I went into the PTO meeting last night mildly concerned about COVID-19. Of course it’s increasingly on my mind, but I didn’t expect to stay 45 minutes after the meeting was adjourned to discuss the seemingly inevitable closing of our school district.
By the end of the meeting, it seemed crazy to continue planning for the annual end-of-year carnival in April. And even crazier that I didn’t have a basement full of canned goods, bottled water, penicillin and toilet paper.
So, of course I went to Whole Foods to get a bunch of chicken to freeze and a box of Back to Nature oreos to eat on the way home. Apparently, cookies and Kevita Lemon Cayenne is what I do when facing a pandemic.
Ultimately, it’s really best to hunker-down at home right now. Flatten the curve, right? I realized that I’ve been treating this like it would never actually get to Colorado. But it’s here.
I hope I don’t already have it. I hope my elderly parents don’t have it or get it. Or my husband who went skiing in the high country last week and then to DIA over the weekend.
So what needs to happen is some self-imposed isolation to do my part.
Here are a few ways to embrace hunkering down at home… besides working from home and home-schooling your kids.
Absorb Stories
1.Disasterbation! (As my friend, Jessica, calls it.) Watch Contagion. Or binge watch Fear the Walking Dead. Even natural disaster movies like The Day After Tomorrow and San Andreas would work. Anything with all hell breaking loose and everyone scattering to survive on their own.
2. Binge watch a season. Maybe Big Little Lies, The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel, or The Office?
3. Catch up on Oscar movies. Little Women is out now. So is Harriet. And Marriage Story.
4. Come up with your Plan. You know. The plan about what your strategy would be if all infrastructure broke down.
5. Read a book. Recently on my nightstand? Chelsea Handler’s Life Will Be the Death of Me…and you too! and Heather King’s Parched. Right now it’s Raymie Nightingale by Kate DiCamillo.
6. Laura Ingalls Wilder. Use up all of your stockpiled credits on Audible to get all of the Little House books and let Cherry Jones read to you. My favorites are the first 2.
7. Ancestry.com It’s always fun to play detective and dig up new roots in your family tree or catch up on any new hints.
Connect with Others
8. Pet your pet. Just love on them. We lost our sweet Australian cattle dog, Maggie, right before Christmas. But I have my gray tabby, Paika, who sleeps on my pillow every night to cuddle with .
9. Discover new music. Hop on Spotify or Pandora and explore a genre you’d never really volunteer to listen to. You might just find your new jam! Or at least a side jingle.
10. Board games. You might just have time to play every single board game your family owns. Our family favorites? Guesstures and Ticket to Ride (and here’s a hot tip: We prefer First Journey to the other ones). Grab a partner or the whole family.
11. Call people. Have a real conversation instead of texting. Share the sounds and intonations of actual emotion rather than supplemental emojis.
12. Send thoughts, prayers, love to people who are sick and suffering. Take a moment to send protective, light-filled prayers to all.
13. Write letters. To people alive or passed. Whether you intend to send them or not. Letters can help you connect…or release.
14. Build a campfire in your backyard. If you have some wood or sticks, that is. It’ll feel cozy and mesmerizing.
Get Your Environment in Order
15. Clean like crazy. That urge to spring clean has been bubbling up anyway. So just dive in!
16. Make one last run to the liquor store. Their box stockpile, that is, to get empty boxes for finally releasing all those clothes that don’t fit and toys that don’t get played with.
17. Be outside. If everyone’s inside, you’re probably pretty safe to wander around the yard and finally rake (or shovel!) leaves that are now matted in the corners of the patio.
Simplify Your Lifestyle
18. Cook like Ma from Little House on the Prairie. Like a crockpot full of beans or a big ole pot of Nom Nom Paleo’s Southwest Cowboy Chili (I prefer the slow version over Instant Pot).
19. Take a Nap. Maybe even sleep so long your back gets sore.
20. Figure out what you would do if you ran out of toilet paper. As a creative exercise. Not as an excuse to hoard it.
21. Play preschool with the big kids. Practice printing the alphabet. Sort things into piles. See how high you can stack some blocks. I think my kids are going to really love getting to this work.
22. Gratitude. What normal aspect of life will you be thankful to get back to?
23. Gratitude. What normal aspect of life is it really nice to be away from?
24. Mend or fix something. My ten-year old has holes in the knees of every pair of pants except his sweats. Time to patch them – or even better, time for him to learn to patch them!
Create
25. Discover new music. Hop on Spotify or Pandora and explore a genre you’d never really volunteer to listen to. You might just find your new jam! Or at least a side jingle.
26. Draw your hand. My art teacher in high school, Mr. Roach, had us draw our hand one day. But we weren’t allowed to look at the paper. It might turn out to be a total amoeba! But it might turn out to have so much more character and detail than if you’d set out to render the most accurate hand ever.
27. Paint a still life. Arrange an item or two or just plop down at the table and paint what you see.
28. Photograph in Macro. I saw this amazing contemporary photography exhibit probably fifteen years ago. The prints looked like landscapes and seascapes. But they were the edges of windows… extremely close-up.
29. Design a re-model of your house. Or plan your garden. Something to dream big about freshening things up.
30. Voice Record. Interview yourself or your family. Take the opportunity to record a good heart-to-heart about life.
31. Write a journal entry about what this experience is like for you. I mean, this is weird, right? Whether for you it’s exciting, terrifying, stupid or something else, write about your feelings in this highly unusual moment in our history.
32. Do a YouTube Painting Tutorial. Grab some paint and have your own private paint-and- sip party right where you are.
Try to Be Normal-ish?
33. Keep your routines. Get dressed. Have normal meal and bedtimes. It might be fun to be on vacation schedule for a couple of days. But it might be comforting to anchor the day with the familiar things you do.
34. Live one day at a time. There’s a lot we don’t have control over right now. What you have is breath. And what you see. What you hear. The smells of the room. How your skin feels and the texture of what you’re feeling. Savor how life tastes right now…whatever it is.
