Living Through a Pandemic

 Although we do really miss traveling, that seems rather trivial compared to what some are suffering, so we try not to complain. When the Coronavirus pandemic began in the USA, experts advised that the only way to control the virus was to wear masks, socially distance, sanitize, and stay away from other people as much as possible.  For a few weeks, restaurants, bars, churches, theaters, and churches were all closed.  Politicians, realizing that this approach was difficult for the populace and might hurt the economy, began pushing for the country to open back up.  The experts advised that any opening should be done gradually in stages with strict compliance to guidelines.   

The populace then began taking sides.  Some listened to the experts and some listened to the politicians.  As a result, the country became divided.   

Here at our house, we listened to the experts.  Since the 1st of March, we have not eaten in restaurants, have not been in church, have seldom been in a store, doing most of our shopping online or ordering online for curbside pickup.  We have limited our personal contacts with close family and friends.  This summer we did a lot of socially distanced outside visiting.  We always wear masks when we go out and stay away from those who do not. 

I realize this was easier for us than some.  We are retired and do not have to go to work.  Our incomes were not affected.  But for the most part, we have adjusted.  It is difficult at times, but we believe that the stricter we are about following the advice of the experts, the sooner this will be over for all of us.  We believe in doing our part.   

One of the things we miss the most is traveling.  Since we retired, we have been doing two trips a year.  One in the spring and one in the fall.  As a matter of fact, we had just returned from a trip abroad a few weeks before the shutdown began in this country.  Normally, soon after returning from that trip and resting a bit, we would have started planning for our next trip. A big part of our lives was planning our trips, getting ready for a trip, or going on a trip.  

A Free Range Childhood

I had never been into kids very much until my oldest daughter was born, so I wasn’t paying much attention to other people’s kids. I didn’t know what the norm was for dressing babies so I just dressed her in what seemed sensible. 

Frilly little dresses didn’t seem sensible on a baby who couldn’t walk. She was born in the middle of winter and I thought her legs would be cold in dresses. So I mostly kept her in little sleepers or something practical. 

But Grandmother was of a different mind so there eventually were frilly dresses available. 

As soon as my daughter was old enough it was the frilly dresses she always wanted to wear. She was a cute little kid and it was fun to dress her up like that. I had always liked dolls, so I relented and let her be frilly. ‘Prissy’ her little sister and I came to call her. 

When the little sister came, her big sister and I had great fun dressing her up as our little doll. And as soon as she was old enough she too had her own mind. Frilly was never her style. When she was two years old she asked Santa Claus for a pair of blue jeans and an alligator. I managed to find her a little stuffed alligator that year for Christmas. 

 I still have that alligator somewhere. It’s a reminder that children are not our creations, but gifts.

My Creative Awakening

Early in my life, I discovered that I could draw. More specifically I could draw the Campbell's Soup Kids, those cute, round-faced cartoon characters used by the Campbell's Soup Company to advertise their products. When I learned I could reproduce those faces it was an ah-ha moment for me. Then I began to see if I could reproduce other objects.

I soon learned that Campbell's Soup Kids were easy to reproduce compared to other things. Just draw a circle and put the cute little eyes, nose and mouth on and you had a Campbell's Soup Kid. No worries about shading or perspective. Other things were a little more complicated.

These difficulties didn't stop me, however. I kept trying. Give me some pencils and a sketch pad and I was a happy kid. I even sought out books and materials to help me learn about shading and such. Then when I was about eleven or twelve I got a Jon Gnagy Learn to Draw book. One of the best Christmas gifts I ever received. And I practiced and practiced and practiced using that book.

Over time, I got a little better. I never thought I was great. I just thought I loved drawing.

Achieving a Little Recognition....

When I was in high school, my school added art to the curriculum for the very first time. I signed up, of course, but so did many other students who had no interest in art but thought this would be an easy class. Our teacher, who was a novice at teaching, was a good instructor but not so good at controlling the students' behavior, so the class was often bedlam.

In spite of the bedlam, I still loved this class. I was learning about art.

Our poor teacher left teaching after that year, but at the end of the year before he left he sent in a recommendation for me to attend a workshop that was being offered at our state university during the summer break for art students with promise.

....and Failure

I was excited to attend this workshop that was being taught by a couple of award winning artists, but I was a shy little teenager and more than a little nervous about being there. I had been the best art student in my small high school, but I was in class with other 'best art students' from across the state. Right away, I began comparing myself to these other students and came out on the losing end.

By the time I left that workshop that summer I was asking myself, "Why did I think I was any good at art?" I decided I was wasting my time pursuing art. I quit drawing. It was one of the worst decisions I ever made. I still regret it.

Moving On

During this period of my life, though, I was dealing with interests other than art. Besides dealing with the normal teenage angst about dating and fitting in, I was returning to high school to finish my senior year and begin thinking about college. And there were other high school classes besides art that appealed to me.

I may be biased about this, but it seems to me the best high school teachers are often the English teachers. That was certainly true in my case. My English teacher, Mrs. Fraim, was a pleasant, intelligent, long-time teacher with a genuine love of literature, the English language, and her students. Some students complained because she could also be quite demanding in her requirements. One of her requirements was that we write a paper almost every week while in her class.

Mrs. Fraim's requirements never seemed demanding to me. I took to the writing the same way I had taken to art. It was definitely more fun than conjugating verbs. And if Mrs. Fraim liked your writing, she was good aboout singing your praises. That always helps.

I suppose it was good there were no summer workshops for writing students in our universities because this enjoyment of writing stayed with me and served me well all through my university years. I even liked the essay tests in college that most students complained about.

The culmination of my writing career in college was the Advanced Composition course my last semester before graduation. Our professor in this class audaciously asked us to take the articles from The Atlantic magazine and see if we could improve them based on the principles he was illustrating. I loved it.

I Need to Be Alone

I was 2 1/2 years old when my younger sister was born and knew nothing about what was going on. During my mom's delivery of the baby, I went to stay with Granny who lived just up the road from us.

After the baby was born, they brought me back home, and I was very surprised to find this small unknown creature in bed with my mom.  So, sitting there beside them I began to cry and told my mom, "I want to go back to Granny's house". 

I didn't return to Granny's house, and eventually adjusted to this new creature who had joined out family. I learned, not just how to tolerate her, but also how to help her out. Since she had a limited vocabulary, I would often have to talk for her and to tell other family members what she wanted, like another cookie. 

As a result of my talking for her, she was a little later in talking than I and my siblings had been. But she eventually learned to talk for herself, and we remained close throughout our childhood. We also had two cousins living nearby who were close to us in age. There were four of us. I was the oldest of the four, and my younger sister was the youngest, so there was always someone around to play with. Loneliness was not something I experienced very often. If no one else was around there was always little sister Ann to play with. There were times, however, when I just wanted to be alone.

One day when Ann and I were out playing in the woods beside our house, I decided I wanted to climb the tree beside the area in the woods where we were playing house. We had made us a little house there at the bottom of the tree.

The tree was a tulip poplar tree with limbs close together making it easy to climb. Even though I was small, hiking my foot up to the bottom limb was easy enough. We had climber this tree so often that the bottom limb was broken off leaving just enough room to place my barefoot. All the limbs up the tree were close enough together that I could reach them easily.

When I got to the top of the tree, I held on to the trunk as the wind blew the trunk back and forth. 

I was holding on to the trunk and enjoying the thrill the tree was providing when I heard my little sister whining for me to come down. 

I can still remember many years later, the thrill of the sway of that tree and my annoyance at my little sister whining.

I learned that day that I can be very close to people but still value my independence.