Coronavirus19 Diary - Every Day Is Tuesday

I've written before about the difficulty during these times remembering what day of the week it is. I was speaking to a friend who, like me, has been furloughed since mid March, "Every day is Tuesday" she quipped. She returns to an abbreviated schedule this week. I, by contrast, am going on 13 weeks of furlough with no return date announced yet.

Everyday becomes a vessel to fill as best one can. By mid June Chicago temperatures are moderate enough for me to enjoy being outdoors. According to several eye witness reports, although the lakefront is officially closed, there are a number of citizens choosing to ignore that. I may engage in this form of non violent civil disobedience later this week as temperatures are predicted to reach torrid levels.

I have watched mini series and movies. New releases, classics, a few "art house" pieces, plus, I'll admit, my fair share of trash. Our house is pristine, buttons have been sewn back onto the shirts they came from, silver has been polished, in some cases brought back from a near hopeless condition. I have taken bike rides and naps. I had lunch with a friend, a moment of near normalcy.

Generally I am quite efficient. My hectic schedule, in normal times, requires me to be so. In these not so normal times I go to Walgreens, then the cleaners, then walk 9 flights upstairs to our apartment, with gyms closed the fire stairs are my personal stairmaster, them ponder what I can do to kill time until tomorrow.

Coronavirus19 Diary - What Will I Do Today

I am still not called back from furlough. It is now 12 weeks. I wake up each morning and try to figure out what I will do to fill the day. At least at this point we can move about the city a bit more. I get on my bike and head out to a park a couple of miles from my house. Riding is one of the times when I feel most normal. If the lakefront were open I would go to the beach, but, alas, it is not. 

The park is lovely and tranquil. At one end is a venerable high school, built in 1929. There are large expanses of lawn punctuated with tall, old trees. Their wide spreading branches offer areas of shade. Some of the park is given over to patches of recreated prairie, lush profusions of natural grasses and brightly colored, knee high wildflowers behind rough wooden fences with narrow paths running through them. They provide safe habitat for butterflies and a buffet for foraging birds. Found throughout parks in the city they are meticulously created. Sown and burned to recreate nature's cycle of death and renewal, mowed to remove invasive plants and promote indigenous growth. I try to imagine the era before the city when this landscape covered much of the Midwest. A woman in a broad brimmed straw hat wanders through one creating in the distance a scene reminiscent of the wealth of the impressionist artworks housed in the still shuttered Art Institute.

I have a lengthy phone conversation with a friend, also furloughed and awaiting a return to work. We met while working together at a jewelry store a couple of years ago. Children scamper and laugh enjoying the sun. Their innocence charms me. It is warm but a soft breeze keeps the temperature comfortable. A small dog comes up to me deciding that I am a friend. It's mom keeps calling it back. Reluctantly it bids me goodbye and returns to her.

I ride through the park before returning home. On the way back I go through what is, in normal times, a bustling area of restaurants and eclectic shops. Things are slowly returning to their former state. Many of the stores are open. People sit at socially distant tables on the sidewalks outside of restaurants. Indoor dining is still not allowed.

I return home, lock up my bicycle in the garage of my building and try to decide what to do with the remainder of my day. I promised my husband that I would bake cookies, that should kill an hour.

Coronavirus19 Diary - The State of Things

This period has showed us that our republic and economy are fragile things. Our long held national ideal, a strong country, the greatest country in the world as my generation had drilled into their heads, united, our very name, a myth. Interferences in our elections prove we can be attacked from without. Hatred, prejudice and ignorance show we can be attacked from within. It shows that we can destroy ourselves if we allow it.

I don't have answers, I feel powerless. My struggles as a gay man to be accepted and respected by society can be blown apart by a single court decision. A nation can be blown apart by the actions of 4 police officers, those sworn to serve and protect, doing the opposite.

The peaceful protests carry a powerful message of what our country can become. The violent infiltrators amid the protesters and actions by some police forces across the country carry a different message, just as powerful.

I look back over my 6 decades pondering how we got here. How, what is touted as a great economy, in a 10 week period, can be lying, for many of my country men, around their feet in shards. It was a house of cards, only a slight move bringing it down, leaving a quarter without work, many financially devastated. It will take them years to recover, if they are able to recover at all. Issues of racial and financial inequality tear us apart. Yet many follow a leader that can not competently lead, blind to this. Some of these suffer under the inequality yet refuse to acknowledge it. They are told, as many of differing views are, that it is us against them.

We need us to become something that includes all. We need to develop a mutual respect for one another as fellow human beings and national neighbors. We need to remake and repair, form a country that is united.