Letters from Pemberley

So our last big get-together with friends was Janie’s birth-tea party, a month ago. We’d been slowly staying in for about a week before that, though. All in all, things have gone better than expected–and since Derek’s job is secure and we don’t have any loved ones hospitalized with the virus, the pandemic has mainly affected us through the stay at home mandates. I’ve managed to go at least a week between grocery store runs (sadly, out tiny fridge and freezer half full of the landlord’s junk doesn’t allow us to stock up more fresh stuff than that), Derek goes in and out of the law school to teach his zoom classes without seeing anyone, and we feel pretty confident that we haven’t been exposed.

We’re basically co-quarantining with the Romines, who also haven’t seen anyone but us since we all had our first and last homeschool art class on March 11, but we’re still trying to get the kids to social distance. They sit out on either side of their six foot lines across Nita’s driveway, pretending their games, usually involving high school, orphanages, and spies, for hours.

I’m also loving the neighborliness that limiting trips out entails. Nita, who lives between us and the Romines, needed black beans a couple weeks ago, and I tossed her a can. If Kristin or I are in the middle of a recipe and realize we’re out of rice vinegar or rosemary or coconut milk or vanilla extract, we text and send a kid over to borrow the ingredient. Last week Kristin heard about a wholesale butcher up in Niles who was selling really cheap packs of meats and produce, and she called me to see what I wanted while Justin was going up there, anyway. The next day, I found out that the public schools are giving out lunches twice a week to all kids under 18, regardless of if they’re enrolled in the schools, and they want as many people as possible to come take them so that they can keep ordering from their suppliers who are only set up to package for schools, not grocery stores. So I checked out the offerings the first day (kinda gross breakfast stuff, but plenty of basics we can use) and reported to Kristin that they should go get them, too. She picked up butter for me at her weekly grocery run, and we’re going to coordinate shopping lists for the next month so that we don’t both need to go out as much. It’s like how Sarah and I used to shop for each other and pick up extra things on sale that we knew the other could use, except even more convenient when we live two doors away.

The kids are just as busy at home as they’ve ever been. We’re pushing on with school, and with all the extra freebies available online these days, from Met Opera broadcasts to Audible stories to Veritas history online to the games and tutorials and such, we’re doing more educational stuff than we did three months ago. But now that Laura Nagle isn’t coming to help babysit Annie on school mornings like she was in February and March, I’m having to delegate kids to take turns watching her, and the part of the school day that I’m in charge of is stretching out longer. Oh, and I am trying to figure out renovating our new house without going to stores for ideas, so I am pretty busy all stinking day.

Socially, it’s hard to not see our friends in person, especially because we were soooo enjoying all the time with the Raglands and the Skeens, but Tommy is in online classes with his friends five days a week and has Google docs of imaginative worlds they’re creating together as well as mastering Google Hangouts now that he has his own email. He’s already figured out how to do more in Hangouts and Zoom than I have, and he has had some fun co-gaming video chats with friends in Malibu as well as some silly video chats with other friends. The girls are writing a silly story on a Google doc with the Raglands, doing a virtual book club with the Fishers in Fridays, and video chatting often with grandparents and various girlfriends, so we are virtually socializing a lot. And Elizabeth just bought walkie talkies that easily reach to the Romines, so she and Hannah talk to each other on those all day long. The other day they did a joint cookie baking walkie talkie experiment each in their own kitchens where they updated each other after every step. Hannah writes notes and drops them in our mailbox all day long, and the girls reply and run over and drop them in her mailbox. And we’re trying to write a lot of letters to friends all over. So we haven’t had time to get lonely or bored yet.

South Bend is not a bad place to be quarantined. In Malibu, we hear that the nasty Boomer neighbors are being as nasty and passive aggressive about kids playing outside as one would expect. The on campus kids haven’t been allowed outside in weeks. Like literally, they can’t go outside at all. Their parents all seem to be meekly accepting that somehow letting children play outside (with their siblings) puts the over 65s at risk, and we all know that the piece of work neighbor on our street has Child Protective Services on speed dial and had personally informed me last year that his first response to seeing kids in the park would be to call and report on us, so the cost of rebellion is too high to risk. We’re grateful for our yard here and the freedom to walk around the neighborhood when we want to!

I’m not sure yet how and what we’re going to do about our moves back to CA and then to Iowa City. We were planning on making lots of stops along the way to see friends and family, but it’s unclear how safe that will be in another month. I did buy a big furnace filter to cut down and put into the masks my mom made for Derek and me. I don’t have my sewing machine here, but I will probably hand stitch masks for the kids whenever we do end up traveling and having to go in and out of places. I am not stressed about living like this for the next month here in South Bend, but the logistics of the summer are definitely the thing most keeping me up at night.

When I pray with the little girls at bedtime, even Annie has learned to echo Janie’s prayers for them to sleep well and have no bad dreams and her whole host of chronically ill people to feel better, “and for the people who are sick to get better and for the doctors and scientists to stop the virus.” Oh Lord, hear the prayers of Your children.