This is the time of year when I would normally reflect back on all the exciting travel experiences David and I enjoyed over the past 12 months, counting down the best of the best. In 2020, however, the Covid-19 Pandemic resulted in the cancellation of four planned cruises to destinations far and wide. Covid kicked our butts and knocked us for a loop, forcing us to adapt to a different way of life close to home. I could probably list 50 ways my life has been negatively affected by the Pandemic. Instead, I am focusing my 2020 end-of-year list on new discoveries about myself and positive experiences to come out of this strange and bizarre year.
Though my list (laid out in no particular order) may sound trivial and mundane, it’s a reflection of unusual and challenging times. Here are some things I discovered since the beginning of the Pandemic:
A Taste of Retirement. With my travel business struggling to survive and my time working at the law office cut to one day a week, you might think I’d be in a state of misery. On the contrary, I realized how much I like being home, going about my day without much structure, and sleeping late (if you can count 7:00 am as sleeping in). I work at home when it suits me, make my own hours and, best of all, my time is my own.
FaceTime and Zooming. Thank goodness for video chatting. Though using FaceTime is not new to David or me, the electronic face-to-face calls with family through Zoom, FaceTime and Messenger have been a blessing, becoming THE way to connect with the kids and grandsons at those times over the months when infection rates were high and when person-to-person contact became next to impossible, particularly on major holidays.
The Recliner Relic. I used to curse this chair for a long time - a red (mauve, actually), plush recliner that I purchased for my husband as a Christmas gift years ago. Since then, we have renovated the living room and updated the furnishings for a more modern look. Still, the red recliner remains. My husband and I have battled over this relic that goes with nothing and has no real place. I wanted it gone; he did not. Then one day, for no particular reason, I sat in it. I discovered that it’s random location near the breeze of an open front door and backlight from a bow window was a breath of fresh air and has since become my seat of choice. I can even be found napping there in the afternoon hours while I hear my husband tell me “I told you so.”
A Completed Jigsaw Puzzle. As a kid, I disliked jigsaw puzzles. I suppose I lacked the focus and patience to complete one. In fact, David nor I have ever considered jigsaw puzzles to be a favorite pastime, and I don’t recall ever having done one in our 43 years of marriage. Then one day during the early days of the Pandemic, my brother Norm dropped several puzzles on our doorstep. Looking for ways to stay occupied during these cold days of lockdown, we decided to try one. A challenging and interesting Broadway theme, 1,000 puzzle pieces spread across the dining room table and became the focal point of the room. We couldn’t resist adding a few pieces every time we passed by. Of course, it took many days and weeks to complete it. In fact, it was the only puzzle to grace our table, and once the weather improved and spring flowers blossomed, that was the end of our puzzle phase. However, with winter approaching and a new Outlander-theme puzzle sitting under the Christmas tree, it may be time to clear the table and make room for another.
TV Bingeing to Forget a Pandemic: Besides weekly Must-See-TV episodes of This is Us and the Chicago trio (Med, Fire, PD), binge-watching a series became a nightly thing for me. Sometimes David and I got hooked on the same show, but most of the time it was me watching endless episodes of Outlander, Parks & Rec, Chernobyl, the Crown, Schitt’s Creek, Handmaid’s Tale and Call the Midwife. Each one has provided enough hours of entertainment, laughter and tears to forget there’s a pandemic for a time. I’m currently finishing up the final season of Vikings, and with many cold winter nights still to come, I wonder what my next binge will be.
Movies Galore: David and I have always been big on movie watching. Whether from our DVD collection, streaming Netflix, or sitting in a big-screen theatre, cozying up with a bowl of popcorn to take in a new movie was one of our favorite ways to de-stress. When the Pandemic hit and theaters were shuttered, our movie habit was confined to the home TV. We kept a list of films we watched - we called it Corona movies. It included new-to-us films (Richard Jewel, Blow the Man Down), classics (Spartacus), favorite romances (Moonstruck), great mob movies (Godfather, of course) and fantasies (the Lord of the Rings trilogy). There are many, many more, and after a while we stopped keeping track.
Housecleaning Isn’t So Bad. A few years back, my husband presented me with the gift of housecleaning services. After a few starts and stops, we settled on once a month service. With no pets or kids to make a mess, it’s all we needed. As if by magic, on the 3rd Thursday of each month, a team of enthusiastic young people came in and made the house shine like a star and smell like a field of flowers. Then came Covid-19, and there went the house cleaners. Due to risk of infection and a slashed household budget, we were left with the task of cleaning our own house. I know - boo hoo, poor us. I admit, we - or I - was spoiled. David is great with day-to-day clutter control and clean-up. I can’t say the same for myself. I can be a downright slob at times, but since he was still employed in the home office, I took on the newfound chores. To make it more fun (as if ‘cleaning’ and ‘fun’ should be used in the same sentence) I purchased a new array of cleaning supplies and set to work washing floors, vacuuming, sweeping, dusting and polishing. I’m not very consistent and clean only when the mood strikes me, but I do get satisfaction from a job well done.
The Rake and Bag Workout. While hiring people to clean the interior of the house was a luxury, a landscaper to keep the lawn and bushes neat and trim was more of a necessity due to our aging bodies and David’s allergies to grass and pollen. Last spring, I decided to do the annual spring cleanup myself and save a few bucks. I don’t own a leaf blower, and did it the old-fashioned way - with a rake and a lot of sweat. It took a few exhausting days to do the quarter-acre lot, but I stuffed bag after bag with leaves, sticks and dirt and got a great workout in the process.
Washed That Gray Right Outta My Hair. I had sworn off hair dye a few years ago, preferring the short au natural silver look sported by some of my favorite women celebs like Jamie Lee Curtis, Meryl Streep and Helen Mirren. After all, if they could make gray look cool and trendy, so could I. However, one day back in March I looked at my reflection and decided I needed a change. I consulted with Ms. Clairol and went the ‘Nice & Easy’ route. I spent what seemed like hours trying to decide on a color and settled on a reddish-brown. David immediately loved the new look and his “new red-headed babe”. It took me a day to get over the initial shock, but i soon discovered how much better I looked and felt about myself. When the red eventually faded to brown and the gray began to sneak back in, I did it all over again. Lather, rinse repeat!
A Home Office with a View. I’ve always had a thing for rearranging furniture when I was bored or just wanted a new perspective. In this case, it was about the view and being on top. During the pandemic, I took my love of rearranging to new heights. I relocated my office from the busy living/dining room to a vacant upstairs bedroom. My work station now overlooked the backyard and the neighborhood. I felt powerful. Not only was it a cozy, quiet space, but it became my refuge; a place to escape to when my husband and I had reached our sociable limit for the day. He could retreat to his subterranean basement office, while I could retreat to my office two floors up in the clouds.
I Built Me Some Furniture. I am famous for taking the easy, no-hassle route when shopping for furniture. Pick a piece at the furniture store and pay for delivery and setup. With less money, more time on my hands and no desire to shop in person, my on-line furniture purchases now arrived on my porch in a large, heavy box clearly marked “assembly required”. After some groaning and toying with the idea of phoning a friend to do it, I put on my big-girl pants and built the pieces myself. I am particularly proud of the L-shaped desk for my new office and the tall kitchen rack that became a coffee/tea/beverage station. The whole process wasn’t without some frustration. I wound up with an extra screw or two, and whether it was poor reading comprehension or just insanely complicated directions, I wanted to scream when I reached the last step of the kitchen rack, only to find it was assembled backwards.
Let’s Go Ride a Bike. As an incentive to lose some Covid pounds and get ourselves moving, we purchased a pair of identical bikes. Thirty years or so had passed since we last rode bikes, and re-learning to ride was not accomplished in a day. From the moment we picked up our new bikes and gave them a test run in the bike shop parking lot, we realized this wasn’t going to be easy. As I clung to the wall of the building and tried to pedal and balance myself, I wondered what the heck was I thinking. I’m sure the few spectators in the lot were wondering the same thing. David wasn’t faring much better, and we decided to bring them home and try them out in the comfort of our driveway as soon as we figured out the intricacies of the complicated bike rack we bought. I’m happy to say that in time we successfully learned how to mount a bike, stay on it and stop and stop without breaking bones or our necks. After a few days, we had even advanced all the way to the bike trail.
The Backyard Vacation Retreat. With all our exciting travel plans scrapped in 2020, our brick patio and backyard became our spring, summer and fall vacation oasis. Of course, as my husband often reminds me, it would have been far more enjoyable if I hadn’t given away the family pool a few years back. He’ll never let me forget that one, a story for a different blog. Still, we spent many afternoons and evenings reading or relaxing in the Adirondack chairs in the shade of a tree or patio dining on whatever delectable delight Chef David prepared on the grill. Come fall, we did add a fire pit to the mix. It doesn’t quite make up for the lack of the backyard swimming hole, and it would have been better if we had thought of a fire pit sooner in the year, but those few s’mores we enjoyed before the snow fell were delicious.
A New Fence. Our row of hemlocks shielding us from the street had been dying a slow death for the past 10 years or so and had reached the point of bare, dead branches. Something needed to be done, and I decided a white PVC fence would look nice and give us the privacy I like. David had reservations, thinking that it would be a poor replacement for dead bushes. As always, I won this argument and hired some guys to remove the unsightly hedge and install the lattice-trimmed fence. I was right, of course. The fence looks great, and the river rock and grass added later by the landscaper completed the look.
Family Bonding on the Cape. Despite months of masks and social distancing, and pre-testing requirements for travel to neighboring Massachusetts, our immediately family of 8 managed to pull off a late August escape to a pair of familiar cozy beach cottages in my happy place - Wellfleet, Cape Cod. Evenly split between the two houses, we all followed precautions as best we could, quarantining when we returned home, and luckily no one was infected. We spent much-needed time reconnecting with the kids and grandkids, and for that seven days we all felt we could almost be living in a normal world.
The Pandemic is still with us, but with a vaccine in view, there is hope for the future. I am confident that my travel business will come back, maybe not in 2021, but most certainly in 2022 and beyond. In the meantime, life will go on the same as it has been, at least for the time being. I’ll crank out some bills at the law office once a week. We’ll start on a new puzzle. When I’m bored, I’ll rearrange the furniture or clean a room. I’ll read, surf the internet, lurk on social media, and nap in my comfy recliner or in the backyard oasis. And when I want to be alone, I’ll take refuge in my upstairs office with a view.
Be sure to read my other thoughts on life. ~ Jan