Week 3

Social distancing continues here in Finland. The Helsinki region (Uusimaa) has been blocked off from the rest of the country (they have by far the most cases in the country so the closure is an effort to reduce the spread of the virus). The closure of schools and libraries, etc. has been extended from 13 April to 13 May. People are propping up teddy bears or other stuffed animals in windows for the amusement of kids who walk by (the cutie in the photo above was spotted yesterday near Littoinen Lake). And everything is still cancelled. I am leaving it all on my calendar to remind myself of what the structure of daily life used to look like. At first I was writing in ‘cancelled’ on individual events but now, I’m just leaving them as they are.

I’m keeping a list of Things We Used To Do, like “bring a kid along to the grocery store” or “wear high heels” or “go inside other people’s houses.” I am also keeping a list of The Last Times, like the last movie we saw in the theater (Emma with the kids in Stockholm in February), or the last time we ate in a restaurant (at a campus cafeteria with Jeremy on March 10th, which in retrospect seems really late!).

Jeremy and I are working and teaching from home. The girls are doing school from home - at first they kept the exact schedule they had in the Before Times, but now they both have slightly modified/streamlined schedules (still with every subject, though, and still occupying the length of a normal school day). Sterling’s preschool teacher does activities on Teams a couple of days a week.

We have isolation-purchased:
1. an iPad (on DAY ONE)
2. a printer
3. new…pencil…cases (dang insta targeted ads)
4. books

All of us trying to do our work and school from home is really hard. Our house is small and while that is usually just fine, in these exceptional circumstances we don’t have enough rooms with doors that close. Which is why I did the unthinkable and (skip this part if you are Finnish) turned our sauna into a standing desk/office for myself. The internet doesn’t reach there so I can’t do Zoom live lectures, but I can record lectures in there and work in peace. It even has a window! And its own attached bathroom!

One morning when I was mimicking preschool’s “circle time” for Sterling, I asked “the class” (Sterling + some stuffies and lego guys) if there was anything they wanted to ask or share. Sterling said, “Mama, not SHARE, there’s coronavirus!!!”

I think social isolation feeds the darker angels of my nature. I am an introvert and need very little in-person social interaction to thrive. There is part of me that LOVES that all the mundane day-to-day stuff is cancelled. Who even wanted to do all that, anyway, right? I find myself getting irritated when people try too hard to draw us all out again in complicated distance-y ways. I miss the fulfillment of going to work and interacting with colleagues and students, but I don’t miss, like, being in charge of things that start after 17.00, or that involve any degree of wrangling.

We now spend days and days writing a grocery list. The stakes are so high now so we don’t want to forget anything! And then it’s a game to see how long we can go between trips.

I learned the Renegade TikTok dance.

What do things look like in your area?