Sylvia's Journal

Today I am very restless, which is mostly in my head, as we are blessed with sufficient indoor and outdoor physical space to deal with any twitching muscles. I use Headspace, the meditation app, for the inner restlessness, do my yoga with Adriene daily and ride my stationary bike – but the restlessness remains. The entire world, or whatever part we let into our house in the form of newsprint and bits and bytes, is restless. I cannot imagine having restless small kids and a big dog and living in an apartment in a big city in addition to mental restlessness. 

Our kids are checking in on us, always a few steps ahead of what the authorities tell us to do, or rather not to do. The selectmen of our small town called a Zoom meeting yesterday and decided to cordon off the beaches and public spaces because people where not heeding the 6 ft distance. I was told that last week, our famous Singing Beach had several hundred people on it, and kids and dogs playing together as if it was a regular sunny spring day, few keeping their distance – which would be hard on a beach that’s not that big. Our own Lobster Cove beach was also full of kids playing together and adults, everyone bunched up. It is now closed to the public.

Freedom of movement outside one’s house is now over. If people can’t police themselves, the police have to do it – it’s a sad refrain that we have heard since the beginning of the outbreak in China, then Italy, then Spain, France, Holland and so on.  A friend who retired to Spain said owners of second homes at the beach or in the mountains were sent back to their first residence by the police. 

Are people angry or bristling, I asked? Maybe, she said, but Italians and Spaniards are also giving ovations to the people who keep them safe or helping those in need, every evening at 8PM, from their balconies; and the police was ‘sirenading’ the hospital. It’s good to know that calamity does bring out the best in people. I believe that it is only a small minority of people who serve themselves first, those profiteers who quickly bought up needed supplies back in January, or government officials who quickly bought stock in Citrix and Zoom, when they learned that people were encouraged to work from home. 

I was supposed to have my first violin lesson on Zoom today but the timing didn’t work out. My teacher wrote to me that he has been teaching his students over Zoom, Hangout and Facetime, with good results. Who would have thought an online music lesson possible? We are inventing our new lives as we go. Necessity is the mother of invention. Although I actually read Plato’s Republic (in Greek, in high school) I can’t remember that phrase and even if I remembered, it would have meant little to me then. I looked it up and found that lots of other people had different opinions about inventions and necessity, some I agree with and some I don’t.