I am allowed to drive the mile and a half into my office every day. Once there, new safety protocols are in place limiting exposure. I stay there for roughly half the day, then return to my home for the afternoon and conduct business via the internet and call forwarding. The trips to and from my office have been the extent of my traveling, with the exception of a few trips to the drive thru of my bank and a couple of ice cream meetings with a friends in the largely empty parking lot of Ray’s Italian Ice where social distancing guidelines were strictly enforced. Pam has limited her outings to a once weekly trip to Publix to get groceries. Three times, I have driven to Wong’s Tacos to pick up our Friday night dinner order at their curb. That’s pretty much the extent of our adventuring since the Governor’s declaration. It’s been one month. One month.

Officially this edict is in place through June 10th here in the Commonwealth. Hope exists that it may be lifted before then. However, in the rapidly changing world of viral pandemics, there always exists the possibility that the June 10th date will be extended. For the sake of my personal sanity, I choose not to think of the most negative scenarios. In fact, I choose not to think much of anything which  involves dates on a calendar. I have defaulted to the cliched athletes’ response...I’m just taking it one day at a time.

Having said that, I must here confess to a fierce inner battle raging within me. With each passing day, I’m becoming more and more annoyed with the parameters of my life being set by a Governor. The fact that one man presumes to have the authority over my liberty is an affront to what I consider my natural rights as a free citizen of a Republic which features a Constitution and a Bill of Rights. I have chosen not to fight this because of the nature of the crisis we face, a highly contagious virus with deadly power. But choosing not to fight something is not the same thing as approving of something. I do not approve. I comply out of a moral obligation to my neighbors and my community. I admit my lack of definitive scientific knowledge on the matter and—for the time being—chose to defer to the judgement of those who have been democratically elected to positions of leadership. But my deferral is not infinite. The longer I am asked to forfeit my rights as a free citizen, the more conclusive information I will require from those making such demands.

Understand, this has nothing to do with politics in general or our Governor’s political affiliation in particular. I would feel exactly the same way if the one making such demands of me were a small government Libertarian. This debate isn’t about anyone’s personality. It is about the proper roll of government and the proper limits on its power— even in times of great crisis. I have a natural inclination to resist authority. I have always struggled with any authority in life. It was my mother who warned me many years ago that my unwillingness to submit myself to anyone else’s yoke, though a fine quality when applied judiciously, might wind up being an obstacle to a happy life. She was not entirely wrong in her assessment. My fierce independence has served me well many times. But it has also been the obstacle she warned me it would be in other matters, not the least of which was the necessary submission required in the Christian faith. So, when I watch government at all levels scooping up more and more power over ever greater portions of our daily lives, resentment and suspicion begin to grow roots in my heart.

I watch the daily briefings from Washington with growing disgust, irritated by the self-congratulatory campaign style cheerleading. I see the pettiness, the juvenile score settling, the incessant whining from the podium. Even worse, the vacuous blowhards who populate the press remind me that a free press is worthless if they are so hip deep in politics themselves, they can’t be told apart from the politicians. The specter of government officials casting themselves as our saviors by proposing one free money giveaway after another, making themselves, Washington D.C. the epicenter of our salvation is galling to me. No matter how this thing turns out it will be the central planners who will take the credit, and blame any failures on the public’s failure to properly fall in line. They will be united in their proclamation that in order for a modern society to protect itself from future pandemic, we must bargain away more and more of our liberty for greater safety. Not to worry, they will exercise these new powers with great care and deliberation.

I guess that my essential problem is that I am not a European with continental sensitivities. I know nothing of Monarchies, I have no experience with a feudal history, I am clueless of peerage, I am unfamiliar with the Socialist ethos that has governed much of Europe for most of my lifetime. For better or for worse, I am an American with American sensibilities. My country hasn’t had two world wars fought on our streets, and just one civil war. For more than half of America’s history we were largely ungoverned and frankly, ungovernable.( see the Wild West ). That history has forged in many of us a resistance to and great suspicion of centralized solutions to anything. Thomas Jefferson’s great word that the best government was the government that governs least rings true in my heart and in the hearts of millions more in my country. Today, that phrase seems charmingly naive. When I observe what has happened to the power, size and jurisdiction of government just in the last six weeks it is staggering. Maybe once this crisis passes, they will willingly lay all these new powers down. My gut tells me they will not, but even if they do, all of us will be stuck with the 6 trillion dollar price tag for it all.

Times change and human beings have to adjust. Perhaps I am experiencing a sea change in what life will be like for modern man in modern societies. Maybe the future will include less freedom, less personal autonomy in exchange for a more muscular government strong enough to protect us in the new age of pandemics. Maybe my notions of the proper role of government, along with my understanding of the preeminence of individual liberty have been overtaken by this rapidly changing world. If so, I will adjust. But, that doesn’t mean I have to like it. And it doesn’t mean I will ever become comfortable with a man or women in front of a bank of microphones telling me where I can and cannot go, what I can and cannot do.

Tired of Worrying

It’s pouring rain this morning in Short Pump. The wind has picked up. Dark clouds are low in the morning sky. I can hear the roar of the downpour on the roof, washing away the heavy pollen, flooding away the thousands of maple tree helicopters that fell over the weekend. I suppose I would be forgiven for wishing that this storm could also sweep the COVID-19 virus into the storm drains and out to sea. I’m tired of it all. Aren’t you?

I’m tired of the worry. Who will get it? How long will this confinement last? How much more damage will be done to our economic life before it’s done? What will the world look like when it’s over? I have no answers. Despite reading a thousand articles from a thousand perspectives, I am no closer to being able to reach any firm conclusions than I was when I was blissfully ignorant. And now, the uniting power that this crisis had in the early days of March has given way to the same old partisan divides that plagued us before. What camp are you in? Democrat or Republican? Trump or Biden? Fauci or Birx? It is as tiresome as it is infuriating. But, it is who we are now.

I will go into the office this morning as I have since it started. I will have telephone conversations. I will FaceTime with clients and answer their questions, offer my guidance. I will stand apart from some of my best friends in the world and commiserate. I miss the physical closeness. It feels odd to keep people away, the whole six feet thing feels further than that. But at least I get to see them, to hear their views on everything. Then, I leave around noon and head back home. I put call-forwarding on my office phone so that during the afternoon, incoming calls come to my cell phone. Few calls come in the afternoon, I’ve discovered. My clients have also gotten tired of talking about this mess. What more is there to say?

My hope is that we are closer to the end of COVID-19 than we are to its beginning. I have reason to believe that we are, but like everything else with this virus, there are no sure things. But, I choose hope over despair, optimism over negativity. Despite whatever my personal feelings might be about the Coronavirus, I will continue to do everything that I have been asked to do by my government. I will trust that they know better than I do at this point. They are privy to information that I am not, so if they say “shelter in place” “keep social distancing” that’s what I will do. When this is all over, we will know who was “right” and who was “wrong” about it all. But for now I will do my part, if not for my own well-being, for the well being of my neighbors. If we discover that all this economic disruption was unnecessary, then recriminations will follow. There will be plenty of blame to go around after the final reports are written. 

But right now as the rain falls, the last thing I care about is the pettiness of politics. I just want to find the light at the end of this interminable tunnel. I want to be able to hug my friends, order from a menu in a crowded restaurant, shake a client’s hand. I want to get in my car and drive to Maine. I want to never hear the word Zoom again. I want to sit on my aisle seat at Hope church, drop my check into the bread pan as it is passed down my row, the meet up with my Sunday lunch bunch at Anokha’s for Lasooni Gobhi and the Tandoori platter.

Have a safe week, everyone.