ABC 2020--Post 3--How Our Family Stays Home

This is about how the Coronavirus and its restrictions have affected our family, and what we are up to while quarantined.

But first:

As mentioned in previous posts, this strange season steeps me in nostalgia, and sometimes I'm reminded of the day a jet crashed only a mile or two from our house.

Paul and I and a couple of children lived in a cozy trailer house near Dryden, Ontario, and only a few miles from the Dryden airport.

That winter, the little airport had been so proud to schedule its first jet service. Once a day, an actual jet flew in and out. Dryden was going places.

One winter day, due to ice on the wings and a series of bad decisions by various people, that jet crashed soon after takeoff.

I remember that it was a heavy sort of day, and cold, with poor visibility and low clouds, a hazy gray and white world.

There we were, safe and warm at home, but whenever I stepped outside onto the steps of our trailer, I could hear the roar of machinery as it cleared a path to the crash site. People were dying there, covered in jet fuel, some of them burned alive. Others were stumbling in the snow, seeking family members.

Here I was, and there they were, all at the same time. I didn't have any way to help them.

Today, we are safe, well, fed, and together in our well-appointed farmhouse.  I know that Italy is grieving, the poor in India are hungrier than ever, and a doctor friend in New York tells of the refrigerated truck, storing bodies, just outside his office. I know that locals are losing jobs and many elderly are alone.

Here we are, and there they are, and what can I do to help but to pray and call and text, from my safe little island?

Thankfully, there are also many just like us: neither hungry nor desperate, off the front lines, hunkered down, waiting. Venturing out for broccoli and medicine as needed. Working essential jobs. Trying to make the best possible memories in the strangest of seasons.

This post is for them.

Six of us are living at home: Paul and me, Steven, Amy, Emily, and Jenny.

Matt, our oldest son, moved to Houston in February and works for NASA. He told me the only NASA employees who aren't teleworking right now are the crew on the International Space Station. He and Phoebe are trying to figure out what to do about the plans for their wedding on June 14.

Ben, our second son, lives in Corvallis with a few other guys and researches smoldering combustion at OSU. He came home on weekends as long as he could. Now he joins us for church on Sunday mornings via Skype or Zoom or another of those words we are all learning these days. We had hoped he could continue his research, but his lab is now closed and he works on writing projects at home.

Here's Ben, worshipping with us.

Paul, who has been busier for years than any mortal ought to be, is busier than ever. His warehouse work is considered essential, since he processes animal feed. He had also been teaching every morning. That is now done via YouTube, which involves learning an awful lot of tech skills in a very short time. He also preaches via YouTube.

Paul prepares his pulpit.

Jenny helps Paul figure out the technology.

I have been a homebody for years, so this isn't such a jolt for me. I've often wondered how long I could stay home without getting tired of it, but didn't think I'd ever get a chance to find out.

Now I know: About this long.

The Smucker sisters-in-law have learned to video-chat.
Anything is possible now.

I go walking a lot, inspecting the local lambs and cherry trees a lot more closely than in the past, simply because there's time.

Living in the country and getting out in it are astonishing gifts.

I'm also writing, sewing, cleaning out corners, and calling people I haven't called in a while.

Amy takes classes from OSU at home, tutors via Zoom, and whips up amazing food. "She and Jenny are living their best lives," said Emily.

Amy in one of her natural habitats

Emily, meanwhile, is perplexed by her own cabin fever, since she has been working from home for months already. Was it she who got the idea to take a basket of gifts to a neighbor with a birthday on Sunday? We stood a proper distance outside the door, sang Happy Birthday, and briefly chatted.

"You remind me of Little Women," the neighbor said. "You girls are all together and just having so much fun."

Emily's been mailing out postcards.

Jenny aka Amy March is video-teaching like her dad, video-learning like Amy, and taking walks by the creek in her rubber boots, watching birds and collecting creek-water ecospheres in quart jars.

Here's Jenny, disinfecting groceries.

Steven works as an ambulance guy and is working on his paramedic internship. He left his room yesterday all crisp and handsome in his uniform. "Hey!" said his sisters, "We should send him off like they do to medical workers on all the videos online!" So we stood and applauded while he went out the back door, grinning.

Steven on a Sunday night, listening to Jenny talking about math.

I try not to worry about him. Of course he doesn't necessarily know if a patient has Covid-19, so he and the others take extra safety precautions. Oregon, and Lane County in particular, have been affected, but not overwhelmed like New York.

When Steven's home, he takes care of things around here.

These are bizarre times. We are having fun despite the challenges.

But we remember the suffering.

Jenny baked a lemon blueberry cake.

  

We built a bonfire one Sunday evening.

A new diversion: putting puzzles together.

This season gives us a fresh view of the normal and everyday.

My hens haven't caught on that there's anything to worry about.
We'll keep it that way.