Part 1
Every once in a while you turn on the radio, randomly, as background noise, maybe because you're cutting up fruit and you are tired of your playlist, and you hear a podcast, an interview that really moves you. More than that -- it shifts your perspective. In hearing someone else's story, you want to rethink aspects of your own story. It happened to me this morning.
Things started out very predictably: I bundled up and faced the morning. 6F (maybe -15C). We may warm up a little tomorrow, but we are definitely in the coldest moment of the coldest month.
(the chickens protect their most vulnerable extremities in every way they can)
I pass the sheep shed. I peek through the window and see Ed moving around inside. Well that's a good sign!
(yes, that's Campbells Chicken Noodle soup -- his preferred medicine for everything)
He's feeling better. Like the tail end of a very bad cold, he tells me through the glass. I think we're in for another week of separation. I'll test again soon, but I am hopeful.
I start in on breakfast. Oatmeal today. I've read a bunch of articles admonishing us to quit with the resolutions. Celebrate the good in your life. Quit searching for radical improvements. They never work.
Well of course, we know that. Telling yourself that as of January 1st, you'll move more, eat less, drink less, read better stuff etc etc is likely to tide you over for a handful of days and then you're back to your same old. On the other hand, I see nothing wrong with trying. Small stuff, but still, any effort seems worth it, no? If you had five good days of movement, well now, that's just great! You're that much stronger! So, I'm resuming the oatmeal/granola habit -- it wont last, but so what. For now, I'm feeling very noble.
(getting the two farmhouse cats to go outside in this deep freeze -- and they must go outside -- is a challenge)
And it was during my cutting up of the fruit for my oatmeal that I listened to the interview on PBS with Crystal Wilkinson. If you don't recognize the name -- she is an African American writer and professor of writing at U of Kentucky. (Read about her here.) She talked about her most recent book -- Praisesong for the Kitchen Ghosts: Stories and Recipes from Five Generations of Black Country Cooks.
What was so transformative about this woman's story? Her history is not anywhere near my own. Tracing her roots to slavery (a white, five generations-back grandfather, a Black, five generations-back grandmother), a childhood in the hills of Appalachia -- none of it is familiar to me. But I wasn't listening for echos of my own past. What caught me instead were her reflections on cooking and her memories of being in the kitchen where her grandmother cooked. It's that connection to past generations, through food that had me put down my paring knife and really listen.
My grandmother, too, cooked over a coal and wood burning stove and my memories of her are very much centered on her in the kitchen. Yeah, she did other things. She washed clothes in a tin tub, she cleaned constantly, she grew vegetables. But when I think of her now, I mostly see her in the farmhouse kitchen, rolling out dough or stoking the fire in the stove.
Wilkinson talks about the movement of her grandmother's hands as she kneaded bread dough. She sees in her own now grandmotherly knuckles the same rhythm, bend and twist. And she hangs her grandmother's dress in her kitchen, to stay close to the person who shaped her childhood profoundly (like me, Wilkinson lived with her grandmother, though in her case -- for her later childhood).
Here's where I had this revelation: maybe as grandparents, you know -- modern age grandparents, we tend to want to fit into our children's habits and styles of living too much. We even dress not too differently! (I own the same sweatpants as one daughter and hounded the other one to reveal the label of her corduroys.) Maybe the best memories that we can leave for our grandkids are not those of "substitute parent-like figures," but ones that are truer to our age, our styles, our way of defining grandparenthood. I wont leave a cotton frock for them to hang in the kitchen, but maybe they'll remember the hodgepodge of foods at brunch, the cut up fruits I always give them, the camera forever around my neck. Sweatpants and warm fuzzy slippers. And blueberry muffins. Because mine really are the world's best blueberry muffins (not really "mine" but then nothing is really just "ours.")
Part 2
By noon, I notice the sniffle. An hour later I'm looking at my test results: I'm Covid positive.
I'm not really surprised. Ed and I spent all of January 1st together and he tested positive the next day. Five days later -- I'm down with it. Textbook Covid trajectory.
There are many things about which I can feel grateful: first of all, getting sick now sucks, but it would have sucked a thousand times more had we both gotten this a week earlier. Secondly, I have not been around anyone for a couple of days now, so the infection stops here! We will not have contaminated anyone. Thirdly -- well, there isn't really a thirdly. If I don't get too sick, I'll add that to my thirdly, but right now I'm just at the starting gate, so we will see how this develops. (My previous two Covids weren't long or terrible, so I'm hoping for the same now.)
The worst part is that I have several birthday celebrations before me and at least one but maybe both will have to be postponed. Snowdrop turns ten this weekend and my younger daughter turns forty shortly after. I was to spend time with both and am all set to pop some champagne corks (at least for my daughter!), but now everything is a bit muddled.
Just at noon, I had driven over to the Shakespeare program where Snowdrop was being dropped off for the better part of the day, it being the twelfth night and all, so I did see the girl as she starts in on her journey into the world of double digit age numbers. Ah, sweet child, already one foot into the preteen craziness! Keep that grin going in life! It really does smooth the way for so much of what lies before you! If you find reasons to smile every day -- you're set, my sweet child...
Part 3
So what do I do with my newly launched commitment to greater and more consistent movement? Everyone knows you are NOT supposed to push yourself into any form of exertion when you have Covid. Strange things happen! You can slide downhill quickly. A friend was hospitalized because he went on a bike ride while still fighting his infection.
Nonetheless, I can walk, no? Not outside, because it's just too cold for that. We know colds hate the cold. So I walk inside. From room to room -- a challenge, given that the farmhouse is... small. The cat stares at me as if I'm nuts. And maybe he has a point, but frankly, it feels good to move a little. At least today it still feels good.
Ed and I discuss when to reunite. We both vote for a postponement for a day. The literature suggests that we cant toss around the infection like a ping pong ball, nor will I be sicker by being around him (or he by being around me), but there are a lot of words like "probably" and "chances are" in the conclusions. And in truth, I want him to shake a little more of the congestion he now has. We have quite different habits in the treatment of respiratory infections -- I'm committed to mine and he is to his! Still, it's great to know that we wont have to have five more days of separation. United in misery!
As for evening viewing pleasures? Oh, that's easy for tonight: I turn on the Golden Globes. Ed dislikes any award shows and though he likes strong acting, he cares little for the glitz that goes into acting awards Me -- hey, I watched a hot contender for best picture the other night! Of course I'm tuning in! With leftover soup, a salad and hopes for a fast processing of this damn Covid.
And with love...
