The View from the Hermitage, Day 9

Coming in from walking the family dog this morning, I had the sense of coming back into a balloon in which I lived. There was a real sense of warmth, as if I had wrapped a warm blanket around myself. I felt more comfortable in here than I did out there even if there were no people out there with whom I needed to avoid contact. 

Virginia yesterday became the second state in which schools are closed for the remainder of the academic year. Kansas was the other one, though there may be more by now. Entertainment and recreational establishments were ordered closed, and strict limits were put on the number of shoppers allowed in some retail establishments at the same time. We are not - yet - expected to stay indoors and shelter in place, something one in three Americans is now doing, but our turn could come.

We probably all have friends or acquaintances who cannot lock their doors and shelter in place. The work they do is seen as essential to taking care of the rest of us. An emergency room nurse on the front lines of the pandemic. A truck driver who hauls things that absolutely must get from Point A to Point B within a certain time. A delivery person or one who hands me my food at the drive-through window. These people may have their own bubble to which they return when they can, but they have to leave it again on a regular basis.

We probably all have friends or acquaintances who wish they could leave their bubble because food on the table comes only from their work outside that bubble. The week before my stay in the Hermitage began, I tipped two regular service providers more than I usually would, knowing that if their job did not disappear, the people who came for the service provided might. I hope that both are still there when we no longer need to live in bubbles.

I try not to feel guilty about the fact that I can afford to stay in my bubble and do not have to leave it, really, for anything foreseeable. Thanks to cancellations of all kinds, the next out-of-bubble event on my calendar is a haircut in late May. I would hope that life would have at least neared normality by then, but what if this really is the new normal? I am really not sure I want to live out my days in a bubble, comfortable though it may be. For now, I will think of this time not as a new normal but as an abnormal. I hope I'm correct in that thinking.