______________________________________________________________________________
2020: Pandemic Life
March 11 just before midnight I was packed to leave the next morning for a mini-vacation in Hillsborough NC. We had been hearing of the Coronavirus, but on this night the news seemed to hit far more seriously and personally. I unpacked my suitcase and began an isolation that I carried throughout the rest of the year, and who knows how far into 2021.
I carefully followed the directives to stay at home, and, when necessary to go out, to wear a mask, sanitize hands often, and stay at least six feet apart from everyone else.
March 13 we had a called Session meeting at church and voted to close the doors to in-person activity until further notice. To date, this was the last time I was personally inside the church building, although later it was reopened with extreme protocol in place for those who wanted to gather, only to be closed again about two months later as the local, state, and national virus numbers again surged higher than ever.
Restaurants, gyms, churches, stores, and even schools closed and reopen with safety measures in place, often later to close again, or to tighten the restrictions. Hospital employees remained on the front line, risking their lives daily to care for the sickest. Residential care facilities closed to all visitors, isolating the residents from their loved ones, except through window visits, phone calls, or Zoom. "Zoom," the now most popular on-line face-to-face meeting portal, became a household word.
On March 12 I made a grocery run before settling into isolation, and that was the last time I went inside any store the entire year. Food Lion To Go became my means of shopping. I ordered online twice a month, drove to Food Lion, and an employee would put the groceries in my trunk without me ever getting out of the car. Other shopping I did by ordering on-line. There were a couple of months I never even bought gas.
I learned to cut my own hair (well, "learned" might be an exaggeration). In this photo I was getting an outdoor haircut.
Four times since that March date I picked up restaurant takeout via curb service or food truck, all pre-ordered. Two of those times were for my parents. Once I picked up gift cards via drive-thru. Twice I attended an outdoor Vespers service at church.
In addition I had occasional outside, masked, and distanced (more like 10-20 feet instead of 6) visits with my parents, two with C, one each with L, R, B, and J&S, and one with family at Christmas. I worked out a regular schedule to "double bubble" with D. We would isolate 2 weeks before getting together, then isolate another 2 weeks before being near anyone else. And I walked almost daily, sometimes stopping to chat at a distance with neighbors. Seeing less of each other than usual, my parents and I established a particular Sunday time to call, and my daddy added FaceTime to his skills.
Most of my people time though has been through Zoom. I have averaged a Zoom meeting a day, sometimes none, sometimes three, mostly church related, also Literacy Council tutoring. On Sunday mornings I "attended" church in my pajamas via live stream. Likewise I "attended" multiple concerts and other entertainment productions, live streamed because live audiences were not possible. Some at ticket price, some for donation, some free. It's amazing how much of life can be experienced in front of a computer screen when necessary. It's not like being there, but how different these 9 1/2 months would've been without social technology.
For others the pandemic year has been tragic. Many have lost loved ones. Others have been isolated from loved ones. Many have continued to work daily, putting their own wellbeing, and their family's, in danger. Some have lost businesses and jobs and suffered great financial loss. For me, the most difficult part of the pandemic has been the sadness and guilt of disappointing my parents with outdoor-only visits and no family meals. I've heard others describe similar situations as "cruel." It has been an emotionally difficult time for families, in so many ways.
In April the federal government mailed $1200 "stimulus" checks indiscriminately to most Americans, in compensation for COVID-related financial losses. Because my personal income was not affected by COVID, I donated my $1200, and encouraged others in similar circumstances to consider doing the same. Mine went to Rowan Helping Ministries, The Rowan County United Way COVID relief fund, my church to open a phone line for distance worship access by those with internet, and a few smaller helping funds. I am grateful there are agencies physically helping those most severely affected by the pandemic.
Politically and philosophically, this has a year of widespread awakening to the white supremacist foundations of our nation, and backlash to the awakening. It has been a season of bombarded misinformation and political corruption like never before, including the kidnapping, encaging, selling, and trafficking of immigrant children at the Mexican border. We have all lived as characters in Orwellian and Huxley novels.
In November the country elected a new president, Joe Biden, and the first ever female and first ever African-American vice president, Kamala Harris, to be inaugurated in January of 2021, and COVID vaccinations have begun to arrive for the front line workers, expected to be available to everyone maybe about April 2021. The New Year brings hope.
_____________________________________________________________________________
Church
Despite that FPC church activities were severely altered for COVID-19 safety from March through the year's end, a great deal of my time was spent in church-related activities. I mostly attended services via live stream and meetings via Zoom, but thanks to technology church life continued throughout the year. In addition to the list below, I guest taught the Women's Sunday School class once in February, read the Scripture in Spanish (via video) for the Pentecost Sunday service, and regularly called five 80+yr-old members to check on them throughout the pandemic.
Ruling Elder (began third year of three)
Worship & Music Committee Chair
Coronavirus Response Team (May to present)
Stephen Ministry Leader
Ordained as a Stephen Minister (caregiving role, as opposed to the training role of the SML)
Race Task Force
Member of Sojourners Class and Presbyterian Women's Bible Study
______________________________________________________________________________
Other Volunteer Work
Lee St. Theatre: served as greeter only twice before the pandemic hit
Rowan County Literacy Council: weekly literacy tutoring on Zoom, July to present; also initiated a fundraiser on RCLC's behalf, on Facebook for my birthday, raising $400+ to help compensate for pandemic losses.
______________________________________________________________________________
52 Books I Read (or listened to; listed in order of publication year)
Pippi Longstocking (Astrid Lindgren, 1945, audio) classic children’s fiction
Sappho (Trans. Mary Barnard, 1958) poems translated from Greek, 7th-6th cen. BCE
Jubilee (Margaret Walker, 1966) historical novel; life of Vyry; pre Civil War to Reconstruction
The Grange: 1867-1967 First Century of Service and Evolution (W.L. Robinson, 1966) history of org.
Diving into the Wreck (Adrienne Rich, 1973) poems written 1971-1972
The One Minute Manager (Ken Blanchard, 1981) basic managerial philosophy
An American Life (Ronald Reagan, 1990, audio) autobiography
Jazz (Toni Morrison, 1992, audio) a marriage, an affair, a murder; fiction
The Message: New Testament (Eugene Peterson,1993, audio) in contemporary language
Redneck Heaven (Bethany Bultman, 1996) history and stories of the American “redneck” culture
The World According to Mister Rogers (Fred Rogers, 2003) collection of Mr Rogers’ wisdom
Wishful Drinking (Carrie Fisher, 2008, audio) autobiography
Half Broke Horses (Jeannette Walls, 2009, audio) biog novel, similar to “Little House on the Prairie”
Hotel on the Corner of Bitter & Sweet (Jamie Ford, 2009, audio) WWII-era Asian-Amer; fic
The Other Half of My Heart (Sundee T. Frazier, 2010, audio) biracial twins, one light, one dark; fic
The Best of Me (Nicholas Sparks, 2010, audio) romance novel
An Invisible Thread (Laura Schroff, 2011, audio) an unlikely friendship, based on true story
The Bluest Eyes (Toni Morrison, 2011, audio) African-American fiction
Burnt Mountain (Anne Rivers Siddons, 2011, audio) fiction, romance
America Again (Stephen Colbert, 2012, audio) political satire
Time Keeper (Mitch Albom, 2012, audio) fantasy fiction, Father Time
The Librarian of Auschwitz (Antonio Iturbe, 2012, audio) 14yo Holocaust prisoner Dita Kraus
Sum It Up (Pat Summitt, 2013, audio) autobiography, TN Lady Vols Basketball & alzheimer’s
And Every Morning the Way Home Gets . . . (Fredrik Backman, 2016, audio) novella, dementia
Wolf Hollow (Lauren Wolk, 2016, audio) young adult fiction
Why Are All the Black Kids Sitting Together in the (Beverly D Tatum, 2017, audio) nonfic
The Orphan’s Tale (Pam Jenoff, 2017, audio) Circus, Holocaust, Friendship; novel
This Is How It Always Is (Laurie Frankel, 2017, audio) family’s story of trans child; novel
Tony Brown: Elvis, Strait, To Jesus (Tony Brown, 2018) country music record producer autobio
Girl, Wash Your Face (Rachel Hollis, 2018, audio) nonfiction, lies women tell themselves
In Pieces (Sally Fields, 2018, audio) autobiography; family background and acting career
The Tattooist of Auschwitz (Heather Morris, 2018, audio) a Holocaust bio and romance
White Fragility (Robin DiAngelo, 2018, audio) examine own racial tensions; nonfiction
Educated (Tara Westover, 2018, audio) an unforgettable & mind-altering memoir
Where the Crawdads Sing (Delia Owens, 2018, audio) storytelling at its best; fiction
The Great Believers (Rebecca Makkai, 2018, audio) novel set in the 1980s gay AIDS culture
The Seminarian (Patrick Parr, 2018) MLK Jr’s seminary years, biography
Anxious People (Fredrik Backman, 2019, audio) novel about a crime, an apt. showing, a bridge
Love Carved in Stone (Eugenia Gamble, 2019) Presbyterian Women’s Bible Study
The Dutch House (Ann Patchett, 2019, audio) a house and its people; great story-telling; fiction
The Nickel Boys (Colson Whitehead, 2019) novel based on story of real reform school; 1960s
The Second Mountain: The Quest for a Moral Life (David Brooks, 2019, audio) nonfiction
The Path Made Clear (Oprah Winfrey, 2019, audio) inspiration from many well-known voices
Calling All Witches (Laurie Calkhoven, 2019) bios of the females of the H Potter series
The Craft (John Dickie, 2020) world history stories of freemasonry
The Book of Longings (Sue Monk Kidd, 2020, audio) “Red Tent”-like novel
White Too Long (Robert P. Jones, 2020) nonfiction; white supremacy & Christianity
American Dirt (Jeanine Cummins, 2020, audio) a Mex woman & young son flee to the US; fic
Too Much and Never Enough (Mary Trump, 2020, audio) family background of Donald Trump
Hill Women (Cassie Chambers, 2020, audio) family memoir of a woman of Appalachia
Caste (Isabel Wilkerson, 2020, audio) nonfiction; American social structure
A Promised Land (Barack Obama, 2020, audio) bio, presidential memoir part 1
Color code: *must read *also highly recommended
_______________________________________________________________________________________
25 Movies I Watched (listed in order of release year)
Miracle on 34th St (1947, repeat) a heart-warming Santa story
White Christmas (1954, repeat) classic musical set post-WWII; romance and military
Star Wars: Episode IV: A New Hope (1977) classic sci-fi
Tootsie (1982, repeat) romantic comedy; Dustin Hoffman, Jessica Lange
Groundhog Day (1993) stuck reliving same day over and over
Sordid Lives (2000) a feel-good morbid comedy
The Count of Monte Cristo (2002) based on the classic novel of betrayal and revenge
The Maldonado Miracle (2003) a miracle in a border town church
The Bucket List (2007) starring Jack Nicholson & Morgan Freeman
Those People (2015) drama, romance
The Syndrome (2016) documentary challenging the validity of “shaken baby syndrome”
13th (2016) documentary of systemic racism intricately woven into the criminal justice system
The Christmas Chronicles (2018) 2 kids fly with Santa on Christmas Eve
The Man Who Invented Christmas (2017, repeat) Charles Dickens, biography
The NIghtingale (2018) drama set in 1825; violence, war, a young woman’s revenge
Vita & Virginia (2018) Virginia Woolf and Vita Sackville-West, biography
If Beale Street Could Talk (2018) based on novel by James Baldwin
Little Women (2019) based on Louisa May Alcott novel
Just Mercy (2019) true story of lawyer working for justice of wrongly accused
Portrait of a Lady on Fire (2020) forbidden love set in 18th century; French w/ Eng subtitles
Da 5 Bloods (2020, Netflix) Black war vets return to Vietnam; Spike Lee director
Hamilton (2020, Disney+) movie version of hit Broadway musical
Hillbilly Elegy (2020) based on 2016 novel by JD Vance; family memoir
The Social Dilemma (2020) alarming documentary of social media's manipulation of us all
The Prom (2020) Glee-style musical of inclusive prom
Color code: *must see *also highly recommended
__________________________________________________________________________
The next two categories, TV and On Stage, are a bit blurred because of the pandemic, as most stage events after mid-March were available only in TV-like fashion.
TV
That 70’s Show Season 1 (1998) sitcom set in the 1970’s
Race: The Power of an Illusion (2003, PBS) 3-part documentary of America’s culture of “race”
Community Seasons 1&2 (2009, 2010) sitcom centered on a Community College campus
The Crown Seasons 1, 2, &3 (2016, 2017, 2018 Netflix)) bio, drama; Queen Elizabeth II
The Handmaid’s Tale Season 1 (2017, Hulu) based on Margaret Atwood’s novel
Reconstruction (2019 PBS miniseries) documentary of period following Civil War
Hillary (2020 Hulu miniseries) autobiographical documentary of Hillary Rodham Chinton
Mrs. America (2020 Hulu miniseries) 1970s ERA fight - P Schlafly, G Steinam, Chisholm
A Secret Love (2020, Netflix documentary) 72-yr secret relationship 1947-2019; biography
Becoming (2020, Netflix documentary) Michelle Obama, biography
Race Matters: America In Crisis (2020, PBS NewsHour) conversations on American racism
Love, Victor Season 1 (2020 Hulu) a coming out drama
The Vote (2020 PBS documentary miniseries) the fight for women’s suffrage
Crip Camp: A Disability Revolution (2020 Netflix) a 1950s-1970s camp for disabled
Beyonce: Black Is King (2020, Disney+) penetrating black empowering musical
What You Don’t Know (But Should) About Appalachian Slavery (2020, Internat'l Storytelling Center)
On Stage
Deathtrap (Lee St. Theatre, Jan) farcical play within a play
Trip To Bountiful (LST, Feb) elderly woman runs away to the home of her memories
Grapes of Wrath (Amer Shakespeare Center, April, streaming) based on Steinbeck novel, dust bowl
Motherhood Out Loud (LST, May, streaming) Multiple Stories of Mothering
Jesus Christ Superstar (Broadway Live stream)
Multiple streamed concerts (some weekly or monthly): Susan Werner, Cris Williamson, Maroon Corey, Kruger Brothers
Color code: *must see *also highly recommended
_____________________________________________________________________
Speaking and Writing
I spoke once this year, in November, at James Madison University, my first time via Zoom.
I have posted a few blogs, listed and linked here:
About Wisdom:
B153. The Third Rung
B157: How College Made Me Smarter
B158. Simple Views and Ponderings from a Morning Walk
About Coronavirus:
B155. Coronavirus: Emotional Care Across Social Distance
B156: Staying at Home: And That's an Order
B160. Six Ideas for COVID Thanksgiving
About Power:
B159. White Man Secrets
And finally: I have seen more death this year than in any other; including in January, my Great Aunt Nell, the last of my grandparents' generation. This final blog, my most popular post of the year, is about another special person:
B154. Shine Bright, Pink Moon
_____________________________________________________________________________________
Technology
Not much new this year, except that I have a paid Zoom account so I can host meetings beyond the free 40 minutes.
I continue to use my HP laptop and my iPhone every waking moment - for meetings, socialization, business, entertainment, music, audiobooks, and gaming. A continue to use "Alexa," mostly for weather, timers, quick look-up answers or math calculations, and music.
I was a Hulu member all year, and Netlix a couple of months when there was something I especially wanted to see. TV is not my usual leisure go-to.
My laptop hard drive crashed Dec 30, which explains the late post date of this inventory. I'm finally up and running again!
______________________________________________________________________
Puzzling
I have always loved puzzles of various kinds. This year I worked 1000-piece jigsaw puzzles of NC, Frida Kahlo, and board games. I entertained myself with the Puzzle Page and Words With Friends apps.
I was introduced to WWF in 2019 to participate in the Rowan County Literacy Council's WWF fundraiser tournament. I was ousted in an early round by the competitor who went on to win. This past June, I returned to become the 2020 tournament champion, winning an RCLC T-shirt, and $100 that I donated back to the organization.
___________________________________________________________________
Health
15 hours of exercise per month - mostly resistance machines and stationary bike at the gym until the pandemic hit. Then mostly walking - parks, tracks, neighborhood. I continue to wear my leg brace on most of my walks. In June I participated in the COVID-style (individual) 19 miles in 19 days walk/run for Rowan Helping Ministries.
Torticollis continues. Botox shots every 4 months; and in July I started seeing an OMT whose holistic technique gives me hope.
I continue using MyFitnessPal for months at a time as needed to monitor my calories/weight. It's a great tool, and free!
___________________________________________________________________
Past inventories:
2019
2018
2017
2016
2015
2014
2013
2012
2011
2010
