Simple Pleasures During Covid-19

I won’t tell you this isn’t a fraught time for me, what with Election Day just 48 hours away, and the prospect of not knowing who will be inaugurated for perhaps weeks or months. Plus, I feel socially isolated, with most of my casual conversations taking place on the dock of my rowing club with masked friends – even though “socializing” is appropriately discouraged. I’ve known these friends for decades, and it’s reassuring to know that they feel just as isolated, and concerned about exposure to Covid-19.

Imagining life pre-retirement helps me feel happy, because it evokes memories of things I no longer need to do. Except for the days I row – and with yesterday’s snow fall, those days feel numbered – I don’t have to sprint out of bed at an ungodly hour. I can sit up in bed, and catch up on email. More important, I can linger over Facebook, seeing the latest exploits of my former colleagues, friends, and family members. 

Before anybody makes snide comments about Facebook, it’s a lifeline to the outside world. Ask me of its redeeming qualities, and I will tell you about someone near and dear to me who lost a job because of Covid-19, and then got another job through a wonderful friend who found out what had happened via Facebook. 

Facebook is also where I learn about friends who have published new books, won various awards or been cited on important industry lists, and catch up on major events in the lives of grandchildren, my own and those of close friends. Without that pic posted on Facebook, how else would I know that my nine-year-old grandson has perfected his Spiderman routine? Or that my six-year-old granddaughter has learned to jump rope? Or that the grandson of a dear friend is trying to crawl?

Typically, from 9 a.m. on is my time to linger over my online subscription to The New York Times. Lest I give you the impression I’m more on top of current events than you, I have a confession to make. Frankly I don’t have to worry about getting to work, and being caught by surprise about some news event affecting my industry.

So, I start with The New York Times Spelling Bee, a game requiring participants to make as many words as humanly possible, each word being at least four letters long and using whichever letter is at the center of the “wheel.” It’s not permissible to stop until I get a score worthy of the “Genius” designation. That means having the freedom to take breaks by doing the Mini Crossword and reading my favorite NYT columnists, Frank Bruni and Maureen Dowd. If I do need to leave the house I come back to Spelling Bee throughout the day until dinner time, when my husband and I compare our word lists. Because he usually gets the “Queen Bee” designation, meaning he has maxed out with his words, I find I learn a lot from him.

If it’s not a day for rowing, I sign up to go to the gym, where I do strength training, or now as the weather starts to get too cold for me to row, some work on the rowing ergometer or jogging on a treadmill. The gym is just not the same with Covid-19. The women with whom I used to chat during quick breaks are no longer there, and the place looks like a ghost town. Not that it’s easy or pleasant to do cardio while wearing a face mask. I keep asking myself how long my gym can stay in business.

Once home and showered, I have the option of heading to Whole Foods or Wegman’s for groceries or having lunch before settling in for an hour or two of Law and Order (SVU). Go ahead and ridicule me! Strip me of my Phi Beta Kappa key and the magna cum laude designation on my college diploma. This junk food for the mind keeps me sane.

Sometime before dinner, I catch up with one of my close rowing buddies. Mostly we compare notes on whether we dared to face high winds or chilly temperatures to get in some mileage on the Charles. We discuss our grandchildren, and then commiserate over two things: our children’s inability to find their dream homes when the inventory of homes for sale is so limited; and our disappointment in knowing that our pre-Covid winter vacations will not be happening in 2020.

My day ends with my getting into bed with a novel from the public library that I read on my Kindle. Lest I sound like an ingrate, I try to remind myself how lucky I am to live in a comfortable condo and have a loving husband when there are people living out the epidemic in their cars or on the streets.