{"id":41004,"date":"2024-03-16T00:01:20","date_gmt":"2024-03-16T07:01:20","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/barbarafalconernewhall.com\/?p=41004"},"modified":"2026-06-05T12:29:25","modified_gmt":"2026-06-05T12:29:25","slug":"sheltering-at-home-revisited-the-virus-arrives","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/sheltering-at-home-revisited-the-virus-arrives\/","title":{"rendered":"Sheltering at Home Revisited: The Virus Arrives"},"content":{"rendered":"
\n
\"Sheltering<\/a>
Sheltering at home revisited: the virus arrives. Photo by Barbara Newhall<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/header>\n

It was about to arrive. The deadly covid-19 virus was closing in on my home town. There was no stopping it. <\/span>And so, four years ago today, on March 16, 2020, authorities around the San Francisco Bay Area announced a pandemic shut-down.<\/p>\n

Starting at midnight that night, Jon and I and 7 million-plus Bay Area residents were to shelter at home for three weeks beginning March 17. We were to limit “activity, travel and business functions to only the most essential needs . . . . \u201d<\/p>\n

Jon would be 79 in a few days. I would be 78 for a few more months. At our age, what were the odds of surviving covid-19? The estimates were all over the map.<\/p>\n

Some reports put our odds at two percent. Others gave Jon and me a whopping ten percent chance of winding up dead by the end of summer.<\/p>\n

What to Do With the Time I Had Left?<\/strong><\/h5>\n

Were my days numbered? I didn’t know. I started prioritizing, just in case. What would I do with the months, weeks — days? — left to me?<\/p>\n

Spend time with the kids?\u00a0Skype would make that possible.<\/p>\n

Spend time with Jon. No problem. We’d have tons of time together from here on in, some of it of the quality type.<\/p>\n

Get some writing done? Sure. With a world-wide pandemic swirling about me, there’d be lots to write about.<\/p>\n

And so, one month into the shutdown, I wrote this piece.<\/p>\n

\n
\n
I Miss My Friends. But I Miss My Acquaintances More \u2014 Sheltering at Home Week 5<\/h6>\n<\/header>\n
\n
\n
\"I<\/a>
I miss my acquaintances \u2014 including the women who take exercise classes with me at the gym. To its credit, management at the gym has organized on-line Zoom classes, and there\u2019s time at the end of the class to wave hello to my yoga and Zumba classmates. Nice.\u00a0Photo by Jon Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

By Barbara Falconer Newhall\u00a0 April 17, 2020<\/em><\/figure>\n

I miss my friend Jean. We are overdue for a hike at Pt. Reyes. I miss my kids. I miss Peter. I miss Christina. And I\u2019d give anything to be able to scoop up my baby granddaughter and kiss the hair on her head. Do I miss family and friends? Of course. But the thing about family and friends is, you can call them up and chat, and they\u2019ll be glad to hear from you.<\/p>\n

You can\u2019t do that with acquaintances. What\u2019s the phone number of the saleswoman at our neighborhood card shop who\u2019s been selling me birthday cards for years? I don\u2019t know her name, let alone her phone number or email address. She doesn\u2019t know my name either. But she knows exactly who I am.<\/p>\n

You can call up a friend if you are feeling lonesome. How do you call up the saleslady at the Hallmark store?<\/p>\n

I miss my acquaintances. I miss the Zumba ladies at my gym. The short one with freckles, who likes to talk about writing. The redhead, who made me feel at home when I showed up for my first Zumba class ten years ago.<\/p>\n

\"Sheltering<\/a>
Sheltering at home revisited: the virus arrives and I resorted to solo Zumba in the den with the\u00a0 Zumba app<\/a>. Photo by Barbara Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n

I miss all those people who\u2019s names I have to stop and think to remember, who\u2019s jobs and professions I never quite got a handle on. The people I think of as mere acquaintances. Except, it turns out, they aren\u2019t so mere.<\/p>\n

The Dry Cleaner. The Book Group<\/strong><\/h5>\n

The seamstress at the dry cleaners who\u2019s hemmed more than one pair of pants to fit my on-the-short-side legs. The greeter at my church. The friends of friends at parties. The smart people in my super-sized book group \u2014 yes, I might recall what they had to say about \u201cJude the Obscure,\u201d but, no, they aren\u2019t quite friends.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re my acquaintances and I miss them.<\/p>\n

I tried turning on the TV to video stream some Zumba classes. Good dancers. Cool moves. Very slick. And they did get me dancing and working up a nice sweat. But I was practically in tears by the end of the first session, grape-vining across the carpeted floor of our den, all by myself. Those splashy dancers were . . . splashy. But they weren\u2019t my Zumba ladies.<\/p>\n

They weren\u2019t my \u2014 dear to me \u2014 acquaintances.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

More about daughter Christina at “Wedding Dress Shopping — When Your Daughter Lets You Tag Along.”<\/a><\/em>\u00a0 And some words about her adopted city, where she was holed up for the duration, at “Los Angeles — The Good, the Bad and the Truly Ugly.”<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

\"Sheltering<\/a>
My Zumba class — with real people. Photo by Barbara Newhall<\/em><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

\"covid-19-warning\"<\/a><\/p>\n

Sheltering at home revisited: The virus arrives, the shutdowns go into effect, and we find out how much our “mere” acquaintances mean to us.\u00a0 Read more.<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":48813,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10,41],"tags":[2243,2623,34,655,2682,2184,659],"class_list":["post-41004","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-a-case-of-the-human-condition","category-sheltering-at-home-chronicles","tag-acquaintances","tag-covid","tag-dont-miss","tag-friends","tag-pandemic-shut-down","tag-sheltering-at-home","tag-zumba"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41004","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=41004"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41004\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":48818,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/41004\/revisions\/48818"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/48813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=41004"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=41004"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/server.stagingweb3.net\/barbarafalconernewhall\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=41004"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}