TomFlannery.com

It’s been 45 days now….on lock down. Only stepping foot outside for exercise or yard work, and the gathering of supplies. Masking up. Then washing down. Lather, rinse, repeat. It’s Tuesday. No, it’s Thursday. No…..it’s…..

What time is it anyway? How many episodes did I watch tonight?

Your world shrinks. It’s no longer here to there or highway to exit to parking lot. It’s room to room. Book to book. Binge to binge. Refrigerator to couch. It’s everything it was before, in less space. It’s the Reader’s Digest version.

The occasional beautiful spring weather can still lift the spirits, even if you’re mostly looking at it through a window. And the bi-polarity of a spring NEPA snow-over can move the covers back over your head. It’s the same. Yet everything is different.

It may or may not end soon. We may creep back outside and get hit with a new wave and run back into our bunkers like we’re being swarmed by bees. Nobody knows for sure. But things are inching towards doors opening again. The folks who are taking it seriously will continue to do so. The ones who aren’t, won’t. It’s the way the world works. What’s certain is that the world we’ll be tip-toeing back into is gonna look very different. Normal is out the proverbial window. We’re all gonna have to learn to walk all over again.

And we’re gonna have to explain to our dogs why we’re not home as much. Right now my dog gives me the guilts when I take out the garbage. He peers through the bottom window of the front door with a decided lack of patience. His possibilities are endless. I’m in the basement during the day working. My wife has set up shop at the dining room table. Our girls are camped in their rooms. So he crashes Zoom meetings and conference calls and online english classes and screeches at the mail carrier and anybody else he catches walking past the house….and is generally having the time of his young life. People here line-up to take him for walks….and to let him sleep by their side. He can play one off against the other, and get the best deal. He knows the soft touches at the dinner table….and where to not waste his begging skills. He even started his own instagram account, and has hundreds of new 4-legged friends fawning over his musings. Max is becoming insufferable. But he’s very handsome and regal and thus gets away with it.

In short, he’s a good boy.

When the world re-opens for business, I shudder at his response. But he too must learn to adapt.

Music seems so immediate now. We’re all spending so much time in our own heads. So what we listen to is less background noise than essential oxygen. I appreciate the good stuff so much more, and turn off the bad stuff so much quicker. I can easily spend hours with a single record now, playing it over and over. Like I haven’t done since I was spinning vinyl as a teenager. I’ve taken deeper dives into different genres over the last 2 months than I ever have. I’m trying to soak it all in…..and hoping I never dry.

And our friends. We realize what they’ve always meant, and what we’ve always taken for granted. And when this shit ends the party is gonna be epic. Even if we have to drink with each other from 6 feet away and give out virtual bro-hugs.

If you can give back, you should give back. If you need help, you should reach out. Because angels are everywhere. Folks are dropping money into virtual baskets all over town. Feeding those that need to be fed. Carrying those that need to be carried. Social distancing still permits you to give others a hand. You can do that from 6 feet away.

Make no mistake. We are NOT all in this together, because some of us are still able to work…..and pay the bills….and aren’t sick, and don’t need others to care for us. This thing might not discriminate, but it sure seems to pick on the less fortunate.

Nothing should go to waste from here on in. If you can’t use it, maybe somebody else can. If you’ve got extra, there’s probably somewhere within walking distance filled with folks who don’t have enough. We’re gonna need to come up with a whole new way of doing things. It should probably start with what we’re willing to give.

In a bit..

–tf