Adapting During the Coronavirus

Our home has become a de facto educational facility

We have all been living in each other's hair for the past three months. The topsy-turvy lifestyle of the Lenius household started when our older daughter, Tacy, had to fly home from Germany the third week of March from her study-abroad program in Germany. One year abroad shrank to seven months abroad. Fortunately, the study portion of the program continues. The school she attended in Munich — Ludwig Maximilian University — wisely decided to provide instruction to students online after the international students got back home, so they would not lose their semester credits. This is important because European semesters are timed differently than US semesters.

Crowded House — the band 

(Little did Crowded House know how relevant their name would become to our family! One of their songs is, "Better Be Home Soon.")

We didn't have a good place in the house for Tacy to attend online classes and do homework, so we set up a desk in the attic, which gave her a private area to think, work and attend Zoom classes. It works great unless it's a hot day, as our house is un-air conditioned. Today she couldn't connect to the WIFI and missed a class. The attic also serves as my home gym, so she and I negotiate who gets to use the attic when. For the most part, she has adapted well and is completing assignments. To add extra spice, all of her classes and homework are in German!

Tacy lets off steam by going out with friends. I hope they are wearing face masks as they go to parks, march in racial discrimination protests and drive around the city. In six short weeks, she will journey back to Portland to move into an apartment with friends and prepare for her junior year at Reed College. It's been nice having her home for a spell!

My younger daughter, Joscelin, didn't have as much life disruption as Tacy, as she lives at home and goes to school in St. Paul, but she still had to adapt. She no longer carpooled with a neighborhood classmate each day, no longer walked from classroom to classroom, and to the lunchroom. She misses the delicious hot lunches she ate (the roasted chicken with mashed potatoes was her favorite). After the school buildings were ordered to be closed, she would shuffle out of bed over to the rocking chair and dial into an online class on Zoom. Rather than sitting in a classroom with 3-D teachers and classmates, she stared at a cel phone with tiny squares showing the faces of her teacher and classmates. It was a challenge trying to learn and do all of her work at home with only her sister, mom and dad around.

Now that school is over, she has the long summer stretching out before her. The summer camp she was signed up for has been converted to an online program, Joscelin refused to attend the online camp.  Much of the appeal was in commuting to the camp's physical location, meeting other kids, and getting away from home for part of the day. She seems content to spend her summer days playing video games, playing D&D weekly and watching videos. Her weekend paper route, weekly cashier job at Lunds, and occasional birthday parties get her out of the house.

The gyms are open again!

A big change for me and David was not having a gym to go to. We put a small gym in the attic, intended for occasional use when getting to the gym was not an option due to lack of time. Then the virus hit and my home gym became my only option! It was a test of my resolve to climb upstairs day after day to work out in solitude and sometimes suffocating heat. For David, the gym closings meant the end to all workouts. For many years he has been a swimmer and hasn't added other types of exercises. After the gyms closed, David did not work out for three months — quite a sacrifice for him.

When the gyms reopened a few weeks ago I was both happy and sheepish. David and I gleefully showed up for a workout on the first day the YMCA reopened one of its branches. What a luxury to work out in a spacious gym with air conditioning and every piece of equipment you could ever want! Who knew I would miss seeing other human beings sweating on the free weights and the stair steppers? But in the back of my mind I thought, "Am I being selfish for working out at a gym if I catch the coronavirus and then give it to someone with other serious health issues?" Every time we cross paths with someone out in public, it is like we are playing Russian roulette with our health and the health of those we come into contact with. My mom is 88 and lives in the apartment downstairs from us. It seems that I endangering her every time I go to a grocery store or the gym. On the other hand, cabin fever is real. If we get so stir-crazy that we want to kill everyone we come into contact with, that is life-threatening, too!

I try to be as safe as I can, wear masks when I go into stores, diligently social distance, go to the gym to keep up my strength and stamina, be a good parent and daughter, stay positive, and take the pandemic one day at a time. I think that's the best any of us can do.