Aug 022022
 

How’s your summer been? Bumpy, right? Between inflation, residual COVID, tangled travel plans thanks to an overwhelmed airline industry, a cruel war that drags on, and crippling heat, it hasn’t been all fun and games. The mood is as heavy as the air.

I get it. I was coping with shoulder surgery on one side, a broken wrist on the other, and a dog whose health was rapidly declining back in May. Between one thing and another, my already thin social life was reduced to few encounters unless they were sparked by an Instacart delivery.

Then I bought an Apple Watch.

I know; it’s a watch with a lot of stuff I don’t need. Although having a phone you don’t have to remember to take because it’s already strapped to your wrist is pretty cool. Now I just have to remember to put in my earbuds so I’m not talking to my wrist or straining to hear the voice at the other end.

For the most part, the watch mimics the phone, even if you’re not carrying the phone. I like seeing the time, the date and the weather right up front. If you’re using your iPhone to navigate, the watch will display the map as well. Not only that, when SIRI tells you to, say, take a right, the watch will make the sound of a turn signal. The first time I heard that, I laughed out loud.

It’s very freeing to be able to walk and keep my hands by my side, swing them freely, or furtively check my inbox for messages, which it reports with a discreet ding that doesn’t sound like marimbas or chimes.

I can’t take pictures, although I have no doubt that’s coming. Anyone remember when that level of gadgetry was only available to a member of the CIA or MI6?

While I recover from various surgeries and injuries, a fitness program suitable for a twenty-something may not be appropriate. That’s why I didn’t sign up for Apple Fitness. However, I did set up a basic health profile and some modest goals, including a lot of walking. Inside of nagging me, the watch cheers me on with, exhorting me to “keep it going” or applauding me for meeting or exceeding my target number of steps or minutes or calories or what have you. It reminds me to rise out of my chair, a task I’d previously relegated to an hourglass I kept at my desk until I accidentally broke it one day.

My watch urges me to reflect at the beginning and end of the day. It’s big on deep breathing. I’m offered a light show, but honestly, I find the color choices a bit unnerving. I’d prefer to close my eyes.

Somehow the Apple Watch acts as guru, guide, motivator, and minder. Yes, it’s a tool and a toy. Okay, it’s collecting and using a lot of data about me and my preferences. No, it can’t replace my human buddies. It’s simply a nice addition.

Excuse me, I’m told I need to stand now.

Dec 162020
 

This is the winter of our discontent.

We find ourselves under a cloud this year, separated from those we love, locked away, almost stretched beyond our abilities. Some of us are sick, all of us are weary. The miracle that might release us into the world —the vaccine—is some months away. Meanwhile, we have bumpy times ahead. I know two people who just tested positive for the virus. Vigilance is required.

I would not presume to diminish the physical toll COVID has taken on both its victims and the people who treat them. But I also worry about the mental and emotional toll the virus has taken on so many of us, beginning with the frontline workers and first responders who have seen so many people die. One hundred times as many as died on 9/11. It boggles the mind.

I understand the frustration this pandemic has taken—and the fear. I don’t understand the misplaced anger, the willful disregard of the health and safety of others, the dismissal of efforts to try, however imperfectly, to protect. It’s not just that such reactions fly in the face of reason and common sense. They negate empathy.

Empathy—a concern for the feelings and well-being of others—is presumed to be at the heart of this season. We collect coats and toys. We hand envelopes to service workers and donate to our charities in the glow of love and joy and the spirit of giving. If I thought my wishes counted for anything, I would wish that empathy invade each and every one of us in the next week and refuse to leave, so that we might think about, to sympathize with, even to feel with and for our fellow beings. It shouldn’t matter whether they are working in an emergency room or suffering alone, separated from loved ones temporarily or permanently, coping with too much responsibility or too little, carrying their wounds visibly or hidden away.

What to do? Not to state the obvious, but let’s be kind. To ourselves, to those around us, to people we don’t know, maybe even to people we don’t like, insofar as that’s possible. It’s within our control to be generous. At the end of the day, kindness is the the best possible gift we could give. Who knows? It could even become a habit.

Mar 302020
 

It started with a plan, because isn’t that how most of us try to start our days now? The overcrowded households, filled with socially isolated children of all ages, a few pets, and the odd grandparent—those households must enact plans that keep everyone occupied and engaged while navigating a physical space never meant for as many as are now occupying it.

Solo households have a different, less immediately challenging task: How to creatively or productively fill time, coupled with attending to mundane tasks. I gave up cleaning my small house a few years ago, but darn if that hasn’t been added to my plate. I just have to handle it in smaller bites. Cooking and small sewing repairs aren’t my jam either—my sister excelled at both—but I’ve been practicing both since she passed away.

Grocery shopping isn’t something I thought I’d need help with, even in the time of the pandemic. I have two masks, courtesy of my neighbors. I’d made up lists and visualized the store I wanted to go into and factored in the timing so it was at the end of “senior” time on a rainy weekday. I had a plan. I was ready.

My plan didn’t include getting hit with anxiety about going into a store I shopped just ten days—and several terrifying news stories—ago.

I postponed, told myself I’d try again tomorrow. I decided to tackle another project and bring out my warmer weather clothes. A shirt I bought for my trip to Canada last summer with my sister came out of the spare closet and went right back in. Her death is too fresh.

I texted a neighbor friend, who let me know that her beloved dog had to be put down two days earlier. Scarlett, born a month after my dog, was the first puppy Molly ever met. They shared a genuine affection. I could always get Molly to walk the neighborhood by saying, “Let’s go see your girlfriend Scarlett.”

Then I read a note from a dear friend who has been sick and alone in her apartment for a month. She lives on the other coast, although in the time of pandemic, she could be in the next city. She is scared. I want to help. I can’t figure out how to help.

So: fear of shopping, memories brought up by a shirt, loss of a neighborhood dog, a frightened friend. I didn’t need any other excuses to have a good cry.

Another luxury of solo living, I suppose: the freedom to wail at will.

And then what? This is our new normal, both informed and exacerbated by the availability of information. Some of it is true, some of it is false, some of it is unverified because this damned pandemic is, to a large extent, difficult to verify. Without a doubt, death and illness are underreported but would more testing and more identified cases bring more relief? I don’t know. Like hundreds of thousands, even millions of others, I both depend on and have limited faith in my government, at least at the federal level.

But I have good neighbors and good friends and access to information. The support on the ground is amazing. I can click on my growing list of resources to take a virtual tour, listen to soothing music, follow a stress-relieving class, or bake. Then I hug my dog, work on my novel, watch a little TV, engage in a bit of social activism, wave at neighbors from a safe distance, and plan to do it again tomorrow.

You all know what books to read or shows to watch. Below are a couple of other resources (by no means a complete list) for you to check out:

Twelve museums to visit virtually.
• Wonderful music by Frederick Aragón. Sure to soothe the soul.
• Stress relief yoga with birds!
• Recipe for blueberry muffins. Anyone can do this!