Coronacopia

Literally spending my days caring for kiddo and my nights planning for my household's resilience. Maybe I'm doing more than I have to, maybe it's not enough.

A few years ago, I told James I had a feeling. I told him to get our finances on a war footing, as much as possible. We discussed scenarios for saving and investing, and I bucked like a wild horse about putting money in the market.

I told him we should prepare for Depression-era levels of chaos. The last time I felt the winds changing so strongly was a couple of years ahead of 2008's crisis. I wish this intuition didn't make me sound mad as a March hare ahead of time, and I wish I knew how to channel it more usefully and helpfully.

It is a privilege to be able to prepare. I don't come from money, and my family has lost a lot in my lifetime. I've got a very real sense of what poverty is, and it drives me to batten down the hatches and brace for impact when I smell a storm coming. I'm using the resources at my disposal to meet the next moment, like a squirrel manically stashing acorns before winter takes hold.

I seek solace in my garden, but I'm planning for harvests now, too. My mind catalogs canned goods, files away the flow of groceries, does the math about calories and nutrients and what a toddler will eat. These are ancient instincts.

So, in this lockdown, I teach my child to read books and biology. I show him how to grow. I explain about the nice, green leaves that volunteer in our sandy soil, let him taste a victory garden, and have him help me nourish these little sprouts as I try to illuminate the essential contract of care between humanity and the natural world. Providing, at the most basic level.

Our hubris is deadly. We are animals above our station. I bring it all low again, into the dirt, as lofty financial instruments wobble eccentrically on high in the wake of microscopic malefactors.

So long as we breathe, we still have to eat.

Updates from Lockdown Town

Yesterday, it all finally hit me. I woke up feeling feverish and crappy, after the previous day feeling good.

One of the first things I saw was an update from one of my favorite people, who happens to be a doctor married to another doctor, and I've been worried about both of them and their family. I finally cried.

I've been worried about my own parents, my father-in-law, my husband's grandmother...

Dash's preschool teacher is married to an ER nurse, so I'm worried about that family, too.

Another friend is a nurse in the UK, who walked into a pub tonight to tell all those assembled there to go the fuck home and start listening to advice from the experts. Some walked out right then. The slow response in the UK worries me. How is it possible that Boris's response is perhaps worse than Trump's?

Today is better. I made sure to nap when I hit a wall. I'm having fun teaching Dash to read while we're all cooped up, and he's doing an amazing job at just 2.75 years old. I'm no preschool teacher, but I can feed a hungry mind.

The last 48 hours has been a clear reminder: There will be ups and downs. I'm gonna feel it all. Eventually, this godforsaken cough will really and truly be gone, and I won't have to wonder what's causing it. I'll be able to sip from my stockpile of Golden State cider.

I'm going to devote time to fixing up my shambolic hillside garden, which became particularly neglected through the rainy winter months of patriotic protest and getting the word out about President Warren. Maybe I'll even put in a victory garden to see us through these weird times with fresh produce.

Last night, the power went out, and James and I just lit some candles and saved our rations from destruction. We're a good apocalypse team. We'll make the most of this, together.

There are masks to make for medics, there's useful information to share, and I have people I can help from a distance. My kid, my dog, my amazing husband and myself are now a weird little apocalypse survival team, but we've been building the skills to survive this thing from the start.

Keep calm and carry on, even if you have to let your heart feel heavy for a bit between the good times.