Leaning In To Quarantine.

For me the first few weeks of quarantine life felt especially challenging. This is not to say that I have suddenly coasted into an easy, breezy, cue the happy Pantene commercial with shiny hair, life is amazing quarantine existence...but in the last week or so things feel as if they have reached a level that's slightly more...tolerable? routine? manageable?

Lest some think I'm complaining for no reason I'd like to make this caveat. To be very clear, I'm extremely fortunate in a myriad of ways during this pandemic and I'm not unaware of that. I left the island of Manhattan, escaping to a parents house where there is more space than a one-bedroom apartment in the city would ever allow.  I have a yard I can wander around whenever I feel like it, a car if I need to run an errand, a job that allows me to work remotely and does not put me on the front lines, and with the exception of toilet paper, we have been able to find any grocery need or want that we have desired in the last six (seven? eight? who is keeping track anymore? what is time anyway?) weeks we have all been staying home.

Still, the initial weeks of this sheltering at home and being quarantined felt particularly bewildering. I'd been uprooted - willingly of course - but still moved out of my own apartment and my own space with no sense of a return date and well, frankly, it all just felt like the whole world was suddenly in the upside down.  Which we still are - stay home!  And yet, maybe just by sheer repetitiveness of the days and the fact that we humans can be rather adaptable when we put our minds to it, I seem to have found a new rhythm to my own personal quarantine. This is still hard, don't get me wrong.  And I certainly still have my share of panicked, worried, frustrated moments, 100%. However I've also tried to lean into the good that I have right now and remembering that even in a marathon, there will be some runner highs in between the hellish, I can't go on, lows.

Here are a few things I've done over the last few weeks that I personally know I would not have done if life had continued on as normal in March and April:

Puzzles. Yes, I know they're more popular than ever before. And with good reason!  Seriously, are you working on a puzzle? I have finished three so far, and am ready to start the next one I was able to dig out of the basement this evening.  It's oddly soothing to sort puzzle pieces with a mug of tea in hand at the end of the day - and the satisfaction of finally finding that piece that had eluded you? Magic.

Baking Bread.  Yep. I put those two new activities at the top of my list and in order because I, like the rest of the quarantined USA am now doing puzzles and making homemade bread. I have become that person.  Seriously though, I was always so intimidated to make my own bread and it took a pandemic to show me it's actually not as hard as I feared.  It just takes time.  But hey....what else do we have these days?

Riding Horses.  This is a true blessing and certainly not something that would have ever happened if I'd stayed in the city.  I'm lucky that we have a family friend who has been gracious enough to lend her horse Toby to me most weekdays for an evening post-work ride. If there has ever been a greater stress-reliever or gift during these strange COVID-19 days I personally do not know it.

Streaming my favorite Boston yoga teacher's classes multiple times a week.  When I lived in Boston I set my weekly schedule by her classes.  Obviously, life in New York did not allow that to be an option.  It has not gone without notice that I'm getting to see more of her and take more of her classes than I ever would have this spring without a quarantine.

Cooking.  A city girl out of her NYC element and Barbie-sized stove, I am currently living in a house with a full-sized kitchen! A full-sized stove! I am cooking up a storm almost every evening - I'm most proud of my chicken piccata and crab cake dinners thus far. (See also above, baking bread.)

Surprisingly and sadly, I have not been reading nearly as much as I thought I would when the great pause began.  Nor have I been writing as much as I'd like, and I certainly have not been streaming as many TV shows or movies as I predicted.  Best laid plans I guess...

A co-worker of mine, making a play on the famous child-rearing quote, recently said of the pandemic that "the days are long but the weeks are short."  Every morning when I wake, I feel a bit like Bill Murray ala Groundhog Day.  All of this, every day, is a bit surreal and hard to wrap my brain around. But every morning I also get to have a fresh hot cup of coffee and remember that my sacrifice - the only sacrifice I am currently being asked to make - is to stay home so we can fight this thing and flatten that damn curve.  And that, well...that is what I'm trying my best to lean into - every single Groundhog Day we get.