Day 17 :: Something That Means A Lot To Me

Nothing like a pandemic to help fill in the blank: something that means a lot to me. 

There are so many obvious things.

Here is the surprise thing that means a lot to me right now:

the lunch bus.

Every day at 11:00 we wrap up "school", put our shoes on, and walk down to the bus stop to collect our daily sack. 

It gives us something to look forward to.

It keeps us connected to the school (yay for a big yellow bus!)

It gives us a chance to check in with the neighborhood. Lindsay and I talk for a good hour - mostly about corona - but we are trying hard to branch our topics to other things. 

It gives the kids a sack full of food to run into the house and eat. 

I don't have to think about this meal! 

It calms the "food scarcity" demon that whispers in all the moms' ears. We have so many apples and carrot sticks and uncrustables stock piled in the fridge. 

It's so exciting to look at the clock and have an actual appointment to keep. 

Monday I went to Costco. It was deserted. 

There were workers everywhere whose only job it was to spray and wipe everything. 

So many people were walking around with masks on. 

There were barricades of toilet paper lining the aisles. 

It felt apocalyptic, but it also felt safe and orderly. 

There it is - another paradox. This whole thing is a giant paradox!  

I want to remember my thoughts about all this. It's nothing new or revolutionary:

The paradox of being so terribly bored that suddenly we are using our imaginations again. 

The kids have been watching marble races on YouTube (bless the YouTube!),

and when I got home from Costco, they were working on their very own. 

It took hours. 

Bordom is the terrible and great.

The paradox of when a catastrophe such as this makes you do things you've never had to.

Like sitting down with the kids and discussing a family fast (a worldwide fast!). We've never had such a reason to make space for specific prayer and fasting. 

The kids became so aware that eating really is a thing we do to keep from feeling actual hunger. It is hard sitting in that feeling of hunger.

Not eating is a sacrifice. 

Side note:

Andrew's Zelda obsession is ramping way up. No flattened obsession curves here. He is now dressing up characters.

This is the Rita Champion, Revali. 

The paradox of time.

There is so much of it. We have the gift of time, but are not able to do anything with that time.

But perhaps that is also the gift.  I have been giving the chance to have all the kids squished around me as I read The Witches aloud. (it is a terrible book! haha)  

We woke up to snow falling this morning. 

The whole Earth is like: april fools you dumb humans.

(the snow didn't actually accumulate at our house. this pic is from somewhere else in the valley). 

Ok whatever, I don't even know what I'm talking about in this post. I'll just publish it and in a year I'll read it again and remember the insanity of it all. Maybe this isn't even the insane part. Maybe the insane is yet to come? 

5 years ago