Quarantine Diary #57 5/9/2020 Mother's Day & The Turtle

Coming right up, Pandemical Mother’s Day! If you are a mother you probably have one of two imperfect tomorrows in front of you.

If you are a mom with kids in your house, you will eat what they cook, or call in take-out, or cook the meal to celebrate yourself. If that 3rd option happens I’m suggesting cereal, candy bars, popcorn and Old Fashioneds. But you do you.

If your kids are grown and out of the house, well, there’s a conundrum. Cozy phone calls? Or Happy Social Distancing with the ones you love best. Air hugs just don’t cut it, do they? Maybe you will hug them anyway, I won’t tell.

I read this smart article earlier today which certainly suggests that if you can manage it – stay outside. Read here.  The weather in the Midwest tomorrow is supposed to be rain interspersed with snow. Fun.

Tomorrow you either will or won’t be with your mother, your children, and grandchildren. Mother’s Day is an easy day to start with the best of intentions and attitude and then whammo-bammo, one kid sticks his finger in the nose of the other (they are 40 and 42) and next thing you know … complicated feelings.

So maybe today think of things you would like to happen that YOU can be in charge of. A walk, with snowshoes? Cooking something you love to eat. Listening to your favorite music. Watching a movie. (We watched “Becoming.” It was like breathing clean air to remember how many good people are in our country.) If you have the money to do so, order something you’ve been coveting a little.

Never wait for someone else to make you happy on Mother’s Day during a pandemic.

In case you need or want a laugh: Best Tweets by Women this week.   

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Things I saw on Twitter yesterday and this morning:

 Tweet 1: Trump's grandfather died in the 1918 flu pandemic and the subsequent life insurance policy that paid out created the Trump fortune. This is the most mind-boggling thing I've learned during Covid 19.

Tweet 2: In the past DAY, the 8 richest men increased their wealth by $6.2B:
Mark Zuckerberg: $1.08B, Larry Page: $956M, Bill Gates: $931M, Sergey Brin: $919M
Jeff Bezos: $907M, Larry Ellison: $634M, Warren Buffett: $429M, Steve Ballmer: $353M
Combined wealth: $653.8B

While 33M+ lost jobs

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A friend asked me (via email, sigh) how I’m doing. I said I feel as if in the last few days I and America have finished Part One of the pandemic. We have witnessed thousands of people dying, bodies stacked in refrigerator trucks, Trump stumbling through his briefings and Cuomo gripping our attention in his. We know who Fauci is as well as the lady with the scarf. We know how to put on our masks. I don’t think much anymore about “going out” since being here seems so normal. Getting in the car makes me feel slightly giddy.

I check the Dow Jones a lot less than I used to; it seems dead and stupid and has so little to offer people who lost their jobs. Some businesses are re-opening but who is patronizing restaurants and stores now? According to surveys, about 70% of us are staying hunkered down until something makes more sense than this.

We are in Part Two where 46% of Americans are affected by lowered income. But that means 54% of us have about the same. Len and I and many of you are in the 54% - and it doesn’t feel a bit stable or kind.

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I walked on the boardwalk through the slough behind Target this morning, my mind tumbling and whizzing. I leaned against the railing a few minutes to watch mud.  And wouldn’t you know, a piece of that muck began to move! It was a big ole’ turtle! 

It was so marvelous to watch that old lady (I decided she was she) pushing around, biting at weedy things, just being her perfect self. I smiled until I realized I was smiling and that I was excited. I wasn't trying to be delighted, that just happened on its own. I thought about the generations behind me who taught their kids to look for turtles for fun, science, and dinner.  All of those people and their kids crowded up behind me with their curiosity and respect, we all wanted to see the big turtle at the edge of a swampy city pond.   

The earliest known turtles date from the Middle Jurassic, making them ancient. Turtles are thought to have exceptional night vision due to the unusually large number of rod cells in their retinas; turtles have color vision with sensitivities ranging from the near ultraviolet (UVA) to red.

The story going on around us is so much older, wilder, and bigger than us.