Has it only been 10 days since I last wrote?

Time is strange that way.

So much has changed. My 14 year old and 4 year old both home indefinitely. My husband working from home, for at least the next 3 weeks. Spring classes online until the end of the semester. Commencement postponed.

Supported a virtual conference, held optional class with my students, got sick and had to take 2 days off, hoping it was just a sinus infection and not COVID-19, despite the precautions (I regularly come in contact with a lot of people and had had two people sick in my own home in the last few weeks. While I’ve been minding social distancing before it was mandated, I still worried), hoping that if it was, I’d be the rule and not the exception, trying to rest when it seems like I still have so much to do.

There have been moments beauty and light among the grief for the normal and the worry for the future:

• Friends texting me to get off Twitter so I can rest, and to check in on me when they know I’m sick
• My 14 year old being the older sibling I always knew he could be, but that he never has been, playing with my 4 year old, which is the biggest desire of her heart
• My classroom community of preservice teachers looking out for one another, and keeping in contact with each other and me through it all (we are still planning a virtual “great rice cook-off” and an in-person rice-themed gathering #Whenthisisover)
• DJ D-Nice’s #ClubQuarantine
• A hilarious Twitter thread with friends
• The kindness of grocery clerks and small-restaurant owners at curbside pick-up

I’m learning to take things moment by moment and day by day at this point, bringing the best of myself that I can to each moment and allowing that sometimes that best is not my best.  As someone who has a trauma history and who struggles with uncertainty, this is the grace that I hope we can each accord to ourselves and others.

And I’ll keep writing, for me, if not for others, because writing has always been a refuge, even when it’s hard.  I hope you’re the best you can be in this given moment and sending you love, however you are.