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How is the coronavirus pandemic affecting your life right now? Tell us about your experiences, feelings, and thoughts.
One of the initial skills that my first grade teacher instilled in her students was the ability to “line up” quickly and quietly. No pushing. No shoving. No breaking in line. Some 60 years later, these lessons have come rushing back to me because…well…lines are a part of everyday life during COVID-19. Since March 2020, we have braved long, sluggish voting lines, registration lines, vaccination lines, toilet paper lines and store checkout lines alongside other masked and (hopefully) appropriately distanced individuals. My fellow earthlings and I have now become professional queuers who understand more than ever before the physical, social and psychological forces at play each time we shuffle through seemingly interminable lines. And as Mrs. A preached to me decades ago, proper queue etiquette is defined by courtesy, tolerance and patience.
March 12, 2021
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Who do you trust most -- either in the news or in your personal life -- to explain what is going on right now? Tell us about why you trust them.
We actually upped the number of days we subscribe to print news because I am clinging to the news as a place for information that is reliable and factual. We actually get two papers -- the local and the New York Times -- and I toggle between them for local and national/global stories. I also really appreciate our governor (Inslee in WA) and trust him because he is listening to experts and scientists. My friends are all over the gamut and feel less objective to me. A lot of what I am experiencing from them (and in my own life too) is so situation dependent, and so I am trying to stay above what they are saying/doing and stick with the higher level recommendations from the state and city officials. So, for example, we cancelled a trip to CA for Thanksgiving because WA, OR and CA issued travel advisories, but we have a (masked, gloved) cleaning person who comes twice a month (and we always wear masks when she is there, or just leave so she can be alone), which is allowed according to the state recommendations. My mom watches a ton of CNN and she makes me crazy with all of her secondhand news reports. Everything is a crisis. She teases me that I don't watch TV and therefore don't know how bad it is but I have always preferred newspapers because the news is vetted and the ink has been allowed to dry so it tends to be less sensational. It also reminds me that there is more out there than just COVID and I can digest it at my own pace (sometimes the Sunday paper takes me a week). I am so grateful Biden won the election and hope that he is able to thread the needle between keeping the economy open and people healthy, and between the people who trust science and the people who don't seem to. I think having an adult in charge who seems to really want the best for all people is a good place to start and I think I will trust what his administration says about what to do. One last thing -- when I think about trust, I also think about the vaccines that are being tested, and my trust level on that is low, not because they started under the previous administration but because they were rushed, and that makes me very nervous. I have read articles in which doctors say they will be first in line and others where nurses say they aren't running to get a vaccine until more testing has been done. So on that I am a little relieved I am in the last category of eligible people to receive a vaccine so I can delay the decision. I vaccinate for everything else, but this feels different.
November 25, 2020