Quarantine Diary Day 130: When This Thing Is Over

God I’m sick of talking about sickness and school and death and depression and safety and sorrow and transmission and testing and masks and mental health and fake news and fear. I’m sick of having to dig so deep to root up feelings that are at best bittersweet. I’m sick of flaying my emotional body and laying myself bare to get a moment of human connection. I want more than pockets; I want whole sack-fulls of joy. I want more than silver; I want all my linings to be gold.

Today my mom told me that my dad wants to go on a vacation when this is all over. I figured he was anxious to reschedule the family reunion we had planned for this summer and scrapped at the last minute. She figured he wanted to go to the resort in their city they’ve been to a bunch of times when they want a weekend in a room with a view they don’t have to clean. We were both wrong. Apparently my dad wants to go to Europe. My father is no Ron Swanson. He’s not a U.S.A.-chanting xenophobe. He’s not unrefined. It’s just that I always figured his ideal vacation involved more time on the open road than hurtling through the air, more time relaxing in a hotel than getting lost in a new city or standing around in a museum, and more time with his family than in a foreign land. If my dad were the type to have been to Europe, I imagine he would come back like Guy Clark, singing that verse from Dublin Blues:

I have seen the David 
I've seen the Mona Lisa too 
I have heard Doc Watson 
Play Columbus Stockade Blues

And I guess that’s one thing about the pandemic. Those of us who survive this thing might come out a little clearer on what what we want to do before we die, the places we still need to go, the people we can’t live without.

When this thing is all over I want to go out and dance to house music pressing up against hundreds of sweaty bodies.

When this thing is all over I want to drive across the country in a rented RV and stop at every roadside tourist attraction I see.

When this thing is over I want to eat breakfast at every fancy brunch place and stay up all night drinking coffee and eating pie at every hole in the wall diner in Chicago.

When this thing is over I want to hire babysitters with abandon and buy tickets to every concert in which I have an even passing interest.

When this thing is over I want to spent twelve hours at Six Flags Great America.

When this thing is over I want to take myself on dates to the Art Institute and the MCA and the National Museum of Mexican Art and LUMA and the Driehaus and the American Writers Museum and invite absolutely no one to join me.

When this thing is over I want to monopolize the mic at karaoke.

When this thing is over I want to see the Durkins in Massillon and Mesa.

When this thing is over I want to see the Fords in Houston and Tucson.

When this thing is over I want to see the Potters in Albuquerque.

When this thing is over I want to see the Bakers in Snoqualmie.

When this thing is over I want to see Dan in Leverett.

When this thing is over I want to see Ferrial in Annapolis.

When this thing is I want to see Rachel and Matt in Plymouth.

When this thing is over I want to see Elizabeth in Detroit.

When this thing is over I want to see Dan and Caitlin in San Francisco.

When this thing is over I want to see in Rebecca in Mesa.

When this thing is over I want to see Safia in Seattle.

When this thing is over I want to see Sean in Howell.

When this thing is over I want to take my daughter to London and look for Platform Nine and Three-Quarters.

When this thing is over I want my husband to take me to South America for two weeks and show me Chile and Argentina and Peru.

When this thing is over I want to fly to Europe and meet my dad and when we’ve seen it all I want fly back home and play guitar on the back porch. We’ll run through every song we ever played together over the last twenty-five years and I’ll make him teach me every song we haven’t. We’ll stay up all night. We’ll play the rest of our lives.

Quarantine Diary Day 105: Leaving the Bubble

Next week I’m going off the grid for our fifth annual family camping trip. We’re going with another family and I’m a little nervous about it. I’m not so worried about picking up or passing on a viral load. We’ve been pretty damn careful and so have our friends and camping seems to be fairly low risk as far as activities go what with all the fresh air and separate family spaces. What I’m anxious about is transitioning out of this hermetic life I’ve been living.

I am so, so excited to leave my house, you don’t even know (jk, of course you know). But I’ve also become pretty attached to my couch, to soft clothes, to wrapping myself up in a blanket whenever I want even if its the middle of my workday. What if I’ve become too self-indulgent to rough it in a tent for six days? What if I’ve lost my grit?

I am so, so excited to interact with friends I haven’t seen for almost a year. But I’ve also become pretty wrapped up in myself and what’s right in front of me: my immediate family, my social media feed, the neighbors I see every day. What if I have nothing to talk about around the campfire? My friends might have a different take on the pandemic, on the election, on the racial unrest revolution. What if I’ve lost the ability to tolerate or engage different viewpoints?

My daughter is so, so excited for an adventure. But camping in the north woods is an adventure that comes with driving rain and sunburn pain and swimmer’s itch and biting flies and smokey eyes and long-leggy spiders and hypervigilant parents shouting “watch out for the fire!” She’s going to struggle with the transition, too, and I’m nervous about rising to the parenting occasion.

And, fine, I’ll admit it. I’m a little nervous about the virus. We’re stepping outside our bubble for the first time in months, and it’s bound to feel more scary than liberating to walk into a world with public toilet plumes and more dirt than soap and running water.