In March of 2020 we began asking you to submit your experiences
and journal entries on the global chaos of 2020 and you responded.
Here you can read your submissions
(If you were directed here after submitting your own tale, enjoy the tales of your predecessors,
and check back in a couple of days to see your tale published here.)
How to celebrate our family Chirstmas Eve during Covid restricting group gatherings?
Our family, actually our daughter came up with the idea of having a Stillwater Christmas Scavenger Hunt. She created all the clues, made all the arrangements and did all the set up without any of our relatives being involved.
Starting mid March when all the Covid closings and fears started Volunteering dropped dramatically because many people had underlying conditions… so I decided to step up my volunteering efforts at both the Zephyr Theater and the Red Cross. At the theater I helped with anything, bar tending, setting up and tearing down chairs at concerts, taking tickets, helping at the Halloween events, etc.
It is mid-March 2020. Snow has melted but nothing has begun to green. Days are dreary flat lit grey and the wind is bitter. The world is being systematically shut down by a virus that unites us as it drives us apart.
I walk to work alone, one of a skeleton crew of ag hands kept on in the hopes that, come summer, there will still be people to feed.
In the beginning days of the Covid pandemic the word “HOPE “ became very meaningful to me. I began a mission to write/sketch something about HOPE everyday or so. I also hung a lighted sign that says HOPE on outside terrace patio hoping it would give inspiration and Hope to all who pass by. I have attached a collage of all my sketches and sayings non HOPE u have shared on Facebook so far.
I work system support for a Fortune 500 retailer. Everyday I drive to the corporate campus where I solve the problems of retail employees across America. I am one of a very small group of specialists that “puts out fires” for our 1,000 locations.
In addition to my normal work, I also take calls regarding emergencies those stores encounter.
An Inverse Relationship Hypothesis of an Intimate World
I submit the hypothesis that as my world shrinks, the intimacy with which I interact with it grows. I’ve never cared so gingerly for a potted plant until I could no longer walk along a garden. Nor understood the preciousness of fresh air, until I was breathing through a mask. With the shrinking of the geographic territory that had previously landscaped my days from roughly 2.5miles to 750sq ft, I have
I arrived in Andalucia, Spain on February 18. Life was as normal and wonderful as you can imagine for the next two weeks. Somewhere around the end of February there were discussions about what was going on in the world with the virus. There were some concerns as it was in Italy. But the news never alerted us to it being a crisis for us in Spain. By March 11 my husband joined me in Malaga, Spain.
Fluid Core
(a poem of hope and belief in humans, even in darkest of times)
Unprecedented and Unthinkable,
we have used these words before.
Shells of dreamers, thinkers, servants, artists,
mothers, sons, fathers, daughters,
reformist politician,
doctor finding a cure,
saint gone before anointment,
sinner returning home.
Covid-19 is a mirror through which we view ourselves in a new light. We middle class Baby Boomers can see we are spoiled and naive. Spoiled, because we have pretty much everything we could need or want, and doing without, being constrained and universally fearful emphasizes our prior comfort. Naive, because we who thought ourselves so smart and advanced now see we have no idea how to confront this emerging pandemic situation.
As we have been waiting in our homes, I’ve had to sit with myself and actually SEE myself. No busy schedules between work and life, no happy hours or late-night drunken parties to escape to, no errands or unnecessary shopping to distract me from seeing myself for where I am at with my soul. Sitting with myself, letting myself be present with my feelings, and looking at myself square in the eye has guided me to reunite myself in its fullest.
After the first full week of being constantly bombarded with online tales of the the horrors of the Covid 19 pandemic, I went into a full fledged panic attack at my house. As I was settling into the comfort of my own bed, the trembling began at my feet and continued to move upwards until it engulfed my entire torso. My mind raced and I could not stop the images or anxiety ridden thoughts circling inside of my brain.
This year I am an eighth grader, it’s my last year at a private school I go to.
I had been homeschooled for two years, but then to return to school for the last year of my middle school era. Everyone there looked and acted so different than I remembered, having changed whilst I was gone. My classmates were glad to have me back, and I was happy to see them again.
It all happened one evening before bedtime, after the entire day was spun around toilet paper (no pun intended) I as an artist was brainstorming ideas in my head on documenting historical artifacts through painting. After much news about empty shelves and people over buying toilet paper, I knew I wanted to do something related to that event.
It’s hard to be away from family and friends so one of the things we are doing to keep in touch with each other via the internet is a joint effort to write a mystery story. We contribute 1-2 sentence text messages that are left dangling for a person to creatively fill in and leave it for the next person. It starts out like this:
SCENE ONE. – ALVAREZ FAMILY ROOM
(9 y.o. COVINA ALVAREZ, youngest of three, sits in the “family room” of her parents’ house making a doll-sized ‘igloo’ out of rolls of toilet paper. The rolls of tissue appear to have been chewed or stabbed repeatedly and gotten wet at some point, rendering them useless for their intended purpose.
A handkerchief with blood spatter on it protrudes from the girl’s back pocket.
Pandemic Companions
My sons are grown, I am my child now.
In 60 years I have never been afraid of the world.
But today it warns me to stay inside
that anyone I may see within speaking distance is suspect.
Their speech may carry invisible drops of poison
while they are smiling, pleased to see me,
across the checkout counter, over coffee.
Oh my, when you do not feel old or infirm it is very difficult to realize you are on the vulnerable side of the equation. It is very humbling when your young friend calls and says he is going shopping, and asks what can he pick up and deliver to you. But it reinforces one’s belief in the goodness of humanity when it happens to you. This too shall pass, and I hope I am one of the survivors to see what comes next.