Batten Down The Hatches

It's been a while since I've had the time and energy to sit down and write.  I lost a business, started a new full-time job as an elementary school librarian, lost that job (reduction in force), and then found myself in a stellar new librarian position at a high school.  We moved in with my mom (when we lost the business), moved back into our house after two years (two weeks after I lost the elementary school job), celebrated that we could stay in our house (when I got the new job).

And now here I am, with (finally) my librarian endorsement completed, a job I love, and the Coronavirus changing life as we all know it.

So as my family battens down the hatches for two weeks (my children's school is closed through March 27th, and mine through April 11), I thought I would start to document my activities, to "bear witness", as my great-uncle would say.  After each great (and I mean that by life-altering, not necessarily good) event in America, we look back at where we were, and what we were doing.  History books will judge the leaders, society will judge the rest of us, but it's the little personal stories in between that we will remember. 

That is where I am writing from- a place of wanting to remember these weeks, perhaps the only ones in my life where I will get to work from home with my children underfoot, but with a remarkable amount of "free" time.  We are not planning to leave our property until the girls have to go back to school, or I do.  We have stocked up on food and (yes, we were lucky) toilet paper and cleaning supplies.  We have internet, clean water, and heat.  And we have video chat options on our phones.

I'm a school librarian, and while I will spend my school days checking in with teachers, answering questions and working with administration, and doing work that I can do remotely, I am going to document less of that, and more of how my family reacts, what we do, and how we celebrate life, by taking these steps to maintain the world around us.

Social distancing is going to be hard.  Not running to the grocery store, not seeing friends in person.  But the quality time with my kids- that's a blessing.  Praying and hoping we all stay healthy- that we have somehow avoided exposure over the last few weeks as there has been a halting response to actually halting school and activities.  If not, I fear for what happens if one of us does get sick.  But if we can pull through this without becoming ill, then I am hoping the next few weeks will be a wonderful bonding experience.  I'm trying to think on the bright side.