Back in Business

For the first time in six weeks, I'm sitting in Honest Coffee Roasters having a cup of coffee before work.  In my own mug, mind you, but still.  And my baristas are wearing masks.  And there are only a couple of other patrons in the shop and they're maintaining their distance from me and me from them.

Social distance.

So, here I am again.  I'm set to mediate a case - day 2 - in less than an hour and I'm having a cup of coffee beforehand at my favorite coffee shop in the world.  Anthony - a world class, touring drummer - is making coffee drinks this morning, wearing his purple baseball cap.

It's like I never left.  And, maybe, just maybe, it's like the last six weeks and the coronavirus never happened.  Just for a minute, anyway.  Soon enough, it's back out to the real world.  NPR and NYT stories about death, PPE and mask shortages, and hardship.

But now, just for a moment, I'm going to sit here and enjoy my coffee.

Like a normal person.

Reentry

Strangely enough, now comes the hard part of social distancing and dealing with the scourge that is the coronavirus.

Reentry.

In a little more than a week, Tennessee's governor, Bill Lee, and several other governors of southern states, are going to life the stay at home orders and begin to open up the economy, whatever the hell that mean.  As if the economy is like the water at our house.  Turn it off, then turn it on again.

For someone like me - someone who takes this disease seriously - and is afraid of getting it and dying from it, returning to business as usual is a frightening prospect.  I get the idea that at some point business have to reopen in some form or fashion.  In my view, though, the better move would have been to continue with the stay at home order through the month of May.  Another month would have given the U.S. additional time to ramp up testing capacity and for citizens to continue to flatten the curve, as they say, by social distancing.

Now, though, warmer weather is here and our local and state leaders - and our feckless president, Donald Trump - are banging the economic drum, as a result of which people are gathering in groups, failing to move aside and let others pass by (at least 6 feet away), and, I'm sure, relaxing the good hygiene habits we all learned the last two months.  In other words, people are letting their guards down because they want to believe that the worst of this is behind us.

I hope that's the case but I'm afraid it's not.  I think the coronavirus is going to come roaring back as many people foolishly return to old habits and stop social distancing in there every day lives.  Way too few people are wearing masks in public, especially at grocery stores or during curbside pickup at restaurants of coffee shops.

I'm not ready to leave the cocoon of safety that Jude and I have created for our family - for the boys - in our house and neighborhood.  I'm not ready to break the new routines we've developed.  Lots of time to ourselves, lots of movies and reading, and lots of board game playing.  I'm not ready to go back into the office every day and work in close contact with people that work for me, with clients, and other attorneys.  I don't think it's safe.  Not yet.

The boys are out of school for the rest of the year.  All schools in Tennessee are out of school the rest of the year.  If it's not safe enough to send the kids back to school, how can it be safe enough to return everyone to work?  It doesn't make sense to me.  What are people - people like us - going to do for childcare in May?  Stay home, somehow, with J.P. and Joe, or entrust their care to someone else who may infect them, make them sick, and make us sick.  It's a terrible situation to be in, not just for us, of course, but for so many families.

What a mess.

So many questions.  So few answers.

Outrunning the Coronavirus

As I write this, I'm sitting on my back deck, sipping a glass of a good cabernet, listening to Wayne Shorter's classic, "Speak No Evil" (recommendation courtesy of my favorite professional drummer/barista, Anthony, from Honest Coffee Roasters).  I'm grilling pork tenderloin.

Jude and the boys are at Beaman Park, a recent Metro Nashville Parks discovery of ours.  Joe took "crawfish nets" and a few minutes ago, Jude texted me a photo of a crawfish in Joe's net.

I'm content at the present moment and, frankly, I haven't felt too much contentment lately.  So it's nice.

___________________________________  

For more than 30 years, I've been a runner, as anyone who reads this blog knows.  I run to stay sane.  I run to get rid of stress, personal and professional.  I run to process grief - especially the last few years.  I run to feel better about myself.  I run to try and stay fit and youthful, so I can keep up with two young, active boys, 12 and 8 years old.  I run so I have time to think, and think deeply, about things that are important to me.  I run to feel closer to my creator.  

I run because, well, I have to run.   

Running is a form of meditation for me.  It always has been.  It still is.

Early on in the coronavirus crisis - and, for me, that was probably early or mid-February - I began to joke, sort of, and say I was going to outrun the coronavirus.  My thought process was that since the coronavirus seemed to hit hardest were those tragic people who had diminished lung capacity, preexisting health conditions, obesity issues, diabetes, I needed to get myself in the best shape I could.  So, I figured, I would run more, longer, and faster.

Not that it's logical or makes any sense but I thought if I can pound 4, 5, or 6 miles at 8 minutes or so per mile - like I could in my late 20's - that would prove my lungs were in good shape and I was healthy.  Then, if I got the coronavirus, I would have a better chance of surviving and maybe, just maybe, the symptoms I experienced wouldn't be as horrible as advertised.

In other words, as usual, I was running to stay sane.  

This morning, I got a text from one of my oldest and best friends, Mike Matteson.  Normally, he's a go to they gym, weightlifting kind of guy, at least 5 days a week.  He runs occasionally but not regularly or seriously.  However, for the past month or so, with his gym closed, he's started running a lot.  Anyway, he texted me a photo from his running app, probably Strava, that indicated he had run four miles at an 8:00 minute per mile pace.

I had planned to run four or five miles later, anyway, but Mike's text got me fired up because, of course, I'm competitive.  Very competitive.  

When I laced up my Saucony running shoes early afternoon and walked outside, the weather was perfect.  Low to mid-50's, sunshine, and an unimaginably blue sky.  I adjusted my wireless Beat earbuds, selected my favorite playlist - the Haunting - on Spotify, and off I went, thinking I'd run fairly hard to Elmington Park off West End Ave., and back, and that I'd just see how I felt.

No pressure.  Okay, some pressure, knowing I was going to push myself.  But that's a good feeling, too, a real good feeling.  Not all of the time on every run because it would be mentally exhausting.  Sometimes, though, it's nice to start a run, knowing you're going to push it, knowing it won't be easy, and knowing you might feel a little pain.  That's the part - for me, anyway - that I love because it makes me stronger.  

My Runkeeper App tells me where I am, distance and pace, every 5 minutes.  I crosscheck what Runkeeper tells me with my Suunto watch.  My first 5 minutes, I was running under 7:45/mile, and after that, I just started pushing harder and picked up the pace.  I ran hard up the hills on Fairfax and coasted down the hills, letting my legs do the work. 

I ran fast and I felt strong.  Having run for so long, I intuitively know what kind of pace I'm running 

and whether I can hold it.  I decided to run 5 miles at 7:30/mile or under.  A hard pace but not a race pace.  I could have gone faster if I had wanted to really push myself, but there was no need.  

In the end, I finished near Portland Brew on 12th Avenue and clocked 5 + miles at a 7:19/mile pace, with gas left in the tank.  I felt great when I finished, endorphins flowing.  

This is why I run, I thought.  So many runs, so many years running, searching for a run like this.  They don't come often but when they do, it's special.  A "top ten run," I call them.

So, a great run yesterday, maybe the best of the year so far.  And I'm going to outrun the coronavirus.

  

The Good Things

As strange as it is, when and if our lives began to return to normal, there are some aspects of social distancing and all that comes with it that I will remember fondly.

Things have slowed down for me as it relates to work, although not too much.  What I have enjoyed, though, it not going into work most days.  Working from home has been different but not necessarily own a bad way.  I'm camped out in my office upstairs.  I can turn on some music, close my door, and work uninterrupted for the most part.  That, of course, is unlike what happens when I go to the office, where I'm constantly interrupted throughout the day.

It's not so easy for Jude, I don't think.  Her "office" is at the dining room table downstairs.  She's on conference calls throughout the day, which I know is exhausting.  The challenge she and her team face - how to manage daycare during a healthcare crisis and under a stay at home order - is immense and unprecedented.  No blueprint and no easy answers, for sure.  I admire her for how hard she works every day, how much she cares, and for how much of herself she puts into her job with the State of Tennessee's Department of Human Services.

While I've missed coaching baseball and watching the boys play soccer terribly, I have enjoyed the down time - the family time - that necessarily accompanies the boys not having any extracurricular activities.  That's lead to relaxed dinners at home followed by movies afterwards.  As a family, we've watched several series on Netflix or Amazon Prime - Sunderland 'til I Die; All or Nothing:  New Zealand All Blacks; and Formula 1:  Drive to Survive.  We even watched both nights of Wrestlemania 36, much to Jude's dismay.

We've played board games on weekends.  Jude and I won the first round of the "Family Olympics," but it as close.  Closing ceremonies and Opening Ceremonies (for round two) were yesterday on Easter Sunday.  The boys took the early lead in the gold medal count by beating Jude and me 3 out 5 games in UNO.

The boys and I - especially Joe - have played a lot of Trouble, and I almost always win.  It's a sentimental favorite of mine amongst all of the board games, mostly because my mom used to play it with me every day in California before I walked across the street for kindergarten at Kling Elementary School.  Good memories.

Joe finally beat me in Battleship and took the title of Admiral away from me.  He had been so close to winning in the past and he finally took me late one afternoon last week, as Jude and JP played badminton in the backyard.

Across the street from us, our neighbors, Chip and Heathie Cox, graciously allowed the boys to use their basketball court.  It turns out they're hunkered down in Alabama with their children and Jude reached them by e-mail.  That's been a godsend, as the boys can walk across the street and shoot the basketball while Jude and I work.  The boys and I have played "around the world" almost every day and JP and Joe have gotten quite good at it.  JP and I have been playing a lot of "horse," too.

Maybe my favorite thing to do has been listening to Jude read Harry Potter to the boys.  She's reading to Joe but JP can't help but listen in.  Last night, the three of them sat together on the couch as she read and I watched (and listened) from the kitchen, as I made dinner.

In a time like this, that's all you can really do, I guess.  Keep your family close, have faith that things will be okay, and enjoy the time together.

Morning Constitutional

As I sit here in my spot at the end of 12th Avenue, early Saturday morning, sipping my coffee from Portland Brew and listening to the birds singing on Easter weekend, I can almost forget that the world has stopped turning.  It's spring, the leaves in the tress in Sevier Park are green and, although it's cool this morning - the temperature is in the upper 30's - people are out walking and running.

My reverie, of course, is interrupted by the thought that less than five miles away from where I sit, people are dying of COVID-19 at Vanderbilt Hospital as doctors and nurses work around the clock to save them.  How can that be?  On Easter weekend, no less.

It's hard for me because I've always been a fatalist and a bit of a hypochondriac owing, no doubt, to the fact that my father died of hepatitis at the age of 30.  As I've said to friends and acquaintances more than once as of late, if I only knew that I wasn't going to die from COVID-19 and that no one I knew was doing to die from it, it would be easier for me to think more deeply about and, yes, appreciate the positive aspects of the temporary changes in my life.

And I do realize that's an entirely selfish thought, as thousands of people across the country and the world have died, and will die, from COVID-19.

My personal hope, though, is that at some point my life will return to a sense of normalcy, and the two to three months, maybe more, of social isolation and social distancing, will recede to a distant place in my memory.  Then and only then, perhaps I'll be able to have a better sense of perspective and to recall, even fondly, a few of the positive aspects of these troubled times, at least as they relate to me and my family.

For now, we're in it, and I'm scared.  Scared that I'll get sick and die, alone at Vanderbilt Hospital.  Scared that Jude and the boys will get sick, or Jude's parents.  Just scared.  That makes it hard, in the present moment, to look for and find - and to think deeply about - things I can and should appreciate about my life the past few weeks and, most likely, for the next few weeks to come.

Literally, as I type this, a truck drive across the street - Mid-South Produce Distributors - is walking around the outside of his truck, wearing a mask.  That's something I never thought I would see if you would have asked me three months ago.  Not in a million years.

The New Normal

I am by an a large a creature of habit.  So, in the midst of the COVID-19 crisis and the importance of social distancing, I have a new routine.  Of course I do.

Each morning I get up early and drive a few blocks to Portland Brew on 12th Avenue.  Thankfully, my neighborhood coffee shop has stayed open, although it's to go only.  As of this weekend, no one is allowed inside.  They pushed the counter up to the door and created a de facto walk-up window, complete with a large piece of plexiglass in a stand on the counter.  The effect is a bit unnerving, to be sure.

In three weeks, Portland Brew has gone from a friendly, open, welcoming coffee shop in the heart of 12South to a walk-up, to go coffee stand where it's difficult to interact with the baristas.  And I'm completely fine with that if not a little sad.  It's a sign of the time and, most importantly, it's not forever.

After I get my latte in a paper cup - the baristas aren't allowed pour it into my thermos - I transfer it into my thermos, throw the paper cup away, and drive a few more blocks down to the residential-retail complex adjacent to Burger Up at the end of 12th Avenue.  There are two comfortable porch chairs outside Ceri Hoover, an upscale purse store that I'd never noticed until recently.  I sit down, pour my thermos of coffee into a mug, and read.  The New Yorker, the New York Times.  Or, now, I write.

The sun rises directly across from me, in the east.  Just how it's peaking over the roof of Epice, a Lebanese bistro that's one of my favorite places to eat in our neighborhood.  If I look slightly to my right, I see White's Mercantile.  And, further to the right, Sevier Park.  I hear the birds chirping happily, lots of them, almost like it's a normal spring Sunday morning.

Except, of course, it's not, as evidenced by the fact that the bus driver who just drove by was wearing a mask.  It's like something out of a science fiction movie.  The new normal.

I miss seeing the regulars in the morning at Portland Brew.  On a typical morning when the world is turning on its axis just so, all of the regulars sit in the same place, including me.  I don't talk to any of them other than to say to smile, nod, or say hello.  Still, we share a common bond, sitting in Portland Brew, laptops open, answering e-mail, reading, or writing.  At least, to me, we do, and I miss it terribly.

For now, though, this will have to do.  A new morning routine for me.  A chance for me to think more deeply than I can at home with all of us on top of each other.  A chance for me to just clear my head.  A chance for me to be overtaken by a sense of gratitude that, for now, my family is healthy and I am healthy.  I chance for me to hope - and maybe even say a silent prayer - that we're all going to survive this and be okay.

I guess, in the end, it's important for me to establish a new routine.  I take comfort in that, probably because it makes me feel like even in a time of such uncertainty - a time of seemingly random sickness and death - I am in control, at least of one aspect of my life.

Social Distance

Social distance.

Two words that have changed my world.

In the midst of global pandemic as a result of the spread of COVID-19, aka the coronavirus, I haven't written anything in a month.  So much has happened.  So much has changes.  It's hard, still, to get my head around it.  As a result, it felt like anything I might write would be trivial, trite, and meaningless.

People around the world, people in the Unites States, and people in Nashville, are dying every day.  By the thousands.  And it's going to get worse before it gets better.  So, I've struggled how to put into words what I'm feeling.

Helplessness.  Sadness.  Fear.  Anxiety.  Anger.  Disbelief.  Suspicious.

All of us, I think, are filled with a maelstrom of emotions.  Every day and every night.

What can we do to help stop the spread of COVID-19?  What can I do?

Social distance.

As a direct result of the need to maintain social distance - at least 6 feet from other not in your family unit - everything has changed on a micro and macro level.

• Jude, the boys, and I haven't seen her parents in weeks.
• St. Patrick has closed, as have all churches.
• The boys school - University School of Nashville - has closed, likely for the rest of the school year, as have all area schools.  JP and Joe are engaged in remote learning, whatever the hell that means.
• The mayor (Nashville) and governor (Tennessee) have issued "stay at home" orders.
• Most coffee shops and restaurants are closed, although some remain open for takeout coffee and food.
• All colleges and universities have closed for the semester.
• All non-essential businesses are closed.  I sent almost everyone home from my office almost three weeks ago.  
• Most people I know are working from home.  In our house, Jude is working at the dining room table, I'm working in my office upstairs, and JP is doing his school work at a desk we set up for him in his room.  Joe floats from room to room (no surprise there).
• There are not live sports.  None.  No March Madness.  No Master's.  No baseball season.  No NBA end of regular season and playoffs.  Nothing.
• The boys' spring sports seasons have been delayed and likely will be canceled.  It's the first time in seven years I haven't had baseball to coach and it's killing me.
• The national - the worldwide - economy has tanked.  A recession is here.
• The sudden rise in unemployment numbers in the Unites States is unprecedented. 
• No play dates, no family gatherings, no sleepovers.  
• There's a shortage of toilet paper.  
• People are hoarding food.  I bought a chest freezer and am stocking it full of meat.

What does it all mean?  I'm trying to figure that out, each and every day.  It's too big to process or to write about with a sense of perspective.  For me, anyway.

I think what I'm going to do, though, is break it down into smaller pieces and write about those pieces.  That's helped me in the past, I think, as I puzzle over the existential questions of life and death.  

And, I hope, maybe I can preserve a record of how I feel during these strange days, something I can read someday and something JP and Joe can read someday, too.  

Stay safe and be well, everyone.