TIME GOES BY

May 18, 2020, Monday.

We've entered the 10th week of sheltering in place; 60 days of isolation --- so far. I get up each day at roughly the same time, shower, get dressed, comb my hair, check email, eat breakfast, and then am ready for the day. We eat the remaining two meals of the day at the usual times, I nap in the afternoon, and carry out essential domestic tasks as before: doing laundry, taking care of mail, paying bills and the like. Lately my husband has been getting the groceries. We go to church on Sunday via Zoom, and I attend a Bible study via Zoom on Thursday mornings. The rest of the time is free.

Before the pandemic, I often had deadines of various kinds: making and keeping appointments, writing an article for a newsletter, attending a committee meeting, composing an image for a website. My strategy was to make a list specific tasks and assign one or two to each day. I often crossed them off the list with a sense of accomplishment.

My hope was for some time to work on family history, my aim being to get all my old notes and miscellaneous documents entered into the comptuer. Now I have that time, and I've made progress. Yesterday, I completed all I wanted to do with one branch of the family and had a mild sense of satisfcation. Now I'm beginning to work on another branch.

I'm very privileged to have this kind of time, unlike the first responders and heroic health-care workers who face non-stop 20-hour days. And I have security, unlike the people who don't kow where the next rent check is coming from. And my life is free from worry about critically ill family members and friends.

I'm not complaining, just noticing that my days seems to pass without my feeling any pressure to accomplish anything specific, even if it's on my list. I'm not unhappy and feel I well. I know what day it is. The work I'm doing is reasonably interesting. But somehow the days are bland. Time is sliding by like a placid stream with few ripples or rough places or unexpected obstacles.