As events came down this late winter and early spring, and the prospect of having to stay home almost all of the time became more and more real, I thought “Big deal. I’ve been staying home pretty much all of the time since the summer of 1999.”
And that’s true. Since I left the workforce late that summer, most of my days have been spent at the computer in three different apartments, one house and now, one condo. And I came to like that, which was a change for me. Still, if I needed to or wanted to, I could go out without having to weigh heavy questions of health and wellness (there was some of that, as I learned how to deal with the malady that had rerouted my life) or equally heavy questions of public obligation.
But the heaviness of those questions – along with the burden of the mostly doleful news from around the nation and around the world – make this stay-at-home time much different. And it’s affecting me: I’m not sleeping well, waking up each morning at about six a.m. no matter how late I might have gotten to bed the night before. My chronic depression seems to have adjusted its default setting – the level attained if I take my medication regularly – to a slightly more unhappy level than had been the case two months ago. I’m a little fidgety. And I’m definitely more short-tempered than usual.
I’m finding things to fill my hours: Sorting and tagging the stock of mp3s I’ve stuck in folders and set aside over the past twenty years; doing the groundwork for and beginning a new season – the twenty-fifth – for my eighteen-team tabletop baseball league; pondering new music for the keyboard (something I need to move from simply pondering to actually playing); binge-watching television with the Texas Gal (we loved both Interrogation and One Dollar, offered by CBS All Access); and more things that don’t come to mind at the moment.
I’m not complaining. I’m just observing that sheltering in place – staying home and having to plan carefully to limit excursions to the essential – is harder than I expected. But if this is what I have to do to play my part in the societal attempt to limit the impact of the corona virus and COVID-19, so be it. My parents’ generation had to deal with far worse, what with the Depression and World War II. I can handle today’s burdens for the duration.
And here’s a tune that came to mind this morning: It’s “(Staying Home and Singing) Homemade Songs” by Tracy Nelson and Mother Earth. It’s from the 1972 album Tracy Nelson/Mother Earth.
Tags: Mother Earth, Tracy Nelson