Mother’s day – May 10, 2020

I just came home from a driveway visit at my brother’s house with the family to have a gathering for mother’s day. My mom asked me last week if would could have a bbq and eat in my brother’s garage. No, we are not there yet. I think whether you are in 70’s, 40’s or youth or young person, we are all feeling the impact of isolation. 

If you are an introvert, there are many aspects of isolation you may be perfectly okay with and even when life opens up to the new normal, you may be content to let everyone else go out for a while before you join in on the new way of living in this Covid-19 world we are now in.

I am the president of my condo board. We used to have monthly meetings and with our shared board, quarterly meetings in our party room. Last week we had our first zoom meeting as a group. Moving forward we are going to have meetings this way. The condominium associate of Ontario is also moving towards virtual Annual General Meetings.

When I worked in the office, we had weekly team meetings. Those of us in the office would head down to the basement to one of our training rooms while those on the west coast or working from home would call into the meeting. Now we are all remote so we are all calling into our zoom meeting weekly. (post to follow regarding office work).

I made two stop today en route to my brother’s house. First stop was the What a Bagel near my condo. A very small take out area to begin with, and even with mindfulness of space, I feel it was hard to maintain a 2 metre distance between patrons. The staff have really adapted to the new way of ordering, which is involves them to take the bakery orders verbally and bag the bagels or any other bakery item you would like. Waiting in the small area of the store for folks to put lox or tuna on their bagels and then waiting to pay that was a little too close and not quite 2 metres. When I left, the line was out the door and down the sidewalk. Good timing.

Second stop was Centre Street Deli. I was placing orders for three houses. There were two lines, those for pick up (already ordered) and those like me for walk in ordering. It was very civilized but you can tell that they were very busy. Again, it was hard to find a place that was 2 metres apart from the next person. I am finding in stores that have it clearly marked people obey, where it is not clearly marked, people seem to make their own 2 metre calculations.

After a couple of phone calls to try to make a few in person socially distant visits (not successful) I am back at home and tucked in for the night. I have been thinking about all the lessons we are learning and have yet to learn about this time on our lives.

I just looked up synonyms for Isolation in Merriam Webster – Aloneness, insulation, privacy, secludeness, solitariness, solitude, seclusion. I think all of them are true.If you in a home with a family you may not find this time a period of solitude. If you are alone during this time, you may find this time full of seclusion.

Wherever you are on this journey, we are all in this together. We are still very much in it, no matter when the government tells us it is “okay” to dip our toes in the water. If you are not ready, don’t. We need to stay on guard for our personal safety and the safety of the ones we love.

Until next time,