The View from the Hermitage, Day 84

84 days.
12 weeks
3 months
25% of a year

Any way you look at it, this has been going on for a pretty long time now. I've tried to remember what I was thinking, back when this all started, in terms of how long it might last. I'm not sure I even had a duration in mind. There is some evidence from Los Angeles of an increase in cases since the reopening and discounting the protest crowds. Seven-day rolling averages of the number of cases and the percent of cases that come back positive both had very slight increases here in Virginia. I'll be watching the next couple of days to see if the arrows continue to point up. Would the governor slow down reopening as a result, having the state remain at Phase Two for longer than two to three weeks? What relative increase might motivate him to take the state back to Phase One. I can't see him taking the state back to Stage Zero; the uproar would be deafening. That duration may be longer than I igiht have thought.

We took our Sunday morning walk in the park earlier than usual today. Besides being cooler, there were fewer people there. I expect, though, that it did get as crowded as last week later. As of Tuesday, the restrooms will again be open, as will the playgrounds and picnic areas. Playground equipment will not be cleaned, so it's up to parents or caregivers to clean as they wish. If I had small children, I'm not sure how I would feel about taking them to a public playground. It would certainly amuse them, but just how worried would I be about their catching something?

I thought that as things reopened, I might be tempted to eat out even if it's just picking up take-out, or pop into a store for something I didn't want to wait to get until older son did the weekly grocery shopping. That hasn't happened. I'm learning that many of the things I think I need are things I really don't even want enough to try to get them. More goodness resulting from the pandemic, I guess.

In trying (unsuccessfully) to straighten up the dining room table yesterday, I came across a catalog from the tour company we used to visit Peru and were going to use to visit the Silk Road. I leafed through it, seeing several trips that appealed to me--Morocco, Jordan, Ethiopia--after which I stopped and pondered. Do I really want to visit those places? Not really if it has to be soon. The wide, wide world that used to look so inviting, stoking my curiosity, kindling my sense of adventure, no longer does, or no longer does at this specific moment. I have the image of one of the monsters from Maurice Sendak's Where the Wild Things Are. It's standing outside my immediate frame of reference, where my here and now opens to that wide, wide world. It's got a conspiratorial look on its face as its index finger slowly bids me to come. Not right now, Monster, not right now.