elizabethlevett

All This Time

We’re going into our third month since being told to stay home back in March.  Almost three months since then. Nearly three months of sticking close to home, close to each other, all by ourselves most of the time, just like everyone everywhere. All this time to remain isolated but not, right? Because supposedly everybody is the same in this staying home. But not really.

There’s been plenty to do each day. I sanitize everything in reach: the laundry room, the mail boxes, the banisters, the trash can lids. I’ve spent hours redefining what it is for me to teach twenty-one little kids. There’s the inevitable learning curve with Google classroom, Zoom, the attempts to reassure parents that, although we have no idea what’s ahead, everything is under control. There are the daily walks when I try to steer politely away from anyone who doesn’t have a mask on. There’s the adventure of getting groceries and standing long lines, the weekly event of moving the car, for no reason other than it seems like a nice idea. There’s the ritual hand washing and the constant need of lotion. There are floors to polish and dresser drawers to rearrange.

Nearly three months of marrying myself to my garden. All the time in the world to get reacquainted with every tree – “you could use a little pruning there, eh?” Weeding madly, replanting things, nurturing nascent dahlias (my first time), caging the taller plants, propping up the little droopy ones, nursing a delphinium I rescued from the compost pile behind the conservatory in the park. And sometimes even just staring at the changing light on the petals of a foxglove or watching the bumblebees disappear into an orange velvet poppy temple.

Nearly three months of actually getting to wear shorts on a weekday, of reading in the sun, or fooling around with my dumbbells and that funny resistance band I borrowed from the PE teacher. All this time to let my nails grow long and let my hair go to seed.

Nearly three months of not going to bookstores, boutiques, restaurants, or cafes. Of staying away from the art supply store, the fabric store, the record store. Of making do with seeing my friends in the garden or in the park for a picnic or for a walk. Making do with what we can find and what we can busy ourselves with. And all this time we could be together still, just keeping safe at a distance to avoid any risk of catching or passing on this mysterious and dangerous thing.

Nearly three months of watching or listening to the news of refrigerator trucks outside of hospitals, of refugees struggling to stay safe in tent encampments with no running water, of infection rates spiking, especially in communities of color. Watching and listening until I can’t anymore and have to switch over to music. Nearly three months of feeling compelled to phone old friends and relatives – just to make sure everybody’s okay. Everybody I know is okay. But everybody else, that’s another thing entirely.

We go online and watch the talk shows and the at-home music videos and the collections of truly nice things people are doing to reach out to one another. We share jokes about living on the couch in our sweats because all this time we haven’t had to show up anywhere. But somebody else did. Somebody else was told they are essential. Somebody else stocked the shelves at the grocery store, made the deliveries, drove the busses, left their kids with grandparents because they really didn’t have a choice, swept out the hospital rooms, changed the soiled linens, monitored the vital signs, answered the emergency calls, or helplessly watched their loved ones lie in beds behind a sanitized screen. We can’t go the gym or the café or the night club while so many others can’t get health care, are trying to make do without income, without safety.

All this time we’ve looked for ways to feel we’re all together, we’re not alone, we’re all going through the same thing. But all this time, for some, the isolation itself looks very different. It’s been nearly three months – all this time to realize what privilege really means.