PANDEMIC SILVER LININGS

Pandemic Silver Linings from our Friends

From Stephanie K.

In 2019, my dear friend in California, Linda, had taught me to use Zoom, so we could “see” each other when we talked.  When the pandemic hit, I was happy to share this information with friends at BFM, my book group, my study group, my yoga students, other yoga teachers.  I, the tech-averse and tech-challenged, suddenly felt I could be of use with technology!  Amazing.

A beautiful spring day, 2020.  I’m in my daughter’s neighborhood in Chevy Chase, helping out  with her 4-year-old (who suddenly has no pre-school to go to) so she and 

her husband can work.  The street scene is rather remarkable – parents out in beach chairs, watching as the kids play in the street, talking to one another, and passing the time as if on vacation.  The kids are playing freely and happily – riding bikes, climbing trees, chasing one another, and playing obscure games I cannot make sense of, but which they seem to enjoy immensely.   All this reminds me of my childhood in post-World War II Levittown, NY, where almost no one had TVs and kids spent as much time outside as possible, in all kinds of weather, playing with other kids.  Suddenly, this unwelcome pandemic means that, 65 years later, if kids want to play with each other, it has to be outside.  No tablets, no TV, no Legos or other indoor toys – just the basics for outdoor play.  And they are full of energy and exuberance and delight.   And the parents, too, seem to ease into this outdoor scene, as if all this time, they’ve just been yearning for a reason to sit outside on beach chairs and enjoy the day.

January and February 2021 – following a call from a student of mine from 50 years ago, in which I find out there is a move to have a “reunion” (obviously not in person), I find myself on numerous Zoom calls with the “kids” (now in their mid-60s) whom I taught at an alternative school in the early 70s.  The pandemic has actually meant that, spread out across the country, we are all suddenly reaching out to one another via Zoom for one-to-one chats, and organizing a Zoom group gathering for the whole group.  It is a delight to talk to the adult versions of these “kids” who had found themselves drawn to a very off-beat alternative school.  As teenagers, each of them had been unique and a bit quirky, bright, curious, and unconventional, from backgrounds ranging from privileged, sometimes with supportive parents, to ones of deprivation and parental neglect or abuse.  Seeing how each of these lives unfolded, hearing of the surprising twists and turns in their lives, the challenges they encountered, their current passions and strengths, is so deeply touching.  One of my former students, Mary, it turns out, is very ill with cancer at this time.  She comes to the Zoom reunion, clearly weak and vulnerable, and shares how much we teachers and her friends at the school meant to her.  Others share with her how much they had admired the strength and independence that enabled her to create a rich and successful life from a very difficult beginning.  Mary dies just 10 days later, and the group shares poems, remembrances, love letters.  It is heart-breaking, and heart-opening to be part of this sharing.  Had there not been Covid at the time, probably there would have been a move to make this reunion in person.  Mary certainly would not have come.  Nor would a number of the students who lived at great distance.  We all felt so very lucky to have had these rich reconnections with one another.

Another beautiful day, this time it is the summer of 2021.  We are with my son, daughter-in-law, and 15-month-old granddaughter at the new home they moved to in New Paltz NY, after feeling almost driven out of their small one-bedroom apartment in Brooklyn by the exigencies of Covid – both parents trying to work from home with a babysitter and a baby in the same small place.  At this new place, little Ellie is happily walking around the land, finding blackberry bushes from which to pick berries.  Her mouth and fingers are stained purple, and she is in heaven.  We are simply hanging out, enjoying the day, the land, the berries; she seems utterly at home exploring the brush to find the berry bushes.  I look around – apple orchards across the way, hills in the distance, the air sweet and fresh, and I am filled with delight and gratitude.  And I know that weirdly, if it weren’t for Covid, and the fact that my son and daughter-in-law can now work from home (have to work from home), they’d most likely still be in Brooklyn, and not on this sweet piece of land they have come to love so much.

When You Can’t Go Out, Go In

Gail Bingham Kohanek

The pandemic arrived shortly after it also was becoming harder to leave my husband home alone, given his increasing confusion with Alzheimer's disease.  I confess to too many dark hours and days, lost in wondering what to do, feeling more than a bit sorry for myself, and embarrassed knowing that I am very much one of the privileged ones!

It took a while, but the old photos in my computer eventually revealed themselves as a treasure box to open and play with once my complaints that I couldn’t go on the photo journeys I loved got loud enough for me to hear.  I learned how to create new landscapes of the imagination through which I could journey within, into the magical and the unknown, which the pandemic only reminds us is the truth anyway.  

"Stepping Forward" --Copyright Gail Bingham Kohanek, 2022

[For Gail's collection of four visual art pieces, please click here.]

Here's an entry a Friend has been playing with:

GREAT ESCAPE

We thought we knew Rock Creek Park pretty well after 38 years of living two blocks from it. But we knew mostly the blazed trails and lesser ones within walking distance. So, when cabin fever struck during the pandemic, we'd drive to woods virgin to us and explore its trails for an hour or so. Iffy trails were especially tempting. Picnic lunches slowed us down perfectly. Creek surges after heavy rains made children of us. It was a vast and marvelous park when approached this way. And a perfect jailbreak for our cramped spirits.

Here's another writer's pandemic encounter:

I was sitting in my backyard enjoying a warm Spring morning when a crow in a nearby tree began to caw. I was in a good mood, so I cawed back. We began a long call and response. If the crow cawed once, twice or three times, so would I. I think it was highly pleased that it had taught me to count. 

A little later it brought a piece of bread to soak in the water dish that we have out on our old picnic table for the birds and squirrels. I decided to put out some cat food for it on the table in a small plastic container. It flew down, inspected, and flew away with the entire container. II wondered if and when it would bring the container back for a refill.