It’s hard to believe we’ve been on lockdown in my county for forty-one days. We’ve officially been sequestered longer than Noah and the animals. I want my rainbow, dove, and olive branch now, if you please.

The days are slipping past, and they’re all more or less the same. Wake, TV news, articles, exercise, writing, the PBS News Hour, entertainment, sleep. And, for me, it isn’t likely to change much when lockdown is lifted on Friday. Given the predicted (and intuitively likely) increase in cases and my vulnerable flatmate/mother, it might be even more important to avoid going out.

It’s like Groundhog Day. I have to remind myself that I have committed impromptu plumbing and yard work to feel like I have gotten anything done at all. I’m drifting through this quarantine, just along for the ride.

I think there is an unspoken assumption that once the economy re-opens, things will be business as usual, just six feet apart. That’s not likely. Instead of longing for a day when we can safely go to restaurants again, we need to be proactive. We need to stop having quarantine happen to us, and start happening to quarantine instead.

I’m not sure how that happens, or what it even means, but I think a start might be to create reference points. The News Hour Weekend is not sufficiently different to the weekday News Hour to cue my brain that it is a weekend. Or perhaps some goal setting might help me and others to regain some sense of control.

It’s actually been nice to drift for a time. I haven’t had this few obligations and responsibilities for this long that I can remember. But it is time to do something to seize the oars, or put up the sail, or whatever nautical analogy you prefer.

Signing off. Take Care, and Take Care of one another.