{"id":2563,"date":"2020-05-13T04:00:00","date_gmt":"2020-05-13T12:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/goldmanstate.com\/?p=2563"},"modified":"2020-05-13T07:19:01","modified_gmt":"2020-05-13T15:19:01","slug":"today-we-hear-from-michigan-and-southern-california","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/goldmanstate.com\/2020\/05\/13\/today-we-hear-from-michigan-and-southern-california\/","title":{"rendered":"Today we hear from Michigan and Southern California"},"content":{"rendered":"

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More Reports from the Isolation Front: Readers Weigh In<\/h1>\n

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Today we hear from Michigan and Southern California <\/h2>\n

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By Ed Goldman<\/h6>\n

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T<\/span>he May 4 edition<\/a> of The Goldman State featured reactions to the pandemic lockdown from our (gratifyingly) far-flung readership\u2014from off the coast of Washington, from Portsmouth, New Hampshire, from San Diego and from the Friuli Venezia Giulia Region of Italy.<\/p>\n

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More reactions have arrived\u2014from Michigan and from Southern California\u2014that offer \u201ctakes\u201d both lighthearted and poignant.<\/p>\n

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Jay Zarowitz. Photo by his computer.<\/em><\/p>\n

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Jay Zarowitz<\/strong>, who\u2019s about to retire as a teacher in Michigan<\/strong>, at first semi-jokes that having to teach from home caused him this regret: \u201cI do miss getting my steps in during in class lectures.\u201d A day later, he gets a little more serious about it: \u201cMy wife and I as empty-nesters have not been able to go out for a sit-down meal.\u00a0\u00a0I need a haircut, and would like to golf, but I\u2019m not willing to die for those. As we open up, get my haircut, golf, and go out for a sit-down dinner, many of the servers have become like family to us, so it would be nice to see them.\u201d<\/p>\n

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Char Gould. Photo by Blake Gould.<\/em><\/p>\n

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I heard from two other retired teachers, Char and Blake Gould<\/strong>, who live in the Orange County city of Lake Forest <\/strong>and have been happily married since shortly after man began to walk erect.\u00a0<\/p>\n

Char says, \u201dI miss the\u00a0\u00a0opportunity to be spontaneous. We\u2019re experiencing a pervasive mode of crisis management\u2014lowering risk while accepting\u00a0\u00a0a \u2018new normal.\u2019 I\u2019m looking forward to doing what appeals to me in the moment.\u201d\u00a0<\/p>\n

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Blake Gould. Photo by his very self.
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Blake says he most regrets his \u201cnot being able to run out of my house like an eight year old and hail down the ice cream truck.\u201d (I probably should have written \u201cBlake quips\u201d instead of \u201cBlake says,\u201d but I\u2019ve known him since even before he and Char were married and I think his may be a very serious response.)<\/p>\n

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Jasmin Iolani Hakes. Photo by Chantel Elder at Eleakis & Elder<\/em><\/p>\n

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Jasmin Iolani Hakes<\/strong> divides her time among Los Angeles, the Bay Area and Hawaii<\/strong>. Her marvelous debut novel \u201cHula\u201d is scheduled to be published by Scribner in early 2021 (yes, I read an early version of it). She took the time to create an evocative\u2014one might even call it novelistic\u2014sketch of her impressions.\u00a0\u00a0<\/p>\n

\u201cAs a writer, I\u2019m a creature of both habit and routine,\u201d she tells me. \u201cI work from home, and my office is in my head. Some of my most productive days have been while alone in a cabin deep in the woods with no cell service.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\u201cSo when the order to shelter in place came, it didn\u2019t seem a lot to ask. Then the days began to blur. I noticed an increasing heaviness of step while out on my runs that hadn\u2019t been there the day previous. I teared up when I\u2019d hear about some great act of kindness, of which there are so, so many, and openly weep when reading news coverage of overwhelmed homeless shelters and food banks. I cried equal amounts of tears for the staggering numbers of deaths and while watching a movie where people walk with ease through populated areas and greet each other with kisses and hugs.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cI wondered at my aggravated emotional state,\u201d she continues. \u201cIt took about a week for me to realize the origin of this newfound touchy tenderness. I was mourning. There\u2019s a difference between sadness and grief. Which is maybe why it took me so long to figure out what was going on, and why.<\/p>\n

[\/et_pb_text][et_pb_code admin_label=”Gabriel Fine Jewelry” _builder_version=”4.4.6″ text_orientation=”center” hover_enabled=”0″]\"Just<\/a>[\/et_pb_code][et_pb_text _builder_version=”4.4.6″ hover_enabled=”0″]<\/p>\n

\u201cPre-Covid, I thought I had a moderate understanding of the way the world worked. I had a graduate degree from the school of hard knocks, learning the ropes of life the way one learns how to swim after being tossed overboard. I knew how to survive. I understood there were no guarantees to making it but had a general sense of what the odds were and how to play them. I thought I knew what I needed to be careful not to lose, what to pay attention to, and the emergencies that one should prepare for. Life was an ocean, and I knew how to swim\u2014or, at the very least, I\u2019d learned how to fake it well.\u201d<\/p>\n

But, she says, \u201cThe pandemic threw everything upside down. No one can say for certain what comes next or what tomorrow will bring. We didn\u2019t before, not really, but our assumptions and guesses were pretty educated. Rules and restrictions change by the day, sometimes the hour. They vary by city, state, and country. The financial market has become a jack in the box in which none of us can really say what\u2019s going to pop out. Posts on Nextdoor and Facebook read like dystopian novellas. Hypotheticals from experts on how we emerge from this feel like eerily familiar science fiction plots.\u00a0<\/p>\n

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\u201cWhat I\u2019m mourning is my sense of the world and my notions of predictability. What I\u2019m adjusting to is my lack of control. What I\u2019m focusing on is what I\u2019m profoundly grateful for. These waters are uncharted, this ground unfamiliar, but the sun feels the same as it did and my daughters still make me laugh. I remain full of gratitude for the relative safety and stability of my circumstances. I\u2019m working on my sea legs.\u201d<\/p>\n

Hakes says her elder daughter has been sheltering with her in LA \u201cbut my second-born is in the Bay Area with her father\u2014and while we\u2019ve made the most of technology to deal with the reality of that geography, we\u2019ve started spending much of our calls daydreaming up all the things we\u2019re going to do when we\u2019re able to be together again. What\u2019s interesting to me about our conjured adventures is that they\u2019re pretty simple: we can\u2019t wait to get outside, to hike through the forest, to go to the beach, to take a long drive, to have a family dinner.<\/p>\n

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