Coronavirus Vignette: How it Began (for us)

How weird it is to look back in my  Instagram feed  and see a very distinct divide between “before coronavirus” and “after coronavirus.” I had no way of knowing that when I posted on March 1st about how I was on the “upswing after being hit hard by a cold or flu bug” my recovery was going to take longer than I expected and would happen as the United States was only just starting to fully understand the full impact the virus would have on all our lives.

It all seems at once to have happened in the blink of an eye, yet, at the same time seems to be moving in slow motion. Now that we are heading into 2021 (some 9 months into the pandemic), I’m feeling the need to reflect a bit and to record some of my thoughts and experiences of this time. 

I had just come off the whirlwind of Kyle  getting accepted to the University of Vermont in mid-December which, given the holiday. left us a very short amount of time to plan and prepare for  getting him moved onto campus  mid-January, in the middle of an unfamiliar-to-us Vermont winter. 

I was preparing to fulfill a long-time desire of taking a  writing workshop  with one of my favorite authors,  Dani Shapiro. The plan had been to fly up to Syracuse and then drive out to Kripalu in the Berkshires of western Massachusetts on Friday, February 28th, returning on Monday. Jason was coming up to house and pet sit for me while I was gone.

Wednesday before I was supposed to leave, while waiting for my orthodontist appointment, my throat started feeling scratchy. That evening at my therapy appointment, I was worried that I might be getting sick and was feeling a bit stressed about possibly having to make a last minute decision about traveling. 

Jason came up that evening, so we grabbed take-out and enjoyed catching up a bit. Thursday morning, I could tell that I definitely was fighting  something  so I contacted my acupuncturist about coming in for my appointment. She felt it was ok and that the treatment might be helpful. By Thursday evening, I was running a fever and it was obvious that I should not travel. Friday morning, I contacted Kripalu to let them know I was not coming and canceled my flight and car reservations. 

I spent most of the day Friday upstairs in bed and was grateful to have Jason around to help take care of Jez. By Friday evening, Jason had started not feeling well and we decided it made more sense for him to go back to Fredericksburg. Luckily my fever broke Saturday morning. As I posted on Instagram, by Sunday, I assumed that I was on the upswing and would be feeling better relatively soon (because that is how colds and flus usually work, right?)

While Jason bounced back after a day or so, I continued to feel completely wiped and had a lingering cough. I was able to work some, but felt completely drained. I was never more grateful that I worked from home as the idea of having to get up and go somewhere felt completely overwhelming. I skipped an “old timers” homeschool potluck get-together on Saturday and did my best to clean and straighten up the house before Kyle flew home from UVM for spring break on Sunday, March 8th.

In just this week, talk of the coronavirus, which was starting to spread in Washington state and then in New York, had started to get more serious. Before Kyle flew back from UVM for spring break, he had been told to bring his books and work he might need “just in case” but the general consensus was, in all likelihood, they would be returning. 

The week Kyle got home, he got together with some of his homeschool friends and debated about going to an open house at a friend’s house. On Thursday, March 12th, Governor Northam declared a state of emergency in Virginia due to COVID, closing schools, banning large get togethers and encouraging teleworking. On Saturday, Kyle met up with two photography friends to explore Georgetown and at that point, I was nervous but not quite ready to say “no, don’t go.” I did ask that they stay outside. By Monday, March 16th, we were not going anywhere.

The speed at which conditions were changing kept us completely off-balance. It was like we, as a society, could see what was coming but did not want to believe it, so we kept trying to convince ourselves that it was not as bad as it looked. At first the goal was to “flatten the curve” which we thought we could do in a matter of weeks. Yet what it would take (complete shut-down of non-essential businesses and people staying home) also seemed unfathomable. We had no model for how this would look and no idea of how long we would have to live this way. Not to mention conflicting messages from political leaders, often at odds with health officials.

The shut down orders were originally issued for a couple of weeks at a time which in hindsight was definitely wishful thinking. The dates became a moving target and each time they got extended, our hearts would sink a little bit more. 

We had no idea that we would be here in January 2021 only just now seeing a glimmer of the light at the end of the tunnel. We had no idea how it would unfold and what would be laid bare about us, both as a society and individually, as it did so.