Art and Life in the Time of Coronavirus, March 26, 2020
Tuesday-Thursday, March 24-26:
In the past few days we have seen the news become worse and worse, with the NYC metro area suffering huge numbers of infected and new infections mounting exponentially. The issue of New Yorkers fanning across the country to flee—or just wait out— the problem is finally much in the news, with some states requiring quarantine.
This has been on my mind here in the Catskills, where every second or third home is a weekend place and many others are AirBnB investment properties, currently rented. I would do the same if I lived in nyc and had a place up here, but I would have come up weeks ago and then stayed, like my sister and brother-in-law did. It’s the recent arrivals that pose a risk to us all.
However, we are all supposed to be behaving as if we and every other person has it. I would say that, for those coming from the global epicenter, this should extend to face masks while shopping. And, since recently trailhead parking lots in the Skills are full when the weather is nice, remembering to keep your six feet from other hikers—it’s easy to forget while out in the fresh air. Gloves and speed at the post office, as many of us in this rural area have to pick up our mail.
On the whole, it seems that folks are good and buttoned up in their homes, as they should be, wherever they come from. Since we have a lovely series of hiking trails just up my dead-end road, our road is always the choice for neighborhood dog walkers and hikers, and it is so nice to stop for chats, as in the past, but with more distance between us. I haven’t seen many of the new arrivals in this mix, but we are all good as long as we maintain our six feet.
Cases are mounting in Ulster County, though we have had only one in Shandaken for quite a while now (maybe a week, in our new telescoped time). Otsego County, where my Dad lives in Oneonta, went from zero to five in the past few days. My dear friend Di (known locally as “Dr. Di” and also my Dad and his partner’s yoga teacher) is now City Health Officer for preparedness for Covid-19. When we chatted the other night she described their local efforts, but there had yet to be a known case in the county. I am sure that they are now on higher alert to avoid community spread.
In other Covid-19 news, the NY Times published an article yesterday by a woman in NYC whose husband has a pretty bad case—just teetering on hospitalization—and how she and her 16-year-old daughter are coping with nursing him and trying not to get it themselves. It is clear that at his level of misery, there is no way he could take even the most basic care of himself.
This brought it home in a very concrete way, since with this illness all previous protocols are out the window. Family is not supposed to step in, no one is supposed to get near—the only help can come from folks dropping off needed supplies, whether medical or food. Each household, no matter how small, is on it’s own, with a bit of doctor’s advice and the worst case solution of being hospitalized.
I am glad that we have worked so hard within our household to stay safe, though we could still, of course, be unlucky.
Daughter Tessa called yesterday, just a check in before she goes back into the Minnesota woods to continue maple sugaring until her original target date of April 13 or 14th. It was so great to hear her voice.
I had left her a voicemail with a little bit of info on what’s going on in this country, and she seemed unable to let go of the idea that Jack and I are reacting with outsized anxiety. It is such an unprecedented situation that if you are not living it, of course it would seem like that…
She is now with only six others of the original crew, all having ben there for over a month, safe and happily out of contact with the world. How she will get back here to pick up her car, and then onto her Vermont home has yet to be determined. I am dead set against using her plane ticket to Newark.
In the studio I finished the sand flats painting, Soft Glow over Tidal Flats, 30″x60″:
I wonder when I will see the sea again? Almost surely not the first of May, as originally planned, for my seasonal drop-off at Louisa Gould Gallery on Martha’s Vineyard.
Work is also progressing on the watershed Site Map; here, a detail of the most developed sections:
I have started painting the planned small oil-on-board pieces.
I am so focused on these projects that the studio constantly calls to me…I would happily spend even more time there every day, but there are both necessary and lovely other things to do—yoga, hike, cook, yard work, read, paperwork and phone calls (Jack’s job is shut down for the duration and mine—who knows?—so we are applying for all of the things), and all of the email and phone connecting with friends and family.
Art and Life in the Time of Coronavirus #5
And I am all caught up to date!
Let me know if there is anything you would like me to address: creative, ethical, time-management, etc.
Sunday, March 22: Another sunny day, though I didn’t get out in it until mid-afternoon. Took a walk with Tony and Carla, after driving to her place so that he could get some of the willow shoots that he likes to root and plant in favorite spots. We stayed six feet from Carla.
Otherwise, a nicely focused yoga practice—I am loving rock star these days—and blog and some paperwork. Emailing in regard to an amazingly still alive prospect for a large commissioned piece, probably a triptych.
I started collaging the Catskill Park section of the Site Map just to see how I am going to go about handling that while marking every single stream in the Catskill Park watershed. This has a long way to go, but provides me with a path to follow.
My palette is mixed to start right in tomorrow morning and do the second layer on the sand flats painting.
Some good news is that I feel that I feel myself coming out of my winter flatness, a lingering malaise that followed death of my mom in early December. I miss her sharply still, but have regained creative traction in the studio that makes it a a sweet pleasure to be alive, puzzling out and making manifest my ideas.
Monday, March 23: Spitting mad about that jerk Rand Paul tracking the virus all over the senate —including pool and gym—instead of self-isolating while awaiting test results. I guess I’d better get in line.
I am worried that Fauci was not at the press conference tonight, after he got a little too honest about Trump in a recent interview.
Some more work on the Site Map in the studio and I have only a few tweaks to go on the sand flats 30″x60″.
Snow today, first not amounting to much and then beginning to accumulate on roadways. Jack and I decided that he should go try to do a food shop in his truck on a day when most folks wouldn’t want to go out, and it was a very successful excursion.
Tony came in from a walk in the snow and brought me outside to see how stunning his solar jar lamp looks tonight, sitting on the stump remnants our old maple tree.
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