Coping in Time of Crisis

Well, that went south quickly, didn't it?

I last posted to this blog two weeks ago, when the Bay Area and the state of California hadn't yet locked down to slow the spread of the virus. Since then, in fairly rapid succession, my company made us all start working from home, the Bay Area counties enacted a shelter in place order and then the whole state followed suit.

In that last post I was already talking about avoiding crowded places, and that hasn't changed - in fact, even if I wanted to go somewhere crowded I'd have trouble, unless I end up at the supermarket on a particularly busy day. But in the meantime I'm just trying to avoid going stir crazy while I sit out the lockdowns and virus and all that.

It's probably no surprise that work days are the easiest to cope with (and it helps that I'm one of those lucky people who are able to work from home). I'm expected to be on call for the stuff we're doing, at specific times on Monday through Friday, and that makes it easy to not spin my wheels wondering what to do next.

The main thing I've had to keep in mind is exercise - not just getting up from my desk to oil my joints, but also getting out of the house for a walk once or twice a day. The fresh air and sunlight (when we have it - it's been oddly cold and rainy, even for here) are necessary, as is the time to let my brain unspool without external stimulation from music or podcasts or work meetings.

What's a little more difficult is keeping busy on the weekends. Or, rather than "keeping busy", the question is how do I avoid feeling like I've wasted my time? A thing I noticed very soon after I moved here in late 2013 is that weekends passed more quickly than they did in London, but with notably less payoff. There, I would hop out to the center of town and find some lunch, hang out in the museums and peruse the bookstores.

Here those options were a little less available, because most of the good museums are up in San Francisco, which requires an hour's drive to get to. I made do, but of course for the moment the museums I'm a member of are all closed, and I don't want to go up there to risk getting sick anyway. So my range is circumscribed to a radius of a couple of miles, which takes in the stores I shop at to stock up on essentials and my normal walking or running routes.

Apart from that, I've been trying to make sure that I get errands done around the house, while also balancing goof-around time. Yesterday I reserved an hour for writing - and got through correcting a manuscript that's been on my desk for a while; then I reserved an hour for cleaning - and after unloading the dishwasher and taking out the trash I finally tackled the snowdrifts of mail that have been building up for (literally) years at this point. And I reserved a guilt-free hour each for reading, watching TV and playing video games, because I have a fair backlog of all of those to get through.

Of course, I'd trade some of that productivity for having my girlfriend here, as I told her on our FaceTime call last night. Which brings me to the other thing that I've been doing a bit more of: getting in touch with friends and family and checking in.

My sweetie and I have our daily check-in, whether on text or on FaceTime, but I've been calling my parents more (my dad's in Italy, but ironically I feel he's the safest of us all) and trying to stay in touch with my sisters more too. I've also tried to text some friends a bit more often, though that's more bittersweet as I can't actually go and see them.

The other question I'm dancing around is how long this will all last, and whether it's all sustainable. When I was unemployed and freelancing two years ago, there were a few days when it all got to me and I couldn't muster much interest to either look for permanent jobs or drum up more freelance work. Luckily I haven't descended to those depths during this time, in part because I only have the weekends to wallow, but I don't think I'm saying anything too controversial by hoping that things resolve themselves soon - ideally without too much undue chaos or loss of life.

The hope is that we start to see cases dropping off soon, and start to see the restrictions relax. Because, frankly, while I have a fair stash of toilet paper (thanks to my wonderful, prepared girlfriend), it's not infinite and I can't beat the panicky assholes who are hoarding it for no reason.

But apart from that, as I say, I'm trying to be productive, and I figure that's the best any of us can do at the moment.

Stay safe out there!