Stages of Belief and Disbelief

Today the governor will likely announce shelter in place. I'm waffling between one day feeling like its so nice and beautiful out and I can hang out and do yardwork and chill for ever and then the next day super worried about what the new world we are living in will be like. The reality is really freaky. We are in this for 18 months at least. Someday we will have a morning quarantine report like the weather report. When our numbers in our hospitals start to strain they will shut down areas to aid for a time and this will go on for months to come. It will be like a snow storm but a quarantine storm. People aren't taking it seriously still. It's living on metal for 3 days and cardboard for 24 hours. All these people thinking take out is safe are insane. Brooklyn Amazon workers shut their own factory down after being forced to work in infected conditions. New York is 2-3 weeks away from running out of supplies. They are calling para educators in our school district in to run 1st responder's kids camp even if that isn't their specialty. Who knows what they have in mind for teachers next week. Its looking like Professional development and calling home. Mind you paras get paid like nothing as do our custodians and food service staff but they are on the front lines. Most are older as well so how will that work? Grocery workers and food service people on the front lines. They didn't sign up to be in the army. They got drafted accidentally and inoculated without consent. The rest of us privileged people are still sitting in our comfy homes pretending everything is ok. ______ We are on day 7 of our quarantine in our house. Been 7 days since last credible possible exposure. Still feel ok. Sunshine helps. Happy we chose to self quarantine now that news that people in school were carrying or exposed or presumptive positive. I'm just going to assume I have it or have had it and will operate as such till next week. Then once "clear" every day is another chance to start our Zero clock over. So many people out there aren't even on a zero clock yet. _____ I have no idea what to do with the greenhouse. If we get a shelter in place today I don't know what that means for my allowed travel. The perennials can go outside where they'll get rain. the annuals can go in the lower greenhouse and I can attempt to put timer spray sprinklers on them. The greens/veggies can be planted now along with the herbs. Once I'm clear I can get them out to the community or plant them on the farm...for no one. ____ Communicating with students online is sad, uplifting and also heartbreaking. Some say they miss me, some say they love being out of school, some are worried about the plants, some are sick of it, some are scared and want me to predict the future. I'm trying to stay positive but the reality is that things going back to the way they used to be is highly unlikely. ____ One thing that trips me out is that animals are returning to metropolis' world wide. Dolphins in canals in Italy. We may actually be able to measure how this shutdown impacted global CO2 levels. We may be able to actually understand climate change better after this. Bill Nye has a beautifully elegant solution to climate change which is to teach all young children how climate change works. Once the world is full of literate children they can solve it. If we take this opportunity to teach our young people how science, our bodies, virus', climate change, works then they might figure it out after we all take a big long break. ____What will the world, America, and life look like after this break. The US plan that was released and then analyzed by MIT puts us at 18 months. By that time who knows new strains might emerge. I think we should take time to mourn the loss of the life we once new and take time to craft what our lives will look like in this new world. We're all going through the grief cycles in our own processing time. Denial, anger, depression, negotiating, acceptance. Where are you? ____ Happy Friday.