Week 3 of Stay at Home in San Antonio, Texas
We ended Week 3 of staying at home with a rainy weekend that doesn’t feel any different than the weekdays.
This past week I sadly learned how three people I know lost either a father or grandfather due to COVID-19.
If March was a challenging month given all the rapid adjustments we’ve had to make, April will be the month of cruelties, of learning who we have lost in our communities.
Not everyone’s pandemic experience will be the same.
My 15-year-old is happy at home. He has taken to online schooling so far and he’s relieved not to wear a uniform or have to wake up early. When his daily studies are done, I can hear him in his room laughing with his buddies as they play together online.
Late at night (we’re the two night owls in our family), he shares funny highlights from his day with me, and I show him silly animal videos.
My introvert husband is fine staying home as well, working on his hobby of painting teeny tiny military figures for tabletop wargaming with his buddies once the pandemic is over.
Me, I miss how varied my weeks used to be from one another. Since I normally write about local news about startups in San Antonio, the stories I write are different each week. I would attend events or meet up with folks doing interesting things and get excited about the stories I would write.
The sameness of the days is what is wearing me down.
I count myself as fortunate because that sameness means we’re not dealing with the catastrophic impacts from this disease. I pray for myself and all of you reading this that the worst you will handle is this sameness across endless quarantine weeks.
Wake up. Eat. Check-in with what’s happening in the world. More eating. Some chores. Work. Nagging (because we’re together all.the.time). Eating. Cleaning. Consuming more content. Sleep.
Despite this, I am having vivid dreams and as always, thinking about writing and sitting down to write, as I am now.
The best we could do this week was to cook up a squirrely idea for entertainment from my own backyard. The mini picnic table attracts squirrels to our fence for easy watching from our kitchen windows.
It’s not nearly as ambitious as anything coming from talented families I’ve been watching on YouTube (dances, singing, re-creating the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disneyland in their house!).
You do what you can during interesting times.
Featured image is of a homemade picnic table for squirrels mounted on our fence, photo credit Iris Gonzalez.