The coronavirus pandemic is changing everything. Really fast. The very fabric of our society, and that of the whole world’s, has been turned on its ear. Our work habits, our social habits, our shopping habits, and our personal lives have all been upended and forced into new realities. There’s an invisible foe that we know we are ill-equipped to fight. As a result, we inhale every word Anthony Fauci and other experts have to say. We’re all practicing social distancing. We’re all sheltering in place.

Gone are the days of sashaying about our daily lives. Outings to the grocery store require a commitment of time and strategy. There are armed guards at our favorite Central Market, keeping every one in line and things in order. Only a few people are let in at a time, one allowed in for one who’s leaving. Once inside, signs with footprints on the floor, spaced six feet apart say, “Thank you for practicing social distancing.” Plastic shields have been erected between the paying public and the cashier and everyone is wearing gloves. Everyone. In spite of all this new regimentation, people are friendly and kind to one another, cutting a wide berth over by the half and half or near the green beans.

Once you peer down the rabbit hole of not touching anything outside your home, putting on gloves, and wanting to disinfect everything you’ve just brought into the house, you quickly find, that wee hole has no bottom. When is enough enough and you can feel a certain sense of having done all you can to ensure your family’s safety? I can tell you, I don’t know the answer. You just do the best you can and clean it all.

Never a fan of hand sanitizers, we were late to the Purell train so I made our own little spray bottles of hand sanitizer, using Everclear. You can hardly beat 151 proof grain alcohol. Since we’re still not able to buy Purell, we keep the Everclear in our cars and Everclear the heck out of our hands once we’re back inside.

My precious husband leaves for work at a hospital every day. A big university medical system. He’s a gyn-oncologist and even though they’ve adapted their exams of patients so as not to be in their faces; no more listening to hearts and lungs, I still worry myself sick over his safety. The N-95 masks they so desperately need to protect themselves, “are not to be had.” Still he and countless others like him, go to work everyday because it’s what they do. It never occured to me that, in peace time, a doctor would have to put his own life on the line by going to work each day. But, that’s the world in which we find ourselves, now. In his effort to allay my worries and in his typical, wonderfully earthy way, he said, “Those COVID-19 droplets don’t emanate from the vagina, so I should be ok.” That, so far, is the quote of the COVID-19 era!

As for the rest of us, thankfully, we’re all home together. Kincaid made it back from Ireland on the day the ban was put in place and has been self-isolating since then. His 14 days will be up on Monday. So far, so good. Thank goodness.

We spend our days making the most of this surreal time. We don’t feel “stuck” here together, we feel safe, being at home and thankful we’re all here. We have sufficient space so people can retreat to their own corners and have some me-time and do what they need to do. Video conference, tele-medicine, whatever. We’ve cooked nearly every night and the only reason I say “nearly,” is because a night or two, we’ve pulled all the leftovers out of the fridge and made a picnic of them.

Arden has used this ample free time as an opportunity to bake something delicious most days and among her offerings were homemade bagels. They were out of this world! She’s working on making a sourdough starter, Vincent van Dough, or, Vinnie, for short and has lots of starter she has to dispense with so she made sourdough banana pancakes which set my mind forever free. We’ve got a bag of them frozen and so we can pop them in the toaster for a healthy post-run snack. Two nights ago, we had Kincaid’s Shepherd’s Pie which I could’ve made myself sick on. Delicious.

As we’ve settled into a routine, we each get some sort of exercise every day. After all the good home cookin’, we’ve got to do something to work it off. Home yoga, some weights out in our “gym” or going down to White Rock Lake for a walk or a run are some of the things we've done. With all the “details of life” having been shelved for now, I get to get quite a workout in. In the past nine days, I’ve walked/run 128,433 steps and feel like I’m in training to be my healthiest self. If it ever stops raining long enough, I intend to spend a full day in my garden. It is absolutely resplendent with all the colors and textures that have sprung to life and because of all the rain, is in dire need of tending. That’ll be another good day’s workout with multiple benefits. ☺️🌸🌻🌱

For the rest of the day, I spend my time painting or plotting my next move, in my studio. This “social isolation” way of life isn’t new to me. This is how I’ve always spent my days, so I’m going to refer to this forced-sequestration henceforth, as my Artist In Residence.

For a long time I’ve fantasized about writing down my life story and trying, once and for all, to articulate the existential crisis that is being adopted. And, explain the universal need to know who we are. So, I’m using this time to develop that idea further and to make paintings from the memories dredged up. It’s fertile ground and I appreciate the time to dive deep and ponder all these things and see what comes of it.

To this end, I’ve begun painting in a new style and never quite sure what to do from one minute to the next. I’m using mixed media and find it really helpful, to glaze a piece of paper onto the surface or just paint a section of the surface a wild color and stencil on a pattern of some sort. It seems to push me further into the painting and helps me make decisions. The unknown aspect of it is both maddening and thrilling. I’ve learned a lot so far and hope to keep refining my technique. I’m also using different materials like liquid watercolors and inks, which outside of an airbrush, I’ve never used before. Every day is an adventure, I’ll tell you! If I don’t like something, I can just keep layering on color until it begins to make sense and then I find the depth the layering created is wonderful.

The thing about making art is, it’s important not get too cozy in what you do well. No one loves painting people on the beach more than I do, God knows, but one wants to also be branching out. Stretching yourself. Doing things you don’t do well. To get out of your comfort zone. I am certainly trying to do that. I know each day when I come up here to paint, I’m nervous and not sure how to start. But, then I start and the world just seems to fall away and before I know it, it’s 5:00 p.m. Just showing up is the hardest part. As Brené Brown says, “daring greatly.”

I think of this life in the time of coronavirus is like a jarring upending of that comfort zone. There is much to be gained while we’re sheltering in place, safe in our homes. I hope the discomfort of these days help bring us back to center and hone us all into better family members, friends, co-workers, students, whatever. We are hurt and we’re scared but we are learning through this and at the end of the day, we’re going to be better citizens and a better nation.

Because we are rising to the occasion.

In the meantime, wash your hands, stay at home if you can, love your people and stay healthy. ❤️