I went for a walk recently with my golden retriever, Winston. As in Churchill. A fitting name for these times. It’s good exercise for us, and the warm sun and emerging tree buds and bright daffodils hint at the promise of spring, which always emerges later than you expect. There’s a reason the conventional wisdom here is not to plant until Memorial Day. Mother Nature, despite climate change, has a way of tricking you with a snow squall or worse well into April or even May.
As I meandered through my neighborhood, always quiet, but eerily so now during the pandemic, I kept coming across scenes that would be impossible on an ordinary work day. A father playing volleyball with his daughter, sans net, so cars can pass on the narrow street. “Virtual net?” I teased. “Can’t you see it?” he responded. “Of course,” I joked.
Down and across the street, a mother kicked a soccer ball with her daughter. I’ve heard she is a high-end executive with a major corporation. She works all the time. I have never seen her before, and this may be the first time she has spent quality time outdoors with her child.
Mixing with school friends is verboten, so it’s up to parents to be playmates. Some have embraced this role with joy and gusto, even as they worry about the next mortgage payment.
Many other neighbors are in their yards, raking up leaves and dead grass, adding mulch or fertilizer, getting their gardens ready, a bit ahead of schedule. I, too, have thrown myself into “my land,” all 0.2 acres of it. I have built a large raised bed, filled it with quality compost from our local dump, top soil and peat moss from the garden store. Then my package of rock minerals arrived. I’m still waiting for worm castings, which I am told is worm poop. Whatever. But the piece de resistance is the horse manure I collected from my friend’s small horse farm.
It’s hard physical work and my muscles ache at the end of the day. A hot shower helps, and the exercise helps me sleep. I realized at the end of the day that I had put aside my Armageddon thoughts to become Farmer Cooper. A few hours respite from checking the latest news on the internet is good for the soul and mind.
Most kids seem to be indoors during school hours, following their teachers’ online lesson plans with a parent. But at lunch and recess, they rush into their yards, making gleeful kid noises that remind me that so far, life seems pretty normal for them. Indeed, with the extra attention they are getting from both parents, it’s an improvement.
I wonder how they will look back at these times. Not as adults do, remembering nightmares and days wondering when or if this is going to end, will anyone I know become sick. And what the heck is this disease, anyway?
Physicians and other caregivers are doing the best they can, putting themselves in grave danger, but really, they know so little about this unprecedented virus. It attacks lungs in ways totally different than pneumonia. It can also attack the heart and kidneys. Many patients have developed life threatening blood clots that do not respond to the usual treatments.
New York patients on ventilators die 88 percent of the time. Are they waiting too long before providing patients with oxygen support? Many people have no apparent respiratory distress until they crash, even though their blood oxygen levels were very low. So I ordered a little meter you put on your finger to measure oxygen levels. And a thermometer.
It is a truly novel virus that we are controlling through ancient means — physical distancing and hand washing. All bets are off until we have more data. Or a vaccine. In the meantime, play with your kids.
Janice Cooper of Yarmouth represents District 47 in the Maine House of Representatives.