Mixed Metaphors

“As a writer, I like words, their origin and meanings. Memory: Something remembered from the past; a recollection. Memorial: Something designed to preserve the memory of a person, event, as a monument or a holiday.” — from Mixed Metaphors, Oh My! With a Little Help from My Friends

First, the Memorial Day Holiday is a time to acknowledge and honor the men and women who have served our country in war and peace, and more importantly to work for peace in the world. It’s also a time I remember loved ones, friends, and colleagues who have died.

This year it’s also a return to some version of our pre-pandemic lives — a new normal — a post- pandemic life for those of us who’ve been fully vaccinated.

My Pre-Pandemic Life

For the past 12 years before the pandemic, I lived alone. As it turned out, it was good training ground for life during the social isolation caused by COVID-19 and the estrangement from friends and loved ones. By nature, and practice, I’m resilient.  I’m also a creature of habit, creating routines, a foundation and structure to frame my daily life.

As I reached a certain age, I began working half-time allowing me more time for my avocations which included writing, filmgoing and filmmaking, social activism, and time spent with family and friends. I also struck a balance to protect time for my solitary life which fed my passions and spirit.

At the beginning of the pandemic, my life was altered when I was laid-off from my 12-year position due to a company reorganization at the end of February 2020. I began a job search for a new part-time job while people began social distancing and working from home. As followers of Mixed Metaphors, Oh My! are already aware, I began a COVID-19 Journal for the Wisconsin Historical Society.

My Pandemic Life

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 sixteen 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.

The cost of the pandemic, first in lives: The COVID-19 pandemic altered life as we knew it, it claimed the lives of 6.9 million people worldwide, more than double what official numbers show, according to a new analysis by the Institute for Health Metrics and Evaluation (IHME) at the University of Washington School of Medicine.

The cost of the pandemic, in how we lived:  COVID-19 affected every institution, including work, our daily and family lives, the very fabric of our social community. The guidelines designed to protect us were politicized, including social distancing, masks, and vaccinations.

The cost of the pandemic, personally: My hair got grayer, my muscles began to atrophy from lack of exercise, I consumed more content online, spent more time on social media, wrote more, dust and dander collected at a faster rate in my home due to my increased presence, and gratefully, because I didn’t eat as much high-calorie fast food, I actually lost a few pounds.

Gratefully, I found a new position doing work that matched my volunteer, recovery, and social activist experience. Because of the pandemic, I worked a hybrid, half-time work schedule, two days from home, two days at the community center which was closed to the public.

With selected friends and family, I created what I referred to as my ‘Pod Squad,’ a small quarantine bubble, yet I was unable to see most family members in-person, including my elderly father. Activities that once gave me pleasure and enhanced my life were now not options, including weekend movie matinees, film festivals, work with creative collaborators from the Madison Indie Filmmakers on my web series, Hotel Bar, brunches, potlucks, and coffee dates with friends, and of course, in-person family holidays and gatherings.  Lots of loss and letting go of things outside my control.

Leading up to the Memorial Day Holiday weekend, I did a lot of reminiscing about the people I love who are no longer here in life, and the activities and social traditions from the past that I celebrated with friends, loved ones, and family.

I was grateful to become vaccinated and witness friends, family, and work colleagues become protected too, so we could be together safely in-person and gradually re-engage in life as we knew it, pre-pandemic.

My Post-Pandemic Life

First, I’m grateful to be vaccinated, that I’ve not lost any loved ones or friends to the virus, and finally, for the past couple of months, I began, in small steps, to explore and re-enter a post-pandemic life.

I did so with caution at the beginning, when the CDC first announced that vaccinated people could go maskless and begin to enjoy both outdoor and indoor activities with other vaccinated people. I was concerned that the very people who politicized masks and those that refused to get vaccinated when they were eligible, could take advantage of the new guidelines.

What I finally realized, after some time, was that vaccinated people could be safe in-person, with both vaccinated people and the unvaccinated, while the unvaccinated were safe in-person with those of us who were vaccinated, yet were at risk of becoming infected or infecting others who were unvaccinated. There’s some karmic symmetry to that, though my wish is that everyone would be fully protected from COVID-19 and its health risks.

The first in-person family activity was celebrating the birthday of my nephew Quinn, and belatedly his sister my niece Gemma. We shared a family dinner in my sister Tami and husband Ron’s home. Next, I had breakfast with an ex, Tracy, inside one of our favorite breakfast spots, Original Pancake House, then brunch with friend Dawnne, chosen family and Pod Squad member, when we lingered for two-and-a-half hours in one of her favorite go-to places, and two separate campfire gatherings with chosen family and Pod Squad members Leanne and Rene, the second included dinner inside their home.

I had a bone-in rib-eye steak dinner Mother’s Day weekend in a restaurant with friend Janet (Louise to my Thelma) who now lives in Minneapolis who was traveling through Wisconsin for work and on her way to spend the day with her mother.  Lastly, a coffee date with my filmgoing friend (and so much more), Julie after not seeing each other for 18 months. Grateful!   

At work at the community center, we are all vaccinated and after a year of socially-distanced staff meetings and wearing masks all day, we are now maskless. Last week, I shopped inside a bookstore. My only ventures indoors during the pandemic had been limited to the grocery store, the pharmacy, a big box store, and the health clinic for lab work. Last year, my annual checkup in April was virtual and I kept my clothes on, this year in-person, you guessed it…

On Saturday this weekend, I spent the afternoon enjoying tea, cookies, and roasted sweet and salty pecans with a friend I worked with years ago, while we reviewed in-person the 100 days of artwork she created and posted on social media this year as we caught up with each other, as if no time had passed. I purchased two new pieces of artwork which I’ll hang today. One is appropriately entitled, Acceptance, the second an autobiographical memory, 1970.

Yesterday — the best gift of all — I took a road trip with friends and honorary Loud Family members, Leanne and Rene to Racine, my hometown, to visit my elderly father for the first time since my single visit with him during the pandemic in October, 2020. He is vaccinated, so besides spending the day together in his home, we shared a meal, stories, laughter, and affection. I was able to hug and kiss him for the first time in fifteen months. Grateful.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Life Ahead

There is work ahead, both as an individual and as a member of a larger community: To heal, restore, and judge how we’ve lived our lives, grieve the costs and losses of the pandemic, and determine what changes we need to make as a society moving forward. There are lessons to be learned, inventories to be taken, and pent-up love and gratitude to be expressed and shared.

Did I say, I was lucky? I am. Did I say, I was grateful? I am. Thanks, H.P. Life is good!

Dispatch from the Hideout Series COVID-19 Journal

Dispatch from the Hideout: Exit Strategy

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 

Dispatch from the Hideout 

Memorial Day Memories from Mixed Metaphors, Oh My!

Yesterday, Today & Tomorrow

With a Little Help from My Friends

Memorial Day: Memories, Flowers, & Gratitude

The Orphan Holidays 

Related Reading on Post-Pandemic Life

Their lives haven’t changed since getting vaccinated.

A vaccine marvel is bringing America back

Tweets About the Things We Forgot How to Do During the Pandemic

Memorial Day weekend is first maskless holiday in over a year

Their relationships were tested during the pandemic