Social Distancing and Emotional Challenges
By Erica and Karen
We totally detest this social distancing directive. We feel lonely locked up in our homes, we hate not inviting friends for a meal, and we feel rude when we cross the street to avoid someone coming in our direction on an otherwise totally empty sidewalk.
But we accept that it is necessary, and in our state it is mandatory. We are extremely anxious for this virus to come under control, and we believe that isolation is a tool we must use.
But we can keep in touch. We can relearn how to use telephonies for speaking to one another. There are all kinds of services that allow us to see one another—FaceTime, Zoom, plenty of others. Last night one of us accompanied her daughter remotely while she went grocery shopping. It was fun to see what kinds of things she now likes to cook—though it was disturbing to realize there seems to be not one egg in any grocery store in the entire state of Maine. (Difficult to make chocolate chip cookies without eggs.) We have never been invited on such a trip before!
We are also most impressed with all the online options to keep us educated or amused. Mood, our favorite fabric store, has tons of patterns, if you are into sewing. The Metropolitan Opera is streaming a different opera each evening. The 92nd St Y has all kinds of online classes you can take no matter where you are. The Colony Theater in Miami has an online Master Class series for those of you interested in theater, and Playbill is offering fifteen plays to watch at home. The New York Public Library has over 300,000 books available online. The Museum of Modern Art is offering online classes. Yoga instructors are doing classes on Zoom and others are offering free online classes. Or you can dance! Or share cocktails via Zoom FaceTime or Houseparty. And if you just need to chill, you can find meditation or anxiety relief online too.
There are even online resources to address the fact that many of us are going to look less than perfect if we can’t see our favorite hair stylist and colorist for a while. Many are listed here.
And of course, if you are ambitious, there are many online learning resources:
And do not forget podcasts, while you are inventing new bean dishes. Especially The Lustre Life.
None of this will make the distress all around us go away, but we do need to stay level and keep from succumbing to that distress. These tools will help.
What are you doing to stay sane?