The search results on Google for “social distancing and anxiety” show 105 Million articles, as of today. Maybe that’s not so many, considering the adult and young adult portions of the 7.5 billion members of humanity.
New routines are in order, while there are benefits in keeping up some old ones. If you’re working from home, you might want to:
Keep the same hours – or other regular hours
Get up and get dressed every day – or not
Surely you must arrange boundaries with other household members for your space and time
Take your same work breaks
Walk the dog as usual
Exercise in your yard and the fresh air – if you have one
Dancers have world class teachers and fellow company members teaching on line classes. This goes the same for musicians and visual artists and writers.
Home schooling children? That is an activity I once did during a short time, but am not involved with now. What a challenge.
This following poem was written a long time ago. It shows a youthful imagination, a strong connection with someone, and a youthful delusion of even a possibility of control over life. What is realistic in this poem, is the anxiety of the physical distance, the lack of immediate access to another.
“I’m the perfect case study for why self-isolation based on societal demand makes all the difference between thriving vs. surviving.” – Gillian Sisley on medium.com
Every evening this past week, I came home exhausted. Why do a few small, simple tasks in addition to one’s usual routine take so much energy?
Drain one completely?
My poetry site name, Pendraggin felt real, as dragging a pen was out of the question. Hook up the Budweiser team!
Hauling the brain into writing mode didn’t happen.
I wake up in the middle of the night and re-rehearse processing documents at work.
Get everything else done first.
Cover keyboard and mouse/mouse pad with plastic wrap.
Put a few pieces of scrap paper to cover the desk top
Place stapler and calculator on another sheet of scrap paper
Get bag into which I’ve tossed paper from the drop box
Wrap phone receiver in plastic wrap
Put on gloves
After all documents are opened, scanned, and filed, I must examine everything in the office to make sure I didn’t miss one. If one is missed, I must do this all over again. After:
Wiping down the stapler
Calculator
File boxes/drawers
Pen
Copier/scanner
Desk top, even though I used scrap papers as a cover
Removed plastic wrap from keyboard, mouse/pad, phone
It is slow and painstaking. Oops! I reached out and opened a file drawer without thinking. Must remember to wipe that handle down later.
Rituals are supposed to be regenerative, rewarding, and inspiring. How can I transform this new take on everything?
I shop for another and myself. Tired of the fumes of sanitizers, I put all his groceries on the front porch yesterday. I sprayed the items with bleach and water, sprayed the plastic lined shopping bags, and let it all dry out on the stoop.
Except for the Brussels Sprouts. How do you sanitize those? Enclosed in a plastic bag, they are put into the crisper.
I can’t do the same for myself – I don’t have a porch. Opening the kitchen window in rain snow or sleet must suffice.
This daily or twice daily grind performed in the fog of rubbing alcohol, bleach, or the cloying perfumed wipes at the office, makes my lungs ache. The exact situation we are warned to avoid in the face of this Covid 19.
One reason for all the plastic wrap. If I am very careful, I can use less aerosol spray.
Three nights this past week I did not exercise. I did not write.
This fatigue reminds me of the years of kicking myself into daily ballet class, when I didn’t know my thyroid gland was sliding down the charts. I was elated when I read a world class ballerina describe daily class as a “grind”.
I try not to think about how my last five decades could have been completely different in terms of productivity if endocrine testing for tired teens had been a thing in the 1960’s. I would have gladly taken the fixer drug all my life if my doctor had ever recommended it.
Instead I went down a lot of alternate medicine rabbit holes (some good) while it became increasingly difficult to drag a pen.
The last year has been better. Reading up on iodine, I decided to take twenty-five times the dose once recommended to me.
(No, I’m not recommending that for anyone else).
My metabolism became significantly more alive. Whew.
Now we’ve had the rug pulled out from under us, all of us, no matter our general health/wealth/achievements/awards/fame et al.
No magic carpet.
No magic pointe shoes molding to our feet for a perfect fit. (Finally a reference to Sedona, the purpose of this blog!)
Now, Thank God It’s Friday is a meaningful mantra. I laugh at the many and creative gifs, photos, and slogans appearing on Facebook about peeps dealing with the Stay Home orders.
One minute I envy them. I want to stay home and feel safe.
The next minute I’m glad I can work. It’s perfectly safe!
Except for the folks who believe it’s a hoax, a false flag Op. Who refuse to wear masks or gloves, who are surprised and sometimes angry that our office is locked. SMH.
There is no magic carpet to assuage the necessary social distancing.
Sedona’s loved ones are world away. Unlike these song lyrics, it is not a continent and it’s not O.K..
The article mentioned at the top is a good read! I could have said much of it myself…but I could not drag the pen.
“Those who are diagnosed with Asperger’s Syndrome are most commonly male, and they will often have an average or above average IQ.”
Advanced Techniques
We didn’t see it coming
How could we, it was yet unnamed
It was shock, and a mad scramble
When your brain hit the wall.
What brain is this that can’t connect
Can’t grasp the good, can’t grip onto
The web that wove itself for you.
That still spins itself for you.
And more, even without advanced techniques
Knew it would take some extra love
Time, effort, – ‘splainin’
To hang on to your cold shoulder.
But it’s your brain
Not ours, that knows the codes
That write realities, the backgrounds,
Which land us on the same page.
“Aspergers in adults might often be perceived by others as strange or as attention seeking, so those with a good support network of family and friends who can understand and deal with their behaviour tend to thrive far better than those who do not have such a network.”
It is heart breaking for friends and family to see an adult struggling and misapplying their brilliance.
Younger Aspies get bullied in school. Their talents and shyness draw abusers to them.
For the extroverts, a non supportive and dysfunctional role model can set them up for social disaster. They look for long distance love, perhaps as a forum thread moderator, nerd wrangling at its worst.
Powerless in the face of social norms, they may get hooked into a cult-like group where they can exert control and get away with verbal abuse that the introvert participants will endure, rather than be cast out.
Lord Of The Flies, isn’t it?
I am sure this is much worse than I can imagine, even though I have ventured into some of these threads.
It’s sad when there is no system of health care for all and no mental health care. It’s difficult anywhere except for the wealthy.
You get what you pay for.
But that is the world we’re in, where politicians juggle for profits from a pandemic, controlling resources and distribution within the “private/public historical partnership” that reminds me of the National Socialists and private enterprises such as I.G. Farben.
Billionaires that lied about the benefits of wearing masks, gloves, and social distancing, and still argue about it.
No one who is not a qualified member of the medical field should have any say in these issues. Maybe we will get some good from this pandemic on that front.
And maybe not.We’ll be glad if we survive it, for the discussions, won’t we?
I really had this post down, earlier today. I know I’ve forgotten some main point I was going to make.
But I started cleaning again. Intensively.
I talked to a person from my past who called out of the blue to see if I was O.K..
That was nice. But then he recommended a video about how the Covid 19 pandemic is a complete hoax and asked me to watch it.
Curious, I looked for it. I couldn’t find it and maybe the Tube has taken it down.
Or maybe I needed a secret handshake or some digital equivalent, to view it.
I could check ru.tube. I will, if I find myself with nothing to do. Right. 😎 Like that ever happens!
My hands have almost recovered from last week’s scrubbings. I will be careful, and wear gloves more often, instead of relying on hand washings.
Because I was able to re-order the 200 count box of gloves from an Amazon seller – at twice the price.
I stressed a lot about having to open the mail at work and scan checks, and then store them. The peeps who bring them to the premises to drop them into the drop box don’t wear gloves or masks and seem to begrudge us this inconvenience.
They could pay online. Ever have a person say to you – “oh no, I don’t want my personal info on line!”.
Kidding me! It’s been on line for twenty years dear person. I mentally see the long list of agencies that have your data on line, even if you didn’t put it there.
What else – oh yes, I ordered a UVC wand today, to sanitize small objects – like mail – at the office and at home.
So far, sanitizing mail has been drop it on the floor and don’t touch it for three days.
I am also irked because I couldn’t afford the bigger badder UVC sanitizer devices I saw on Amazon, so I ordered a steam cleaner for floors, carpets and smaller areas, meaning a hand held attachment.
Right now it’s that hand held attachment I want. For me, and the elderly I care for.
For front door knobs, the mail box, and for super disinfecting the kitchen and bathroom.
Amazon doesn’t consider it to be an “essential” product so I’m getting it in maybe a month. Seriously? Steam kills!
That’s why I’m not thrilled about decisions made by robots.
Dear leaders, don’t isolate us in the wrong ways.
17 year old Sedona has had the road closed between two worlds. With dangers in both.
And potentially isolated in both.
With best friends in both.
Whatever she can do, and decides to do, she walks the edge.
Do you, too, feel like you’re walking the edge, every time you go out – open the mail?
A Muse-ful Moment, prompted by the Georgia O’Keefe painting “In The Patio 8”.
I had never heard of using writing prompts before I joined Writers of Kern.
Life was my prompt, yet where is a prompt when you need one?
Can I simply focus and respond to a prompt?
I came out of one isolation, now I’m in another one.
For a while.
Stay Home!
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