THERAPY POOL IS BALM FOR STIFF JOINTS
And even in lockdown, we are given the opportunity to use the pool.
For a limited time, 8 am to noon, MWF.
But it is a lot more than nothing, and realistically, only in the hot summer months do we use the pool (the outdoor one) more than three times a week.
It’s not a good time – if I spend physical energy in the morning, there is usually no writing done that day.
And I’m not getting up and functional – quite a process for someone with ME/CFS – early enough to do writing before going to the pool, say, at 11 am.
I will try.
Schedules fall apart when the dinner meal isn’t happening
We have not LIKED the schedule here. Our dinnertime in New Jersey was more like 7-9 pm. Here, in ‘normal times,’ the schedule is way too early for us: we are meeting people for dinner between about 5:15 and 6:15 pm.
You get used to it.
The solution is, of course, to get up earlier every day. Something that night owls like us do not adapt to easily.
So we struggle – but the struggle is oddly deflated when they are bringing a plastic bag of takeout dinner around 5 pm.
We can put it in the fridge – and eat when we prefer.
But we had gotten used to the schedule we were trying to learn to live with.
And daylight is when it is.
And the best time to go for an afternoon trike ride is before the setting sun is in your eyes.
Will isolation have its own schedule?
Probably. Eventually.
Everything seems random when you don’t have a few anchors in time.
Days vary. Today I did Zoom on the computer with the child who is three hours earlier – in the state of New York.
Other days vary – depending on when someone else is available for a call.
But we’ve lost the evening concerts, and the evening folksong Sing – no groups allowed, no outside visitors.
The result is a life that is surreal in one more way
I literally don’t know what to expect from day to day.
To add to that, which is probably common right now, everything from checking out the Washington Post, to making sure friends on FB are still with us, to grocery store hours for seniors (6 am – really???) is causing worry, and worry is causing very erratic sleep patterns: one night I go to bed at midnight, another at 2 am, and a third rewards me with sleeplessness until 5 am because I went to bed on time.
Hard to catch up, hard to regularize, hard to schedule.
Being unscheduled wastes a lot of time
Things that should be done because it’s lunchtime get postponed because you just had breakfast after you got up at 11 am.
Every day has to be decided individually.
Adding the volatility of when my brain comes online, and I’m surprised I get any writing done.
It IS settling down. They have nothing else for us to give up, assuming the pool hours continue.
I may be able to persuade my brain to cooperate.
Because this is going to be a long haul, and I need to write.
How has your time sense and your schedule been affected by the coronavirus?
liebjabberings 