Our New Normal: A Guest Blog by Melinda Little

It was a glorious day with lots of blue sky and dry, warm temperatures. Russell and I were at the park walking the dogs together, as we do often these days. There were more people at the park than we have seen in a while, but it was still easy to maintain plenty of social distance. It felt so normal: I think we are all ready for some normal.

I Am not a Lover of Routine…

Oddly, I am not someone who loves to have routines. My daily work schedule in almost every job I have ever had has never followed a script. Yes, there routine tasks I must do for work, but I often come to work planning to do one thing, only to have all my plans upended — and I thrive on that. My mom used to say that I was like this even before I could talk. She said she could see the wheels in my head spinning: I was always planning something new, rarely entertained with one toy for long.

Russell often gets frustrated with me because I like to change things up so often. I don’t like to watch the same television shows; I don’t like to reread a book just because I loved it; and I certainly don’t have a rotation of meals I cook every week. I don’t really like to have a schedule on the weekend at all, which drives Russell nuts. I might say in the morning, “Let’s go for dinner at El Tiempo tonight,” but by 4 o’clock have something completely different in mind!

I can’t say this will change after our quarantine ends, but I will acknowledge I have appreciated and needed the routines we have had during this time – some new and some old – because they have made me feel like things are almost normal and have helped me keep connections to family and friends.

But some Routines are Lifelines.

These include the simple things Russell and I already did every day: drink coffee together in the morning before I left for work or eat dinner together at the table while sharing stories from our days. These have always been routines I treasured, but now I hang on to them for dear life.

I have a long-standing text conversation that I have had with four other women. These four friends mean the world to me. We talk about all manner of things from work to families to just sharing hilarious TikTok videos. They are often the first people I communicate with each morning when I wake and the last I talk to before I go to sleep. It is a lifeline for me during quarantine.

I have also enjoyed some new routines like playing bridge online with my bridge group – yes, the card game our parents and grandparents played. I have played with this group of women for over ten years on Sundays, but now we play using an app called Trickster while meeting virtually on Zoom and sharing cocktails just like before. We don’t have to wait until Sunday anymore – sometimes it just happens at the last minute, but it has been a Godsend to me.

I miss the routine of going to my office and I miss my work family. We all miss each other. My boss now hosts a daily virtual check in with all of us – this team of people that I would be friends with even if I didn’t work with them. It has become one of the highlights of my day. I look forward to seeing their faces and hearing what they have been up to. Some days we even dress up to match our virtual backgrounds!

Vivi: the Highlight of the Week

But, the highlight of this week and the part that felt most normal was getting to spend several hours with our granddaughter. It was a joy to see our daughter, Katie, and our son in law, Patrick, when we picked up our sweet Vivienne. Time flew by as we played some games where Vivi made up all the rules. I could not tell you exactly what we were playing, but I laughed a lot. We picked up her favorite, Shake Shack, and had a picnic in the park. Russell pulled her in our wagon after lunch as she yelled for him to go faster and faster and faster! It was a super normal day that didn’t feel very much like quarantine. We made memories and, for a moment, came out from under the dark shadow that has been over us for the last several weeks.

I have realized that these little moments that make us feel normal can have that effect. Life is funny like that. People need connection. Even when things seem bleak our connections lift some of that weight away.

What are the things you are doing to find your normal and to find your joy? Please share – maybe we can find some fun things to do.

Day ??? of the COVID-19 Quarantine — A Guest Blog by Melinda Little

Houston, Texas, April 19, 2020

Greetings from the inside, where I remain constantly — well, constantly except for essential runs to Costco and Trader Joes and my daily walk (weather permitting). I am pleased to report that we are no longer running out of toilet paper or paper towels thanks to last Thursday’s Costco run.

Thursday was the first time I have been in a car in three weeks. I have not filled my car with gas in a month and, even after my trip to Costco, my tank is almost full.

I’m not new to working from home

I worked from home for over ten years so it doesn’t feel that strange to me to be working from home again. For much of that time I was on the road, but there were also weeks where I did not travel, having meetings on conference calls instead. It was a respite for my road-weary traveler self. The first few weeks of quarantine sort of felt like that.

I left my travel job almost five years ago. Technology for virtual meetings has gotten a lot better in that time. Since the quarantine I have learned to do things a little differently and flexed some “virtual” muscles. Russell and I signed up for a Zoom account for personal use to chat virtually with our family and friends. After a couple of tries my bridge group discovered a good bridge app so that we could play bridge on iPads while Zooming on our laptops. I have even participated in a couple of Zoom happy hours. And, I have become well-versed in Microsoft Teams -– the software I use for work. Sharing my screen and using the chat function is fun — and seeing the crazy backgrounds people use during meetings is hilarious!

I am watching TV shows I probably would not have watched in a non-quarantined world. I binged Tiger King along with the rest of the country; I caught up on TV series I had put off before, too tired to get involved after commuting home, cooking dinner and doing my evening chores.

But I am getting restless

But, like everyone else I know, I am starting to get restless. I am ready for this to end, even though I don’t see an end in sight. On social media people have begun to shift from funny memes and parody COVID songs to posts about protests over the stay-at-home orders and to sad and disgruntled posts about missing graduations and proms. This virus has taken much from us. It’s not simply that we are stuck at home. Some of us have lost jobs, some of us have endless virtual conference calls, some are trying to cope with homeschooling children while working full time on virtual conference calls: all of us are confused and uncertain of when this will end. We miss friends, family, grandchildren, restaurants, people, hugging and socializing. We feel powerless. It is scary.

Humor has been a great way to help us to cope. The number of texts I get regularly from friends with a funny meme or video from Instagram, TikTok or Facebook has increased exponentially, because the free time we used to use to do the things we liked doing is now spent on digital media platforms. Heck, I barely even knew what TikTok was before all this started.

The importance of grace

On Facebook, I follow Jen Hatmaker, author, inspirational speaker, mother of five and fellow Texan. She is hilarious and vulnerable all at once. She goes live on Facebook often. About week ago after a tough day with her teenage children she live-streamed herself hiding fully clothed in her dry bath tub using a trash can as a table to hold her giant glass of wine! Last Friday afternoon she went live, sharing through tears how tough it had been for her and her teenagers on that particular day. She went on to discuss how no one was prepared for this very unexpected COVID-19 situation and consequently it was almost impossible to be our very best selves right now. She talked about the importance of grace and urged her audience to forgive more quickly — even when we don’t feel like it — and to say “I am sorry” — even when we are not yet ready to do so.

Her post moved me. Every day, I am trying to live in the moment, but it’s hard to do that all the time. Besides offering grace to my family and friends, I am also trying to offer it to myself –- something I have been working on for years.

I will end my blog today with a reminder to show those you love some extra grace during this time and with a reflection a good friend shared on Facebook this week.

Stay safe and stay healthy!

We Are Not In the Same Boat…

I heard that we are all in the same boat, but it’s not like that. We are in the same storm, but not in the same boat. Your ship could be shipwrecked and mine might not be. Or vice versa.

For some, quarantine is optimal. A moment of reflection, of re-connection, easy in flip flops, with a cocktail or coffee. For others, this is a desperate financial and family crisis.

Some who live alone are facing endless loneliness. For others it is a time of peace, rest & time with their mother, father, sons & daughters.

With the $600 weekly increase in unemployment some are bringing in more money to their households than they were when working. Others are working longer hours for less money due to pay cuts or loss in sales.

Some families of 4 just received $3400 from the stimulus while other families of 4 saw $0.

Some were concerned about getting a certain candy for Easter while others were concerned whether there would be enough bread, milk and eggs for the weekend.

Some want to go back to work because they don’t qualify for unemployment and are running out of money. Others want to kill those who break the quarantine.

Some are home spending 2-3 hours/day helping their children with online schooling while others are spending 2-3 hours/day educating their children on top of a 10-12 hour workday.

Some have experienced near-death from the virus, some have lost someone to it and some are not sure if their loved ones are going to make it. Others don’t believe this is a big deal.

Some have faith in God and expect miracles during this 2020. Others say the worst is yet to come.

So, friends, we are not in the same boat. We are going through a time when our perceptions and needs are completely different.

Each of us will emerge, in our own ways, from this storm. It is very important to see beyond what is seen at first glance. Not just looking, actually seeing.

We are all on different ships during this storm experiencing very different journeys.

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Remember we all have our own stories: work on helping build people up; don’t judge them for how they handle things.

Easter, Corona-Style: A Guest Blog by Melinda Little

As I sit here in my finest Easter pajamas watching church on Youtube, I am reminiscing about Easters past. I am not exactly upset that I am able to enjoy the solitude of a Sunday morning at home with my husband and dogs.

The Origin of an Easter Vow

There was a time many years ago when I was so excited about Easter that I completely overcommitted myself and my family. I was a mid-twenties stay-at-home mom with two children under four. I was very active at a wonderful neighborhood Lutheran church. For some reason I needed to be at the sunrise service and at the later service. I cannot for the life of me remember why, but I had volunteered to do something. I remember getting up early and attending the sunrise service alone, then coming home, watching my children hunt for the eggs that the Easter bunny had left in the back yard, then hurrying to get them ready before Russell and I piled them into the car to leave for the church service. Then we participated in several activities at church before we went to meet my family for a late brunch at a local restaurant.

That Easter day was a hurried, exhausting disaster with tired, hungry children at church and in a restaurant — and with a few angry words passed between my husband and me as we worked to keep children calm and extended family pleased. What I remember most was the vow I made NEVER to cram Easter Sunday full of activities again. I can’t say I kept that promise, because I get excited about holidays and try to pack in as much fun as I can, but I did get better about setting boundaries for my family.

Just a Month ago…

Fast forward to now. Easter is hit or miss as a family holiday for us — we have adult children with adult lives, but we do try to get together when we can. Just one month ago my daughter and I were trying to get reservations at Brennan’s, a local favorite for brunch, especially on Easter. My office often hosts events there so I was trying to leverage some of my relationships to get a reservation, but they were so overbooked that we never got confirmation that we had a table. Within days came the COVID-19 pandemic and stay-at-home orders and, if a restaurant was open at all, it was take-out orders only. My plans of a fancy brunch with a human dressed as the Easter bunny vanished.

So, while I am sad to not be together with everyone, there is a part of me that is perfectly fine celebrating Easter in my pajamas from the comfort of my chair with a hot cup of coffee in hand. Don’t get me wrong; despite the story I shared above, we have had many wonderful Easter celebrations with our family, from brunch at fine restaurants to casual times with everyone at our home with ham and a simple potato salad. Last year we were not all together, but we had one last Easter with my son’s fiancée Rebecca and her daughter, Eva, before we lost Rebecca tragically in car accident shortly afterward. It was a magical day and a memory I will always cherish.

This year there is something solemn and comforting about being home during this time. It feels right. I was worried it would not feel like Easter because the days seem to be running into each other. I was worried I would be sad that we could not be together. I was wrong, though. It does feel like Easter. I am grateful today for that feeling. Despite hot, muggy weather, despite the COVID threat, despite the craziness in our world, despite the fact that I have not seen nor kissed nor hugged my children and granddaughter in a month, I am finding joy in the day. I worshiped with my church family even though we in the congregation were in many different places. Our family is having a Zoom date today where we will laugh and talk over each other, which will feel kind of normal. My sweet brother even brought me a custard pie yesterday. I am taking comfort in my belief that He is Risen.

Happy Easter to all!

Lo I am with you always, even unto the end of an age.”

Matthew 28:20

Easter and the Petty Concerns of the Quarantined

“So how many weeks have we been locked up?” Melinda asked me. “Three?”

I wasn’t sure. I can’t tell one day from the next. There’s no feel to the day: Monday feels the same as Thursday.

More Exercise. More Weight. More Pie.

I’m exercising more, much more, than before. The trouble is that I’m gaining more weight, too. I haven’t been this heavy in thirteen years, and I can’t blame that on the virus, though I might blame the apple pie I’m having for breakfast.

Some of my interests seem a little petty now: I took an expedition to Costco yesterday for ground coffee wearing my little gloves and mask. My true interest was to see how the other customers were acting. Frantic? Calm? Normal? The store wasn’t much more crowded than usual, which surprised me. People seem serious, but not hurricane-serious anymore.

Failures of Philosopy

One lady tried to run over me with her cart and didn’t bother to apologize. That actually amused me: it gave me an opportunity to thank her sarcastically. (I couldn’t help it). All that work I’ve put into Stoic philosophy failed me at that moment. (Another customer following her laughed at my joke, though).

The real point of telling this story is what, pursuant to my wife’s instructions, I managed to find. “Always check for toilet paper and paper towels when you go to a store,” she regularly reminds me. And so, my true and greatest accomplishment of the day: I found paper towels. When I brought those in the door, I found that I had made my wife happier than I have been able do at any other time in the last two months. (I need to do better, I think).

I took the dogs to the park, crossing in the middle of what is usually a very busy downtown street; but today it is deserted. The only other traffic: two young men on electric skate boards rolling down the middle of the road. It can be nice to live in a peaceful, lonely area out in the country, but we don’t want that to describe the downtown of the fourth largest city in the U.S.

Cocktails to End a Day

And: my fat, petty day of exercising and dog-walking in quarantine ended with a cocktail party with two friends on Zoom. And, tonight we have a wine tasting online.

If you like one of my blogs, I ask that you share it. Please spend the weekend safely and healthily.

Pandemic! Guest Blog by Melinda Little

Pandemic. It’s a word I knew, of course. I had heard of the Spanish Flu before. In recent years I learned the most about it from watching Downton Abbey. We might have learned about it in school, too, in history class, but it was high school and my mind was preoccupied with writing and passing notes to friends about what we’d get up to after school.

I am old enough to remember my parents talking about the polio epidemic. I can remember as a really young child playing with a girl at the home of a babysitter. The girl had heard about how they used iron lungs for polio victims. She wanted us to “play pretend”: she’d be the doctor and I’d be the girl in the iron lung. (Odd that I remember this). I remember telling my mom I was afraid I’d get polio and have to be put in an iron lung. My mom said I didn’t have to worry because the sugar cubes my doctor gave me at my check-ups protected me from polio. I certainly loved the sugar cube vaccine more than the DPT shot!

Pandemic: Fifty Years Later

Now, 50 years later, here we are in the middle of a pandemic. It is crazy to think that our society, which can do anything on a smart phone from ordering food to hosting virtual happy hours for 20 friends, could be cut down at the knees by a pandemic. Didn’t this happen only in the olden days?

I have friends out on the frontlines of the battle against this virus doing very important work for our city and our region. They are super-heroes. They are not medical personnel, but they are deeply involved in the on-going work for our area. I am proud of them and of the work they do. I am proud of their fearlessness and their bravery, while I stay home hiding from the virus and trying to score toilet paper that I could have easily acquired online just a month ago. Now I have to wait weeks for an order or risk crowded grocery stores and infection while scouring empty shelves.

This is not who I am. I am usually one of the first people at a shelter after a hurricane. I always raise my hand to help. Being able to pitch in to help strangers and friends in the midst of a crisis helps me feel some level of control over whatever is going on. I can’t this time. I am in high-risk group because of a medication I take for an autoimmune disease. I don’t have an essential job that requires me to be out in public. The truth is, the world doesn’t need me out there. So I stay home.

Here’s the thing, though. Staying home is also a super-hero thing to do. We have data that shows that staying at home can flatten the curve: we can spread out the infection rate of this virus; that will help our hospitals manage the number of cases they must handle at any one time; that will ensure that we can treat the sick and help our doctors and nurses manage their workloads — and their own health.

Pandemic: The Staying-At-Home Thing

But, it is hard, this staying at home thing. It doesn’t feel super-hero-ish either. How much Netflix can one watch? (Apparently, a lot). But, while binging Schitt’s Creek and Tiger King, I continue to pray for our elected leaders — for all of them, even the ones I don’t like, and for the doctors, nurses, first responders, Amazon employees, and all the wonderful people out there who continue to keep grocery store shelves stocked, our internet working and for all who help provide the other things we need to keep the basics going until we can all meet together again. I pray for all the people that have lost jobs or will lose jobs and businesses. I pray for the sick and their families. I pray for the people who need medical care and cannot get it because COVID-19 has monopolized health care. Most importantly, I pray that this ends soon.

I encourage you to be a superhero too! Stay home and stay healthy.

A Sense of Humor Helps…a Bit

My wife was walking by herself in the park across the street from our place yesterday, when a woman from the building said hello. While keeping her distance, of course, the woman said that she’d hoped to see Melinda out and about before she left. She said that she’d lost her job of many years, and that she was moving back to Kentucky.

There’s so much damage right now. Losing our jobs. Friends losing theirs. Our kids losing theirs. That’s before we even get to the sickness and the fear we all face.

How are you coping?

We’re sad for our losses. By ‘our’, I mean more than mine or my family’s. I mean all of us. The country. The world. I follow China closely. We spent several weeks there a couple of years ago, and I had studied it intensely before we went. In January, I came across a reference to a Black Swan Event. I’d never heard about that before, and I had to look it up.

A Black Swan is an unpredictable event that is beyond what is normally expected of a situation and has potentially severe consequences. Black Swan Events are characterized by their extreme rarity, their severe impact, and the widespread insistence they were obvious in hindsight.”

Investopedia.

That pretty much sums up what we’re in the middle of right now. After the initial ridiculousness of people panicking with their hoarding of water and toilet paper, I think we’re doing pretty well. (Were they afraid of the water being cut off? The end of toilet paper manufacturing? I don’t know what that was all about). But for the most part, I see people that pass me maintaining six feet of distance and many wearing gloves. Facemasks are not uncommon, and I expect we’ll all be wearing them soon. Of course, when Melinda and I biked Buffalo Bayou at Tinsley Park last weekend the under-thirty-athletic types were crowded in and way too close; we immediately left the park. Which of us hasn’t seen that behavior?

It’s more challenging to keep a sense of humor at times like these — but this is when we should. I look around and see that other people are living much more like I always have. For decades I’ve been somewhat of a germaphobe — much to the amusement of my family and friends. I won’t put a clean fork on a table: who knows whether the table is really clean? I thought the TV series Monk was a documentary. I never recovered from the episode about hotel rooms. (That’s actually true, not a joke). People punching elevator buttons with their elbows — saw that this morning. Now people in line at the cashier don’t crowd up behind you; I always hated that invasion of my space.

It’s hard to find ways to help people when you’re terrified that if you get sick, you will infect your family. People keep their heads down at the park when they’re walking for exercise. I try to greet them with a smile if I catch their eye. A smile is a help. A happy word or a word of support. Have you had those opportunities? I encourage you to look for them, and you will find them.

Oh, and Her Dog is still here. She’s wearing a pink bandana now. How funny is that when I take her for a walk?