Covid Cocoon

“Just when the caterpillar thought life was over, it became a butterfly.”

Hello, friend. Thank you for joining me here.

Moving during a global pandemic was a unique experience. The stress of people coming inside our home at all (let alone touching everything), and the fact that I could not invite anyone over to help pack nor watch my child while I packed made for a conflicted existence; the long, endless preparation was completely isolating, but the actual move felt exposed and uncomfortably vulnerable. I think moving always feels that way to an extent because your things leave your control while they are in limbo between your old and new life, but it was especially uncomfortable under the circumstances. Control, and the lack of it, has been in sharp focus for me since Covid-19 hit the NYC area in early March, and it was not fun to willingly hand it over to strangers during our move.

A little rewind: David and I had decided to leave the East Coast before the virus. At the end of February, David had just finished playing Lucifer in an Off-Broadway run of a stage adaptation of Milton’s Paradise Lost. Our plan was for him to head out to Minnesota and begin needed renovations on our old farmhouse with local contractors ASAP,  getting things started before we then began rehearsals for a play together at The Shakespeare Theatre of New Jersey in late April. Just as he was preparing to leave, Covid arrived. It became clear over a matter of days that he wasn’t going anywhere for a while.

Fast forward through nearly 2 months of sheltering in place, the eventual postponement of our upcoming job, and, finally, a stabilization in the COVID numbers in our area. At the very end of April, we made the decision for David to head north and try to get things started by himself. I would hold down the fort in New Jersey and begin the packing process, while caring for our daughter. In researching the virus cases in the states David would have to drive through, we agreed that neither of us was comfortable with him staying in a hotel. So, he drove straight through for 18 hours, with just a few hours rest in the car when he was desperate for sleep. We thought he would stay for a month. In the end, he did not come back until July, ten weeks later.

So. I packed. I parented. Thank goodness, Instacart grocery orders finally became available again in my area about 3 weeks after he left (there had been literally no timeslots since all of the madness began). We had stockpiled food carefully in preparation for his leaving, because there was no way I could take my 5 year old into a store— it was simply not safe. Neighbors helped by offering to grab things for us here and there during their own shopping. Besides obvious concerns over health, food was my biggest source of stress throughout the early spring, and I was so relieved when the circumstances shifted!!

Listen, I know how privileged we are to have the money to buy food in the first place. I am grateful for that on a daily basis. During this pandemic, I had a tiny window into what it feels like to be afraid you might not be able to feed your child. There were a lot shortages and some strict purchase limits in our area for many months (some still in place now, in August), and it gave me the barest understanding of what it must be like for mamas who experience food scarcity. No mother should fear being unable to get food for her child— it is unacceptable in a country with such abundance.

While my daughter and I were safe and did have food, we were also alone together. I think we’ve all learned that kids are not meant to be cooped up at home 24/7! And parents are definitely not built to parent around the clock for months on end, stuck inside without any help— let alone pack up an entire house at the same time. But there was no choice, so I just kept going.

When the pandemic began, for me it was a bit like 9/11. I over-consumed news, I withdrew from friends and family, and honestly, I started having regular panic attacks. About two weeks in, I realized that I had to change what I was doing or I was not going to be able to function. I went cold turkey off of all news, Facebook and Twitter. I did not look at any of them for a solid two months, some longer. I will say, I have taken social media breaks before, but this one seems to have permanently altered my relationship with it, and for the good. I am grateful to feel less dependent on that addictive hit they used to give, and better able to focus on the life tasks at hand. I asked trusted friends and family specific questions about Covid developments if I had them, but otherwise I lived in a bit of a bubble in order to function as a human and parent my child. I know I was exceedingly lucky to be able to do that, and I feel both guilty and grateful that I could.

**A note on my privilege. Not only do I have enough money for food and a roof over our heads, but I am a cis white woman whose job is not essential to making this country run. Because of my line of work, I am unemployed for the foreseeable future, but I am also safe. I have the option to stay home. And, when I do leave that home, I walk through this broken world with almost everything stacked in my favor, being a woman the one exception. I know damn well that I am lucky beyond measure. I feel conflicted about publicly sharing any struggle or complaint without saying loudly and clearly that I know these are high-class problems. I get that to the bone. I share here only to try to make sense of my own journey, with a full understanding that even when my journey feels hard for me, it—by the very color of my skin, the choice of my sexual partner, my gender identity and all the luxuries given freely to me because of those things—will always be a privileged path. My sharing my experience will always come with that caveat. Always.

And, so...back to my bubble...

Packing gave me a purpose and kept me too busy to really think about anything but what needed doing. In order to create the daily structure that made packing possible, I did a handful of things every day. First, I woke up early, usually around 5:30 AM. In the pre-child hours, I created a morning practice that helped me prepare for each day. It included writing a gratitude list, dream/goal reminders, and a daily plan of attack— with both weekly and monthly schedules to help keep me on track (shout out to Rachel Hollis for her awesome journals and podcast guidance on this topic). I made long lists of what must be packed in each room, with time estimates for accomplishing each. I worked backwards from our move date, choosing areas to be packed to each day. It was like a massive Inventory Forest, with To-Do Trees for each day. When I first made the full list, I was so overwhelmed by it that I think I was paralyzed for a day or two. But I just kept saying to myself to start with one thing. One leaf, one twig, and on and on...

The second thing I did daily was walk for 45 minutes. Before David left, I did this alone. This started out of desperation, when I was in full blown COVID panic. I had to escape, shift, move—do something to push away the fear. So, I pushed the road with each step, and it helped. Once Finley and I were alone, I kept this up by pushing her in her stroller as I traced my now sacred route through our neighborhood. She got to eat snacks while she watched cartoons on her travel tablet with hot pink headphones, and I listened to audiobooks. Recorded books became another escape, a way to keep my mind away from the darkness of the world. I started listening on my walks, but my listening sessions extended to doing the dishes, the laundry, cleaning, and of course, packing. Since the virus began, I have completed 8 books, totaling more than 300 hours! Parenting has kept me from reading like I used to, and I am grateful for this bridge back to books.

Another thing that helped me was having the same thing for lunch every day. Might sound silly, but it took the guesswork out of those Instacart orders and made me feel healthier. Borrowed from Reece Witherspoon’s Instagram (the one social media platform I still dipped into), I blended one apple, one pear, one banana, half an avocado, half a lemon, one head of Romain lettuce, 2 cups of spinach, five frozen strawberries, 1 tablespoon of nut butter,  and coconut water. I had half the first day, and saved the second half for the next day. This cut down on meal prep time, and as a bonus, I could drink it while I packed! I also bought a huge water bottle on Amazon and made myself drink the whole thing each day, approximately half my body weight in ounces (another Rachel Hollis tip). The only downside to this one was having to pee all day long, but it’s not like I was going far from home. Ha!

Last in the daily habit department was a project that I did with my girl. I had once seen a teacher do this on Pinterest, and I always wanted to copy the idea. Somehow, quarantine seemed like the right time. I purchased a white cotton dress from Amazon and some fabric markers. I asked my daughter to draw something on the dress every day. Together we made a list of things that might be fun to draw, and we checked one off nearly every day. There were plenty of days she really didn’t want to do it, but a habit is a habit! Glad we stuck with it and now have a fun and positive record of such a weird time.

I’m not sure why I needed to write all of this down. I guess I wanted a record of what got me through. A look backwards before I share our current farmhouse renovation tales. All of our quarantine stories are different, and I wanted some documentation of mine. There were many bad moments in those long months. I clung to my self-imposed routine because when I didn’t, I sometimes made really unhealthy choices. I can’t tell you the number of times that my gratitude journal entry began with, “I am grateful that today is a fresh start.” But I want to remember what did work and how I did get through. The good choices. I want to remember the parts I’m proud of, the parts that got me here—to this new life. And, I guess, paying respect to them and honoring them feels right. I am kind of proud of what I accomplished, which isn’t the most comfortable feeling for me. (Scandinavian, you know.) Quarantine was a cocoon time. My habits wove my chrysalis. You know, caterpillars don’t sprout wings in there. They actually turn to mush and lose all form. It is an extreme limbo of nothingness. No caterpillar knows it’s about to fly. They know only that everything is lost. When it feels like my life is in free-fall, and nothing is as it was, I always think about butterflies. The loss is necessary. The loss gives the wings. But remembering the choice to build the walls around the chaos and to allow the dissolving of everything is helpful to me. You can’t just skip to the sky. It’s good to send love to the loss and to the work of restructuring. My Covid cocoon: uncomfortable, sad, scary, careful, quiet, determined, focused, lonesome, weak, strong, and the cradle of new life. I celebrate it all.