Having returned seven days ago from the island paradise of St Lucia, I have been spending the last week exiled to my not so exotic island of Covid-19 here on Valley Road. It hasn’t been all bad. I have discovered new rooms of sanctuary in my own home, you know, for those moments when togetherness becomes, well a bit overwhelming. Don’t miss read that, I love my wife and I am more than willing to have long conversations gazing into each others eyes across our kitchen counter but there is also only so much HGTV I can take. I secretly fear that I may come into the kitchen one morning and find Chip and Joanna, sledge hammer in hand, removing a wall and putting up ship lap all over the place. Guess you had to have seen at least one of those house flip shows to get that last one.

I have also discovered the art of binge watching that my children have tried to coerce me into. In the past week I have relived the history of New York City and its immigrant history, I have tracked down and prosecuted the Unabomber and watched all three Men in Black movies. I have rediscovered my conspiracy fed belief in aliens and there impact on ancient history and uncovered mysteries in the museum I had never even heard of. The only thing I have resisted is the urge to continue to destroy Oak Island in search of the money pit, which I am convinced is simply the seemingly bottomless pit of money the producers of A&E have to throw at the search. Just imagine if they ever do find it. The show will have to end and not get to break the record for the longest running documentary ever, that record being held by the search for ancient aliens.

In the total lack of sports to watch, I and my wife have taken up walking around the block in our twice daily sport of Coved-19 Chicken. You know, that moment when someone turns the corner or comes out of their house and is now walking toward you on the same sidewalk. Who folds first and dashes across the street to the other side? We have turned it into a betting game as to not only who folds first but at what point and whether they flee diagonally or straight across. I am feeling like an extra in one of those zombie movies. Fair warning, if you are the opponent, Deb and I don’t fold.

The other night, desperate for our Friday night out and shared cocktail with friends, we instituted a virtual couples party courtesy of ZOOM. We had virtual wine and cocktails, music and food. We shared pictures, you can actually do that live, and toasted each other’s health and most importantly shared laughter and for a moment forgot our isolation. Thank you ZOOM for making this all possible. Just imagine the flu pandemic of the early 1900’s, doing that same thing via telegraph. Something like nice to imagine seeing you, stop. Hope the kids are enjoying time off from school, stop. Just toasted you with a nip of grog, stop. That party would have lasted a lot longer than the forty minutes we got from my free version of ZOOM. I am sure we will be repeating the process with our friends, the ones we don’t meet on our street in the game of chicken, and in fact have a family ZOOM get together in a few minutes.

Seven days to go before I have completed my mandatory fourteen day exile / quarantine. I won’t miss the isolation but I will miss the slowing of the pace of life. I will miss the excuse to just sit back and relax. I will miss the me time. We will go back to life the way we knew it pre-corona but I suspect that some things will never be the same. I hope that for one, it will be this sense of togetherness we currently feel in the midst of the self imposed isolation we are all in. We should do everything we can to foster this sense of closeness, of all being equal that we have experienced in the face of dealing with this crisis. We are strong enough to do that. We just need to commit to that as much as we have committed to hand washing and hoarding toilet paper. Together we can emerge better than we were.

Hoping you are staying safe, six feet apart and healthy.