It's mid-summer and the temperature sure is rising. Not that I notice it all that often indoors. Siri on my phone continues to occasionally ask me if I want to check today's weather outside. I don't. Even if I was driving to a workplace every day, which I'm not, I don't need a reminder that it's "a hundred and stupid" outside as my husband likes to say.
Back in March, many hoped that the arrival of warm weather would mean a decrease in coronavirus cases. It hasn't. With many Americans trying to return to business as usual in the middle of a pandemic that hasn't gone away, much of the progress we've made in flattening the curve seems to have gone out the window. Numbers are rising. Hospitals are getting full again. And the few small measures we have to combat the surge--like wearing masks--has become political. But when you know someone with the virus, when you and your family are deeply affected by it, a simple act of wearing a mask or staying home as much as possible is nothing if it means you might spare someone from having to go through what you or your loved one has experienced or is experiencing.
The good news is that our loved one in the hospital is making very slow but positive progress--trending in the right direction. What that means is that after over 60 days in a hospital and then long-term care facility she is only just now starting to move, only just now starting to be able to practice breathing on her own with a CPAP machine for short bursts, and we still await her complete weaning off the ventilator and her waking up enough to track with her eyes and see her loved ones. Then the rehab will truly begin. So we're hopeful. And watching my son's face light up when he saw her on video chat, looking so much better and so familiar again, was priceless. But 60+ days in a hospital bed fighting this disease, 60+ days trying to heal your body, 60+ days of your loved ones' pounding hearts as they anxiously read each daily text update hoping the news is positive--that's nothing to be taken lightly. So if you think my support of masks is political, it's not. My personal political opinions are strong on a lot of issues, but this is not about opinions. We face a public health crisis. As a librarian, I've read the research. And as a family member I've seen the effects of this disease. So if wearing a mask in public can help in even the smallest ways, I will absolutely continue to do it.
However, right now I prefer to mostly stay home or at my nearby parents' house as much as possible instead. The opening date for my work was pushed back from July 1 to probably mid-August. Our administration was concerned with the rising cases in our state, and our building had yet to install all safety measures. So my remote life continues for at least another month until we learn more. While no one has all the answers and life could change in an instant during these times, that doesn't make it any less frustrating when we can't predict and prepare for what our work schedules will be like in just a few short weeks.
As my organization adjusts their dates, I've been making adjustments too, getting even more used to remote life than ever before. A work day means using my laptop from literally any location (desk, couch, parents' couch, parents' chair, top of kitchen bar, brothers' old bedroom bed) and often showing my son walking in the background of Zoom meetings to break the ice. I'm even beginning to forget what office life was like. One of my online account's recovery phone numbers looked unfamiliar to me until I remembered I was looking at the last four digits of my office phone number. I'm forgetting what my routine used to be when I came to my desk in the morning and what it felt like to log onto that office desktop computer. It's definitely been weird just thinking about going back to work and thinking about what the rest of summer will look like.
On the plus side, though I've used up my work-from-home vacation days in June, the weekend is always an opportunity to have some fun with my son, either at home or at my parents' house. We've introduced Baby to my dad's pool, and though he was nervous at first to let go of Mommy, he soon practiced swimming in his Papa's arms, kicking and splashing with joy. He's always been a perfect mix of both cautious kid and risk-taking rebel, which hopefully bodes well for his confidence and success as he grows older. It's also really sweet seeing him show off his new swim trunks that my great aunt mailed him (his great great aunt). She continues to send care packages with summer outfits just big enough for him to grow into, which is a big help. Since both my grandmothers have passed away, my great aunt has fully taken on this role in supporting my son as if he were her own great-grandchild, and that means the world to me.
My husband and I also got in a couple of summer movie nights without the theater, watching at my parents' house while they babysat upstairs. Just today our whole experience of swimming, movie, and even a pizza delivery felt so deliciously normal; it was a nice escape from the reality of the world right now. Of course I come home to more pandemic news on social media. Of course I come home to the reality that we can't visit all our loved ones in person. But before bed today Baby got to see family he hadn't seen in months, at a social distanced visit outside our garage, and that filled my heart with joy too. We had a wonderful Saturday that was the epitome of summer and family and love. So I'm going to flip through the photos over and over again and hold onto that feeling of being safe and relaxed and happy for as long as I can.
I hope so much that it continues, that reality adjusts and shifts in a positive direction, and that there are more good memories to come.
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