Last night was the first night that I fell asleep and slept for five hours in over a month. I’m feeling better, less irritable. I have always had trouble sleeping since I was a child. I would fall asleep and then wake up in the middle of the night and not be able to go back to sleep or wake up multiple times. It is not a new problem. What’s new now is that when I wake up the thoughts, I have been having are disturbing. I obsess about the suffering of people here and in the rest of the world. I feel such a sense of loss and helpless to make things better. I have always been a proactive person. If I see a problem, I try to find a way to mitigate it in some way.

Kite photo by Bob Culver

These last several weeks, I have donated small amounts of money to Food pantries, animal shelters in NC, and the poorest parts of the country. I don’t know if this will make any difference, but somehow, I can’t sit by and do nothing. I would find it difficult to live with my future self if I just here and felt sorry for people and didn’t do anything. We live on Social Security, but our house is paid off. So, I’m able to do that small thing.

This week the weather here in the area of NC was schizophrenic one day 87 degrees the next morning 36 degrees, one day heavy rains and high winds, the next day sunny and pleasant. The unpredictability for me adds to my sense that the weather now is abnormal as the Corona Virus. You just never know what is going to happen next.

We retired to NC three and a half years ago. It is a small development with twenty-one homes. The people that live here keep to themselves. One or two of our neighbors will wave and say “hello,” but it’s nothing like the neighborhoods we lived in the past where you knew your neighbor’s name and talked to them or even became friends with them over time. People here don’t spend a lot of time out in their yards, although their plots are about an acre. You see them cutting their grass on their riding mowers, but they don’t sit outside on their porches and talk to neighbors as you pass by. I still wave at them when I see them and call out,” Hello, how are you.” Occasionally, someone will wave back. There are probably about eight or cute little kids under ten years of age that will say. “hello” but won’t engage in any conversation. I have always loved kids, so I miss that.

Tiny Blue Shoes by Bob Culver

We have a neighbor at the end of the street right next to Route 50. Her twins, a boy, and a girl were about six months old when we moved here. They are beautiful little kids. Now, they are about four. In the summer, the parents allow their kids to ride their bikes, take walks, and play out front with no clothes on during the summer.  This isn’t something I ever saw in NJ so, I have asked quite a few people here in NC if this was just a Southern thing, and they all said no. I know it isn’t my business, but one evening I was sitting on my back porch, and I saw the father of the twins taking a walk with his two naked than three-year-old children. And before I knew it, I yelled, “Put clothes on those kids.” The father shouted back; they just won’t keep their clothes on and kept walking. When did children become the bosses?

Anyway, since this virus started, our neighbors began emerging from their development cocoons. Not every day and not all at once. But, every couple of days, I see someone running, or riding a bike, or jogging up and down our small development. I sit on the front porch and yell out,” Hello, how are you all doing?” And sometimes they wave or yell back. “We are fine, thanks.” Last Sunday, my husband and I were taking our first walk of the day up and down our street, and we saw a kite flying high above the tree line. It like it originated from the farm on the other side of our development. Somehow the sight of that beautiful kite lifted my spirits. It remained up there for over two hours. It brought back memories of my own children’s childhoods when we would take them to Cooper River Park in NJ and let them fly their small kites. And it reminded me of my childhood when I would fly my Dime store kite in the park behind the public school in Maple Shade, where I grew up in the 1950s and 1960s. Such happy memories. The site of that kite lifted my spirits and gave me hope that perhaps somehow, someday our lives would return to normal and life would go on.

Then three days ago, my husband Bob and I were taking our dog, Douglas, for a walk, and I noticed something blue on the ground on the corner of our front yard. I kneeled to take a closer look, and there before me was a tiny pair of blue shoes. Sitting one next to the other one upside down. It was such a whimsical thing to find, weird. So, I started imaging how they came to be there. “Oh, no,” I said some tiny little person; perhaps a well-dressed little alien has lost her shoes. I’m always thinking of stories I can write or paintings I can paint. It keeps me sane.

I look forward to the day when we get take a walk, go to a store, eat at our favorite restaurant once again without fear that we will touch something or someone, and it will be the end of us. However, I hope that my neighbors will remember that they came outside rode their bikes and took walks, and said,” Hey, how are you doing to their neighbors and didn’t turn to stone. I hope this small beginning will grow into a sense that we are a community, not just a place where we live. I will do my part and say. “hello, to everyone I see and ask them how they are doing. And perhaps someday in the not too distant future, I will invite all my neighbors over for a barbeque on a warm summer day, and we can’t get to know each other better and maybe, just maybe make some new friends.

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