“In the rush to return to normal, use this time to consider which parts of normal are worth rushing back to.” — Dave Hollis
As I write, it’s the day after May Day, this year the first Saturday in May, the traditional running of The Kentucky Derby. Attendance was, according to the Courier-Journal, “51,838 — a far cry from the usual 150,000-plus fans the race draws in a normal year, but one of the largest crowds at any event since the onset of the coronavirus pandemic.” Many people who attended did not wear their required face masks, except around their neck, though they dressed up for the occasion donning their derby hats and costumes while sipping mint juleps and placing their bets.
2021 Kentucky Derby Hat
In Madison, Wisconsin yesterday, it reached a summer-like high of 87 degrees. Sidewalk cafes overflowed and featured waiting lines for seating, ice cream shops in my Atwood neighborhood were bustling with families, children, sweethearts, and cyclists, who enjoyed a cone or sundae, found a bench or large rock to rest upon, and visited with neighbors. Streets were filled with traffic and sidewalks with people promenading in shorts, sandals, and sunglasses, dogs on leashes, and babies in bonnets in strollers.
Back to Life.
My initial reaction surprised me. As I drove through my neighborhood, the crowds of people enjoying the sunny, summer-like weather of a weekend Saturday, seemed disorienting, since for the past 14 months, people lived to some degree, in a lockdown, safer-at-home. I grew accustomed to the lack of traffic and crowds of people. While I’m grateful for the vibrant, walkable neighborhood that I live in, the leisurely pace and quiet vibe became familiar and the new normal.
Pandemic lockdown. Photo Credit: Victor Moriyama/The New York Times/Redux
On the other hand, since late winter, the itchy restlessness of spring fever combined with the extended isolation of the pandemic, prompted me to begin making plans for reunions with friends and family as we each passed the two-week benchmarks of our COVID-19 vaccinations. Soon, I was messaging friends and family making coffee dates and brunches, trips to visit my father in my hometown, and planned theater dates when shows reopen to the public and the list goes on.
I work in a community center which has been closed to the public we serve. Our LGBTQ+ community members are eager to meet in person again. Though we’ve conducted virtual support and recovery groups, webinars and programming, we’re all experiencing Zoom fatigue. We want to be together again, in person, as a community, giving and receiving hugs.
My half-time work schedule during the pandemic is a hybrid of working from home two days a week and in the office with my colleagues two days, followed by three-day weekends. For me, it’s the perfect schedule and I’m not sure I want to give up my two days working from home. The only day of the week when the five us are together in-person, is on Monday when we have our weekly staff meeting. I’ve found I’m productive when working from home though some days my work and personal lives blend together. I need to be vigilant and realistically track my time. In the end however, I think I’m working more hours ‘off the clock’ reading work emails, fielding support phone calls, and the list goes on.
Now, thirteen months later since I began social distancing, it’s time to begin designing my exit strategy from the hideout. Full disclosure: I will never fully abandon the hideout and the respite it provides.
For those new to my Dispatch from the Hideout series:
I began my Dispatch from the Hideout as a one-off essay in July 2017 to describe my reaction to events in the world and my need to retreat. I was also grieving the losses in my life, the most recent at the time was my mother’s death in 2016. I introduced the series as follows:
Now, before I go any further, it’s important that I share with you that my hideout is a virtual one. I don’t have a cabin in the woods, or a bunker in the basement, I only have my home, a 645 square foot apartment. It’s where I wake up in the morning, retreat at the end of the work day, hideout on the weekends when I’m writing or feeling introverted, and end my days, often falling asleep on the couch watching TV. Yeah, I’m that girl. I live alone and most days I’m happy with that choice.
I discovered that the Dispatch from the Hideout metaphor was a useful vehicle for me to express innermost feelings, like grief and gratitude, moments when I faced my shadow, or questioned my choices, plus the times when I reflected on the larger world of which I’m simply a member, navigating things outside of my control, yet still have an impact on my heart, mind, and spirit. The Hideout metaphor served me and soon became a series.
Circling back to the end of February and the COVID-19 pandemic I was forced to spend more time in the Hideout to protect my physical health, safer-at-home, I soon discovered that the isolation also affected my mental. emotional, and spiritual health. When the Wisconsin Historical Society launched the Wisconsin Historical Society COVID-19 Journal Project, I was all in and to date, including this essay, I’ve contributed fifteen installments, about my experience as I shelter-in-place, plus the four musings that preceded them.
There are links to the entire Dispatch series at the end of this essay.
Exit Strategy
Returning to the quote that introduced this dispatch, “In the rush to return to normal, use this time to consider which parts of normal are worth rushing back to.”
I’m experiencing some hesitancy to dine in restaurants, watch films in theaters, attend indoor events like concerts and theater performances, unless people are wearing masks and venues are not yet at full capacity since we’ve not reached herd immunity as a community.
On the other hand, I want to spend time in the homes of friends, family, and loved ones, not only those who were present in the days preceding the pandemic, but those friends I’ve followed on social media during the pandemic and want to reunite with again.
On Friday, the last day of April, I ordered my tickets with my Festival Pass to the 2021 Wisconsin Film Festival (WFF) which is totally virtual this year. I will miss the cinephile community of filmgoers, who unlike day-to-day moviegoing chat each other up while standing in line before a film and while exiting the theater to stand in another line. One benefit however, of a virtual festival is since I won’t be traveling to different venues, parking my car, and standing in lines before the films begin, I’ll have extra time and double the number of films I see.
This coming weekend I’m scheduling a brunch or dinner on Friday with my friend Janet, (aka Louise to my Thelma) who moved to Minnesota during the pandemic. Saturday, brunch with friend and chosen family member Dawnne, a beloved member of my Pod Squad, Sunday a coffee date with friend, Julie, at one of our favorite coffeehouses, who I haven’t seen for what seems like almost two years. I also want to find some time to reschedule a date with an artist friend, Robin, who I’ve followed regularly on social media this past year as she posted the art she was creating.
Quarantine bubble “Pod Squad’
The next two months I want to plan trips to see my family in Racine and Milwaukee, my elderly father who I have phones dates with two days a week, but have missed our in-person visits. When we talked today, we were scheduling visits in May and June. Now that we’re both vaccinated, I want to reinstate my once-a month in-person visits. In June, we’ll celebrate Father’s Day and I’ll also see my sister Kelly and her husband Bill, who are my father’s caregivers.
I want to schedule time with my brother Rick and his wife Nancy from Colorado when they visit in Milwaukee in June to be with their daughter, my niece, Taryn, her husband, Daniel, and Taryn and Daniel’s daughter, my grandniece, Declyn, the newest member of my bio family who was born in September and whom I’ve never met.
Declyn in her Kentucky Derby hat.
Two other members of my Pod Squad, Leanne and Rene, want to accompany me on a trip to Racine to visit Dad. Leanne sends Dad postcards regularly every week, which he always reads to me when I call him. Leanne first met my family at my mother’s funeral visitation five years ago and attended a family Father’s Day a few years ago. Rene and Leanne attended my sister, Cindy’s, celebration of life just over two years ago after she died from cancer. They are beloved members of my chosen family and Pod Squad members. We support each other and celebrate the important moments of our lives.
L. to R. Dad, Leanne, & Rene, throwing Peace Signs.
I’m looking forward to also seeing three of my exes in-person in the coming days or weeks. My ex-husband Frank to accompany me on a trip to Racine, my most recent ex, Cindy (does thirteen years qualify as recent?) for an-person coffee in my home, and my lover, Mary, after I separated from Frank, so many years ago who now lives with her longtime spouse in Steven’s Point. I’m grateful they all remain in my life. To maintain those relationship, there were amends to be made and forgiveness required. I’m grateful.
On the work front, I launched a program, The Road Forward with the support of my program director and community partners who facilitated a series of virtual workshops this month, continuing in May, to support our underserved and marginalized LGBTQ+ community members as we navigate the post-pandemic road forward. Last week, with help from the community center’s executive director, I drafted and we submitted a follow-up program grant, The Road Forward: The Journey Continues, to create and implement a series of in-person workshops addressing the same topic areas providing ongoing peer support, tools and resources to reenter life.
Next Steps
While I’m looking forward to reuniting with friends and family and reentering a post-pandemic life, I’ve learned that I still value and want to protect my solitary life. I need and want time alone. Sometimes, I default to a human doing rather than a human being. My to-do lists tend to be too long and my to-be lists too short. I often post in my Friday, Facebook TGIF Updates, that I need to reserve time to practice spontaneity. During the pandemic I was forced to practice. As readers will discover in my Dispatch from the Hideout series, I explored new routines, sometimes making adjustments, fine-tuning the activities that filled my day and captured my curiosity and attention.
10 years of to-do lists equals more than a ream of paper
Our post-pandemic lives will be different. I will never again take for granted the things that I value most in life: Time spent in-person with the people I love, time spent alone by choice, work that feeds my spirit, my health, and the mundane moments of everyday life.
Grateful.
Dispatch from the Hideout Series COVID-19 Journal
Dispatch from the Hideout: A Shot in the Arm
Dispatch from the Hideout: Love in a Pandemic
Dispatch from the Hideout: The End Is Here!
Dispatch from the Hideout: Riding the Coronacoaster
Dispatch from the Hideout: Staycation Edition
Dispatch from the Hideout: Letter to Loved Ones
Dispatch from the Hideout: Quarantine Bubble Edition
Dispatch from the Hideout: What Was, What Will Be
Dispatch from the Hideout: Back to Life
Dispatch from the Hideout: Stirred Crazy
Dispatch from the Hideout: Home Alone Easter Holiday
Dispatch from the Hideout: Home Alone Edition
Dispatch from the Hideout: Pandemic Edition
Dispatch from the Hideout: Social Distancing
Additional Reading from Mixed Metaphors, Oh My!
Dispatch from the Hideout: Premature Hibernation
Hibernation & the Holidays: Retreat to the Hideout
Another Dispatch from the Hideout
Related Reading on Post-Pandemic Life
2 Competing Impulses Will Drive Post-Pandemic Social Life
Why It Feels So Uncomfortable to Resume Your Life After Your Vaccine