The View from the Hermitage, Day 13

The pandemic is messing with my perceptions of time. How many days have we been hermitting? How many days would be enough? If someone were to be exposed today, when might they become symptomatic? When will the cases or deaths in insert city, state, or country here peak? Andrew Cuomo, governor of New York, says the peak there will be in 21 days. When will the curves everyone is talking about flatten? 

I have a hard time remembering what day of the week it is. It's not quite the "every day is Saturday" feeling retired friends say they have, but it's similar. It's Saturday now, but it could be any day. Older son came early, bringing the groceries I'd told him we needed. We did an in-the-dark walk with the dog. We got back, older son went back out for a run, and I attacked the newspapers. I often go use the decades old NordicTrack ski machine or do some leg or ab exercises. I decided I needed a rest today; walking would be good enough. When older son came back from his run, he, the husband, and I took the dog for a second, longer walk. That sounds like any day this week.

The time during the day gets fuzzy as well. I have been spending mornings writing or doing small tasks in the kitchen or living areas. Afternoons I try to be at my sewing machine. Coming upstairs to start making dinner means turning on CNN for "The Situation Room." When that morphs into the daily report from the coronavirus task force, I change the station, especially if the husband has descended from his office. He cannot stand even hearing the president's voice let alone seeing him. I don't want to run back downstairs after dinner, so I read or work on something while the husband does crossword puzzles. Right now, I'm making needle-felted ornaments to sell at the Fall Fiber Festival, assuming it is still held. 

While the time periods mentioned have been on a more immediate level, the effects of the pandemic extend to periods measured in years as well. Affecting me more than the postponement of the Olympics or any other event, the husband's retirement will evidently be postponed. With the various nuclear physics labs at which he conducts his research going offline for so long, the experiments he had planned to run at various points in time have moved further into the future. Needless to say, understanding the reason behind it does not necessarily lessen my dislike of this news.

From hours to years, out in the world or closer to home, time is relative. Albert Einstein proposed that a century ago, around the time of an earlier pandemic.