Reluctantly, we decided to send our children to their usual summer day camp -- retooled to follow COVID-era precautions: questions and temperature checks at drop-off, no buses to/from camp, which is a good 1/2 hr away from where most kids live, brown-bag lunches, socializing only in tight groups/pods, masks on staff (but not kids), no late nights or overnights, no hand-clap games, backrubs, or usual camp hugging, touching, or roughhousing. As I write about these restrictions they sound awful. And yet the kids are THRILLED to go there every day. They get away from their cranky and exhausted parents, from the perfectly comfortable house (with a playroom! and a backyard!) where they've been stuck since March, from zooms and screens and nagging and chores. They're swimming in the pool, fishing in the lake, doing dance routines at flagpole, making lanyards and friendship bracelets, and building wooden boxes in woodworking. And they come home filthy and sweaty at the end of each day. It's not normal camp -- for sure. But this little taste of summer is such a blessing, and a gift. This week, Tropical Storm Isaias pummeled the coast and sent them home early one day, only to be stuck at home the next because of power outages and storm damage. In anticipation of the storm, our little one came home with this piece of art yesterday -- marker on a hunk of wood from the woodshop -- and told us it represents a tropical storm. It's chaotic, and beautiful, and a testament to the fact that in this CRAZY time of asinine and criminal political leadership, economic freefall, deeply embedded racism, environmental destruction, etc., little kids are absorbing this mad world -- and, sometimes, refracting it back to us as a place of beauty.
August 10, 2020
Only twice in the past year has any stranger approached me with my permission at all: getting my flu shot and getting my first dose of covid vaccine, both of which happened in the car. Occasionally people come too close to me in passing, especially frightening inside my apartment building. But only those 2 strangers with needles have come near enough to touch me. I feel like all strangers are terrifying and I don't want to be anywhere near them.
March 31, 2021