Our weekly delivery of produce came today.  I never know exactly what will be in the box. Today it was fennel, escarole, radicchio, pears, apples, red peppers, avocados, lemons and both standard colors of cabbage.  A bit of a tedious list to read, but the point, for me anyway, is that it takes a bit of extra creativity on my part to figure out what to do with some of these things. My normal grocery store load would be lettuce, broccoli, sweet potatoes...definitely not fennel.  Fennel has a tendency to rot in this residence.  I tried.  It rots. Same with cabbage. Rots. I know how to make sauerkraut.  I have a fermentation pot that I made myself in my clay studio.  It rots before it ever gets near that pot.

At the same time that my anxiety and anticipatory guilt rise as I lift each beautiful ill-fated jewel out of the box they came in, I still have hope.  THIS time I won't let it happen.  I will treat them well and create something healthy and lovely and full of fennel. I will do what I know and make cabbage, carrot, ginger sauerkraut, and it won't taste like sauerkraut and everyone will want to eat it, and it won't just be me stuck eating it for its probioticness.  Food waste is such a huge issue, how is it that I am taking any small part in it? So many people are food insecure, and here I am so flippant.  

My sister sent me a photo of a cabbage she let rot in the back of her fridge.  She put it in a pot of dirt and it grew!  My last purple cabbage is now in a pot of dirt on the back porch after languishing on the counter.  I think it is growing!  

Today, as I washed the produce, as I now do at every unboxing, I felt not only hope, but excitement over the challenge to follow through on creating something from these organisms that grew in a magical, complicated, vigorous push for survival.  I washed them and placed them in the dish rack, toughest on the bottom, most delicate on top, and wondered why I was so excited about them.  

It occurred to me that maybe I was feeling something in my ancient DNA.  A sense of coming home after foraging for edible surprises from the woods. Of being an animal in nature, as more humans used to be, and gathering food as it was found.  I realized that I was feeling the lazy person's sense of accomplishment after the hunt.  This box, dropped on our front porch and left in the sun with ice packs to keep things fresh, gives me weekly satisfaction of a hunt well done.  And I never need leave my house.  

I have spent so much of my life piggy-backing on the experiences of others.  In a tv culture, a society where so much of life is not lived through actual experience.  I have watched the world on a screen, traded adventure for the security of a sometimes uncomfortable comfort zone, and picked up the produce box, filled with the surprises of someone else's venture, off of the porch every Tuesday.

The Celery Root sprouted

I heard a scream - high and desperate.  I was still in bed, waiting on myself to rise, messaging with a friend after a more emotional than normal few days.  I had just messaged, "I think I am coming out of my depressed zombie phase." Then the scream.

After a breath of confusion and disbelief I convinced myself that it must, in fact, be my daughter, and no she is not normally a dramatic screamer, so, yes, something must be very not okay.  My husband and I ran to her bedroom.  I opened her door to find her holding the right side of her face with panic in her eyes and our 7 month old cat desperately trying to leave. On a leash. Attached to a collar.  She doesn't wear collars. Oh, yes, now I can picture it. Sliced and diced kid who overstepped some major  boundaries with a wild animal with razor claws and dagger teeth.

One bite, and, somehow, five puncture wounds. Two above the jaw line and three below. That cat opened up her mouth wide and took a big ol' chomp.  My daughter said that, at first, she couldn't detach the cat from her face.

I set the freaking cat free and then we got to the bathroom and washed and washed and pressed to induce bleeding and washed some more. Her initial panic was growing as she looked in the mirror and watched her own blood rivulet down her face and drip into the sink. I have a tendency to make her take responsibility for things, so she was in charge of soaping and washing while I made sure as much bleeding was happening to flush out bacteria.

I have always been interested in random and mostly weird facts. I know, therefore, that cats and humans have the most bacteria ridden mouths, and that cat and human bites are two of the worst bites one can receive. Cats have the added quality of having teeth akin to hypodermic needles, so they basically inject bacteria deep into the flesh where it is impossible to flush it out with anything except the blood produced from the wound.  Only one of my daughter's punctures was willing to bleed.

I called the doctor, hoping for a video consult or something to keep us out of any medical anything, while my husband put antibiotic ointment and bandages on her face. Antibiotic ointment, I found out later, is not good to put on puncture wounds. It ends up acting like a cap for the wound hole, apparently, and keeps bacteria trapped inside. Huh. Add another random bit of knowledge to my brain files.

As my daughter was getting pale and faint and fear vomiting into the toilet in another room, I was told we would need to go to the emergency room. I started to cry and exclaimed, "Shit! Really?" The nurse was very nice.  She understood. These are extraordinary circumstances we are currently existing in, and I think "shit" was pretty mild, considering. She was very nice and told me it was going to be okay. I did not really believe her, but I let her think I did.

We got ourselves together in a calm but brisk manner. I packed hand sanitizer, changes of clothes and towels for the car seats for after the hospital. I packed water, breakfast bars and leftover peanut/almond butter cookies from the day before. We had our breakfast in the car. Faintness and pain had passed, so we marveled at all of the beautiful flowering trees busting out their Spring awesomeness.

I anticipated a more virusy looking ER entrance - cordoned off areas, people in masks outside waiting to direct people.  The description of what we should expect had sounded more official. Instead we got a woman in a mask, hat, gloves and protective robe thing, sitting inside the alcove between the two sets of automatic doors, ready to give us a mask along with a spritz of alcohol on our hands. The spritz was offered only after I asked if they had gloves for us.  They did not have gloves for us.  Rules were that only one parent was allowed in with a child, and I was the only parent not possessing a mask nullifying beard.  My husband waited in the car.

There was no one in the ER right then except for the intake staff and a few nurses.  We were "fast tracked" to the room closest to the front so we wouldn't have to walk through too much of the hospital. We were seen right away by two nurses and a doctor's assistant. The mask my daughter had received had to come off because, well, face wound.  Antibiotics were prescribed with one pill administered immediately. Follow-up procedures were handed to me, and we were able to leave.

We changed clothes in the car, sanitized the shit out of our hands, and had a cookie.  While we regrouped, we decided to discuss if there was anything else we needed to do in Flemington - the town with the nearest hospital, 20 minutes from our house.  I figured, since we had already been forced to break our isolationist streak, I might as well make a fruits and vegetables trip to the grocery store. We went to the more low key natural foods store, mainly because we like it, but also because it had less potential for encountering people.

A few days earlier I had seen a much shared FaceBook video on sanitizing your groceries. I decided that, instead of washing my hands a bajillion times throughout the day as I encountered potentially contaminated packaging and produce, I would take inspiration from the video and wash everything in the sink. I usually give produce a quick wash right before using it, but that's it.  This felt like next level.  As I was filling the sink with soap and water to soak everything in, I remembered how I had scoffed (to myself, of course) at a SUPER over the top health conscious acquaintance who had instructed me to soak my produce in vinegar. This all felt so weird and SO laborious.  Putting away groceries had never been so tedious and time sucking.  I did it though - two sinks' worth of sudsy produce.  I'm glad I got a shit ton of it because I will be happy to wait to do that again.

                                          One sink's worth

I found out about a week ago that someone I know has it.  She is a sweet vibrant Mom to two young children.  That doesn't matter, though. This is a virus, after all. It could give less than a shit about who you are other than if you are host material - and that is all of us.

She has been communicating with the other Moms on FaceBook Messenger. 
She has been in bed for days. She went to the doctor. They said they were saving the tests for people "who have underlying conditions." She was diagnosed based on her symptoms. I find myself wondering, morbidly, if they counted her in the daily tally of new cases if they didn't do an official test. Will they count her in the official daily death tally if she dies?

I remember her mentioning a few months ago that their house has mold issues.  To me that is an underlying condition that compromises lung health and health in general. Did anyone think to mention it? Would anyone even put any weight on it if it was mentioned?

Tonight she said that the shortness of breath she has been experiencing is getting worse. I urged her to not wait to go to the hospital if it's getting worse. I am scared for her and her children and her husband. I had the thought today that we might all end up knowing someone who has died from this. That made this whole thing that much more real.


In her words:

March 26, 1:56 PM
"Hey guys, I just got back from the doctor, and I do have COVID-19, but luckily it seems to still be a mild case.  They're giving me an inhaler.  I hope everyone is feeling okay - and definitely don't disregard any mild symptoms! xoxo"

"...So far the other symptoms have been bearable, but last night I started feeling sort of a tightness/pressure/burning feeling in my chest so (her husband) insisted I go to the doctor today.  Hope you all are well!"

"...There's a good chance it was from the fateful trip to Target last Wednesday. 😂😷"

- Someone asked, "Did they do the swab test or did they diagnose based on symptoms?"-

"Based on symptoms because they're saving the tests for those who have underlying conditions, etc."

March 28, 4:16 PM
-Another Mom in the group updated with, "She said she had had more chest tightness last night but the inhaler had helped some.  She was going to focus on getting more rest today."-

7:16 PM
"Yeah, still rather crappy, but resting seems to help.  Thank you so much for checking in!! Hope you guys are well.💗"

"Earlier (her child) said, 'Oh, it's 3 PM, thank goodness this day is almost over and we can just go to bed soon!' 😂😷😜"

March 30, 7:22 PM
"I've been in bed the past three days, which seems to help, but, as soon as I get up and move around at all, the chest tightness/shortness of breath comes back.😞It really does take a while, I guess, but will just be grateful if it doesn't get worse.  The achiness, headaches, fatigue, etc. I can deal with, but the breathing issues are scary.  I feel terrible for the people with severe cases.😖"

March 31, 9:31 PM
"The shortness of breath is getting worse unfortunately.😞"

Sprouts are the new lettuce in our house until we start growing lettuce in the garden. Sprouts are pretty much THE salad vegetable in our house at the moment (we have onions and a couple of red peppers) since we stopped going to stores. I look forward to more vegetable options, hopefully soon, but for now I find joy in sprout salad with red onion, chickpeas and homemade dressing.

I have never been way into sprouts - definitely not enough into them to keep a constant production line going. Now I do my multi-jar sprout maintenance every morning and every evening, watching for their first tiny white tails that aren't there the night before and magically appear by morning. I feel a certain amount of affection for their promise and potential and their cute earnest need to grow. Then I and my family kill them with our teeth.

For a while we have been buying a lot of our packaged/dry goods from online markets, so I have just kept that up as needed. They, of course, are being inundated with people stocking up. The things that were out of stock seemed odd - hot sauce, pickles, certain kinds of tea. I couldn't help but assume that whatever was out of stock was related to this virus thing and people going wild to stay as connected as possible to their normal - to the apparent privilege they have been accustomed to. That is definitely why I was looking at the hot sauce. We use a lot of hot sauce. I was way too excited to find Cholula brand original hot sauce was still in stock on the second site I went to. Then it proceeded to go out of stock before my eyes. "Shit!" I said. Shit! My ability to sit all cozy at home and buy random shit online is being hampered! Don't worry about me, though.  I'll be okay. Another brand of hot sauce is on its way, but thank you for asking. These are such tough times, though, you know?

I have always liked to think about being ready for a catastrophe - a trait I picked up from my fruit canning, food dehydrating, wool processing from start to finish, wood stove cookbook writing, hiding under the bed from the Mormons at the front door mother). How to prepare? How to survive? It was exciting to think about being ready for...something...anything.

People around the world are living in a constant catastrophe of poverty, famine, war. Having the time and leisure to think about planning for hard times is fun. It is fun to have privilege. Everyone should have time to think about things aside from immediate daily survival.

How have I been keeping sane? It has been less than two weeks since we decided to isolate. As I have lightly mentioned, one might be wise to question my sanity on a good day.

A friend asked me today how I am staving off insanity. So far I have spent every fucking day with bouts of wanting to run. I want to run away from parenthood - run away from spousehood. I want to escape the kitty litter box, dishes, laundry and impending spring yard work. That's my fairly normal existence, though, so this should be no problem - just carry on.  Our schedule, though, the one that did keep me more grounded and normalish looking to the untrained eye, completely and instantly fell away last week. Our Monday homeschool co-op, Tuesday acting, Wednesday horseback riding, Girl Scouts and ballet and Thursday handwork (knitting, etc.) all disappeared.  All of that farming out of responsibility, as I prefer to think of it, came to an end. I was left with my own self-loathing over never quite feeling ready to take on the responsibility of being my child's everyday companion, time manager, educational accomplice and guide (even though I have been all of those things for her, for her entire nine years of out of belly existence).  I see myself as a determined parent with strong, clear feelings on child rearing, and, hypocritically enough, a complete and utter slacker in the actual implementation of all of these things.  That's why I do the farming out.  I know I can't  handle constant all day long interaction.  I love my kid so much, and yet, under these current circumstances especially, I am always feeling the need to escape her and hide. I am just not a big people person anymore. 

My daughter's outgoing nature is exactly me until I turned six and my parents' marriage got stupid and everyone got stupid about it and everyone forgot to invest deeply in the children's emotional well-being because they were being stupid and selfish.  My sister told me several years ago that, when our parents told us that they were, in fact, getting a divorce, I changed and was never the same again. I had, at some point, made my Dad promise me that they wouldn't divorce, so when that reneging shit fell from his tongue, my sense of trust and my equilibrium were shattered. I have struggled with those initial emotional fractures, along with other later ones, ever since. I look at my child and, at the same time that her outgoing, people loving nature is completely familiar to me, it only feels familiar at a distance. I now only pretend to be open - pretend to not hate people.  The only time being open and loving feels like part of my nature is when I get to connect with my few chosen people.  It has taken me so long to find good friends in the world, and I love them. 

As I was floundering in this abrupt end to normal, others were thinking and planning, and this week we started finding routine again purely through the grace of others.  Some co-op stuff has begun via video conferencing. Girl Scouts and ballet will do the same shortly. We are starting to see friends through video chat that we barely ever get to see. Video can't be the same as in person interaction, but, fucking hell, it's something, and I already feel it saving my and my child's sanity.  

In my quest for emotional balance I am now searching for a sense of, if not purpose, at least productivity. If my pottery studio had been brought into existence by now, I would likely be toasty warm with the sense of creation. As an alternative to the studio, I have started to write again, take ukele classes on YouTube with my kid, and sometimes I work on finding imagery to put on my hopefully future pottery.  My current favorites are images from airplane safety cards.  "Be sure to put on your own mask before helping others."

It rained.
I felt more trapped.
I could have gone out anyway, but I was already too far gone inside.

It Will Be A Bit Longer

All I can think of are dominoes falling. Rapid and deafening and terrifying. Their sound separated from them like a jet's engine roar from above the clouds or lightning cracking the atmosphere. I couldn't see where the dominoes were or what path they were taking. They approached quietly and just so shockingly fast that I couldn't connect the sound with the physical until I could only look back at what had just happened. The inevitable trauma.

I am stuck in some space of, "Wait, we were JUST going out, doing things, congregating just because we wanted to."
So very suddenly everyone and every surface feels suspect. I get the mail and wash my hands. If there's a package, I open it, wash my hands, and only then take the contents out. Then I wash my hands a-fucking-gain. I washed my hands so many times yesterday just dealing with mail - and food packages, because MAYBE they had been touched by someone at the grocery store who has it. I think I might be just plain going overboard with this. I am going to stop myself short from talking about how maybe I have actually been a bit overboard for a lot longer than this whole thing has been going on...eh-hem.

A few years ago I tried cabbage

I think of the future, when we all finally get the go ahead to see each other in the flesh again. I imagine a slow, skeptical collective creep. We won't rush to hug each other. We will not know what reality to trust anymore. We will have waited so long, in confinement, to be set free. In the meantime, our perspectives and perceptions will have altered at an imperceptible rate. The dominoes falling in our fragile psyches - the sound only to be heard in the aftermath.