The Big Quarantine – Thursday, May 7, 2020
The Day (Actually the One Hour) in Exercise: While the fringes of the internet are arguing about how the government is suppressing freedom by wanted to track or chip people to contain the Covid, all of our phones are quietly tracking every move we make, and every weird click we take. (Isn’t that a Police song?)
My phone notes (and knows) I’m not walking as much as last year, but I am walking a lot more than last month. Last year, ah last year, I was out and about. And last month (which I’m not sentimental about at all) I was IN.
My walks have gotten progressively longer during the course of the confinement and the phone sees that. The part that kills me about the tracking is that if you look at my fitness snapshot, it appears I only move for about 90 minutes a day. The rest of the day looks like I’m just sitting on my ass! … Truth be told, I can’t fight the data!
I’m going to keep my phone in my pocket more often to see how much I can juice my steps in my 850 sq. ft. apartment.
The Day in Tracking: Throughout the Confinement, I’ve been tracking all sorts of things. I’m tracking my walks, who I’ve sent mail to, what’s in my freezer, and more. I’ve made recipe cards for recipes I’ve found on the internet that I’d like to make part of my regular repertoire. I’m a list maker and organizer in a time when these skills, two months after confinement started, seem excessive.
One thing I’ve always tracked is how many books I have read. I’ve always been a big reader and secretly believed the Stay at Home order meant Stay at Home and Read. I tried, but, sadly, my attention span has not cooperated. I’ve been confined long enough that I want to take back control of my reading. Starting a week or so ago, each morning I make a note of what page number I’m on (or what percentage I’m at on an Ebook). As I wind down the day, I can refer to my starting point. If I don’t read “enough” I don’t beat myself up, but my goal is to read more. To do that during the quietly pressing stress of Covid, I have to be mindful. It’s working.
The Day in Good Neighbors: On my walk up Sycamore Hill, my arch nemesis of walking, I saw that someone had put out some canned goods for needy passers-by. If someone is taking this food there is a high probability they need it. I love this simple gesture.
The Day in Honeysuckle: My walk also took me past a Honeysuckle Shrub. I’d always referred to this plant as a honeysuckle tree, but googling it for this post I found out the Honeysuckle is a shrub and I was wrong. Side note, when is the last time you read the words “I was wrong” on the internet?
Anyway, the Honeysuckle Shrub is a highly invasive plant but it smells great. When I was a kid we had one of these shrubs in our back yard. We would pluck a yellow flower off the tree (we called it a tree) to get a taste of the “honey.” We pulled out the bottom of the flower out and a drop of nectar would magically appear. It was delicious.
And I know Honeysuckle honey isn’t bee-honey, but a taste of honey is better than nothing.
Nothing Ever Happens on My Street 
My neighbor and I used to suck on clover “petals”!