Life in the Time of COVID, Part 2

I’ve been meaning (and trying) to sit down and write for about a week. Not sure why it’s so difficult, since I have the time, and lots of it. But something, I think, about the amorphous days and the general, “down” news has put a hole in my ambitions.

We had thought we were hoping for some break from having all the news be about COVID. Be careful what you wish for: we had, four days ago, the worst mass murder in Canadian history, in Nova Scotia by (of all things) a denturist gone mad. Twenty-two innocent people killed by one man in 12 hours of rampage through rural Nova Scotia, damaging community after community; it will take years to repair the emotional damage. But I suppose it takes your mind off the pandemic.

What is hitting me is the difference between the acute phase of this, when there is some novelty, and constant re-visioning what we are doing to manage to cope with the situation; to the longer-term part of it, when you understand that will be months, and we have to settle in and have good work habits to just keep going. 

“They” say we are past the peak of the first wave, by and large. LTC Homes are still getting explosive numbers, and are demonstrating to the general public the errors of our past ways. Perhaps we will come out of this with a resolve to own these homes publicly, and manage them in the interest of the public rather than for profits. Perhaps we will see the need to pay the workers in the homes (ALL the workers, including kitchen and cleaning staff) a real  living wage, with benefits that include the safety equipment they are now crying out for. Perhaps we will start to staff them well enough to manage outbreaks like this. The cynic in me doubts this will happen in Conservative Ontario. The optimist in me hopes that our Premier has seen the light: his mother-in-law, after all, is a patient in a LTC Home.

Otherwise, life goes on, at a very different pace. The weather has been cold for April, but the gardens are coming along slowly. My bike calls me, and on warmer days I have been out on it. Without access to the rail trails it is more difficult, but I have worked on a few routes to give me several kilometres of exercise. And the garden cleanup has begun in earnest. Days are longer, which is helpful for mood, thank heavens. I walk in the morning with Richard, often walk or bike later in the day, do some reading outside of the newspaper, watch my screens too much, and eat more than I should. That will have to be changed.

So there is an update. More will come when I get inspired.