{"id":38058,"date":"2023-03-25T00:01:07","date_gmt":"2023-03-25T07:01:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/?p=38058"},"modified":"2026-06-06T05:55:22","modified_gmt":"2026-06-06T05:55:22","slug":"tales-from-the-pandemic-shut-down","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/tales-from-the-pandemic-shut-down\/","title":{"rendered":"Tales From the Pandemic Shut-Down — It’s Been Three Years"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"tales<\/a>
Tales from the pandemic shut-down: Tough self-distancing rules and a handwashing station were posted outside Rocky’s Market<\/a> in the San Francisco Bay Area during the earliest days of the pandemic. Photo by Barbara Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

Remember 202o? It’s been three years now since we were instructed to stay away from people and wash our hands like mad. So much fear. So many lives lost. So many hospitals crowded with covid victims struggling to breathe.<\/p>\n

And, for those of us who escaped contagion — so much disruption, so little contact with the people we loved.<\/p>\n

Tales From the Pandemic Shut-Down<\/strong><\/h5>\n

There wasn’t a lot to do during the long months of 2020. Our gym was closed. We got our food delivered. Work on our remodel-in-progress came to a halt. So I began a weekly diary — the Sheltering at Home Chronicles.<\/p>\n

And it’s a good thing I did, because those strange and frightening months — so vivid in the living of them — are beginning to fade from memory. To help me recall those days, I looked up some of my tales from the pandemic shut-down.<\/p>\n

Here’s one of them:<\/p>\n

My Coronavirus Nightmare:<\/h4>\n

I\u2019m in a Crowd of People and I Forgot My Mask<\/h4>\n
\"tales<\/a>
Unmasked. Photo by Christina Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

The Sheltering at Home Chronicles. May 13, 2020. Week 9<\/strong><\/p>\n

My psyche is no slouch. It\u2019s keeping up with current events, and it\u2019s invented a coronavirus nightmare to match the times.<\/p>\n

To wit: I\u2019m out in a crowd, I forgot my mask, coronaviruses are lurking everywhere, and I can\u2019t find my way home to solitude and safety.<\/p>\n

Friends report having the same brand new nightmare, with variations on the theme. A neighbor tells me she frets in her sleep that her adult son has wandered off into a crowd of people. Nobody is wearing a mask, and she can\u2019t call him back.<\/p>\n

I had no idea the human unconscious was so smart. But apparently, our underbrains are tuning into the news along with our waking brains, and right now they seem to be doing a quick and timely update on that anxiety dream classic \u2014 \u201cI\u2019m at the Office and I\u2019m Stark Naked.\u201d<\/p>\n

No matter how much we deep breathe, meditate or pray. No matter how much we unload our troubles into the kindly ears of generous friends and therapists. No matter how evolved we strive to be, it seems we can\u2019t outsmart those unconsciouses of ours. Our anxieties find ever new ways to track us down and arrange for us do the \u2014 necessary? \u2014 middle-of-the-night worrying.<\/p>\n

\n

\"coronavirus-nightmare<\/a>
Coronavirus construction site rules posted next to our front door. Fever? Chills? Cough? It\u2019s enough to give you nightmares.<\/figcaption><\/figure>
<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n
Terrible Toothy Fox<\/strong><\/h5>\n

My anxiety dreams have morphed over the years. At age 8, it was \u201cThere\u2019s a Terrible Toothy Fox Under My Bed and He\u2019s Going to Get Me.\u201d A few years later it was, \u201cA Bad Guy Is Chasing Me and My Feet Are Stuck in the Mud.\u201d<\/p>\n

In college it was \u201cIt\u2019s the Second Week of My Renaissance Poetry Class and I Can\u2019t Find the Syllabus.\u201d<\/p>\n

Later in the semester it might have been, \u201cI\u2019ve Got a Midterm at 8 a.m. and I Can\u2019t Find the Classroom.\u201d<\/p>\n

Either that or, \u201cIt\u2019s 8 a.m., I\u2019ve Found the Classroom, and I\u2019m Stark Naked.\u201d<\/p>\n

As my dad, who assembled his armory of idioms early in the 20th century, would say, \u201cYou can\u2019t win for losing.\u201d<\/p>\n

Our Ever-Vigilant Psyches<\/strong><\/h5>\n

Human beings are kind creatures. We\u2019re also greedy, creative, xenophobic and off-the-charts smart.<\/p>\n

But, when all is said and done, we are creatures. We are creatures forever on the look-out for the bad things that can happen. No matter how safe and sound we think we are in our tidy 21st-century modernity bubble, there are indeed Toothy Foxes out there. There are Bad Guys. There are Coronaviruses.<\/p>\n

(There aren\u2019t that many naked people, however. We might be working from home these days, but most of us remember to get dressed before heading to the home office.)<\/p>\n

But \u2014 thanks to our ever-vigilant psyches \u2014 we are ready for the day. We\u2019ve done all our worrying during the night. We\u2019ve got our masks at the ready, and we won\u2019t be caught with our pants down. Not today.<\/p>\n

More about that remodel at “Too Many Walls — and Not Enough Bathrooms — at Our House.”<\/a>\u00a0 To see the finished product, go to “Hey, HGTV Fans. Take a Look at Our Remodel.”<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"tales<\/a><\/p>\n

Memories of the strange and frightening months of quarantine are fading. Is it time to retell those tales of the pandemic shut-down?\u00a0 Read more.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":49072,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[50,41],"tags":[2623,34,2681,82,2682,2683,2684],"class_list":["post-38058","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-on-writing-reading","category-sheltering-at-home-chronicles","tag-covid","tag-dont-miss","tag-masks","tag-on-the-funny-side","tag-pandemic-shut-down","tag-rockys-market","tag-sheltering-at-home-chronicles"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38058","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=38058"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38058\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":49073,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/38058\/revisions\/49073"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/49072"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=38058"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=38058"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=38058"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}