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Do you have any concerns about the long-term impact of the pandemic on children, either in general or in your life? If so, talk about one or two of your biggest concerns.
I believe children will lose more of their innocence and become more fearful of any type of illness. They will be afraid of normal social behavior like handshaking, kisses, and hugs. They will become more withdrawn and socially awkward due to not going to school and participating in normal activities like sports, choir, parties, and dances. Children use media to connect and socialize, so it will overtake in-person interaction and become the norm. Children will suffer long term due to the rules and mandates associated with COVID-19 and have a hard time becoming functioning adults unless things change soon.
December 27, 2020
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Estamos viviendo con restricciones de movimiento y contacto social. Háblenos de cualquier restrición que le está impactado su diario vivir.
Lo que más me ha impactado ha sido no poder abrazar a mis seres queridos. También no poder estar en un mismo lugar, cerca. También no poder besar a las personas que quisiera besar. Abrazar cuando veo una persona que hacía mucho no podía saludar, darle un beso en su mejilla y sentir su beso en las mías, dejar de lado esta costumbre ha sido para mí catastrófico porque ha transformado las relaciones que normalmente teníamos, el afecto se ha visto diezmado y nos convertimos, o por lo menos yo, en una persona fría. Paso mucho tiempo en mi casa y ya casi no me gusta salir, ¿para qué? ¿Para ver sólo sus rostros y escucharlos de lejos? En realidad no me interesa ese tipo de relaciones y prefiero no tenerlas. Me he convertido en un ser solitario. De cierta manera he cambiado. Me convertido en un pedazo de mierda solitario.
December 28, 2020
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How is the coronavirus pandemic affecting your life right now? Tell us about your experiences, feelings, and thoughts.
Christmas Eve 2019 was such fun! I’d traveled across center city Philadelphia and attended an aqua aerobics class @ the Logan Hotel on the Parkway. I met my friend Liz there and we traveled back through town together. I don’t ’t recall whether we ate lunch together as we often did on Tuesdays and Thursdays after class; probably not, as it was Christmas Eve & lots to accomplish. We parted @ city Hall and she took a subway south to get to her home. I walked back to check out a cloak for my daughter and purchase leggings from a Christmas Village vendor outside of city Hall. A young black woman tapped me in my shoulder & I turned to see her. We laughed: we were wearing the same furry coat. “You’re my sister from another mother,” I said. We laughed and parted. I rounded city hall and cut through the former John Wanamaker store & took this photo. The store was a fixture in Philadelphia. John Wanamaker started the department store. He was a devout Christian-I have a hymnal he wrote and a mug from its last days as Wanamakers. He installed a large organ and sometimes there are concerts. In the center of the first floor is a giant sculpture of a bronze eagle. “meet me @ the eagle” were directions for meeting up in the days before cellphones, days when you needed a fix point and some estimate of a timeto meet. The mayor, Ed Rendell had signed my shopping bag “ a day that will live in infamy” with the date as I was one of the last to exit it as Wanamakers. He had a special affection for Wanamakers -he and wife Midge got their first credit cards there when they were students @ Penn in the 60’s. It closed & became a Lord and Taylor, then a Macy’s. It was the store my mother would take us to on an annual visit to the city sometime close to Christmas. We’d make a pilgrimage into town from Bucks County, driving to Olney and riding on the subway, a real novelty for my brother and I. We’d see the store windows of Snellenbergs, Lits, Strawbridges and Gimbels department stores. We’d stuff nickels into the automat and retrieve a slice of lemon meringue pie from a little window of available pies. We’d meet my dad @ the eagle when he left work in town & visit the toy department and Santa @ Wanamakers, riding a little train around the ceiling of the 8 th floor before riding the subway and then driving home. This was an annual ritual. How is this different? The stores we visited are gone, Macy continues to operate Wanamakers building but there is no way that I was assembling indoors or meeting anyone. The Aqua classes resumed but were shut down. I never attempted to return. I knew @ some basic level that I would be crushed to resume and lose my freedom a gain. I’ve quarantined since 3/21/29 Would the black woman feel free to tap me on my shoulder this year after all the racial strife? I’m a 75 yo white-haired White woman The streets are full of unrest. When Congress finally hammered out a deal to provide some support for people Trump nixed it and played golf several times over the Christmas holiday. Christmas Eve was a joyous time to be out and about in the city, meeting and interacting with strangers, in and out of crowds and stores, casualty using public transportation. Most shopping was done online with packages delivered to your home. I don’t know if Macy’s will survive. Lord and Taylor is closing by year’s. end. Their store is on city avenue/@ the western suburban edge of the city. I’ve been in for 9 months. I’m trying to use the internet to shop. I sent my Philadelphia daughter’s gift to CA accidentally, Good Luck Macy’s -and me
December 28, 2020
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How is the coronavirus pandemic affecting your life right now? Tell us about your experiences, feelings, and thoughts.
HOPE - hoping packages will arrive for our grandchildren. They were mailed WELL in advance! Hoping we'll enjoy Zoom time and Face Time with family and friends. Hoping upon hope that those we love will avoid COVID infection. Hoping the vaccine is the light at the end of the tunnel. PEACE - Peace on earth is a dream. After the painful four years under President Trump and the dreadful weeks since the election, I love the moments of peace I feel when President-Elect Biden talks of our needing to come together. We have more in common than we have differences. May the wonderful message have a trickle-down effect. JOY - Yes, we need to find joy in everyday moments. The beautiful snowfall, snowshoeing in the woods, singing carols to unwell friends, Zoom sing-along...these are treasured moments. LOVE - We cannot share the hugs we'd love to, but we can still feel the love.
December 28, 2020
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During the pandemic, has anything changed in how you get food, prepare it, or eat it?
Last year I swung by acme @ 5th and Pine to purchase a roast to cook on Christmas after learning that my daughter and her boyfriend planned to be with me so I was not alone . I shopped in and out of the Italian Market and the Reading Terminal Market. I usually did some variation of the Italian traditional 7 fishes for Christmas Eve dinner. We now have food delivered to us, having someone shop in stores for us. Using Mercato we get foods from the Italian Market and Reading Terminal Market. Christmas Eve dinner. was an Italian “Sunday gravy” of meatballs and sausage frim the ReadingTerminal vendors and acme. None of it was shipped for or purchased @ a store by us. My daughter moved Nextdoor with her boyfriend in mid-March to help me shop like this, to keep me safe. It was his desire to have a pot of meat and sauce to access over the holiday weekend.?we did the preparation and the crockpot did the rest. While people lament what is lost to them in breaking traditions, I’d say this freed us. We have been playing with his Christmas present, a card game : The Puns of Anarchy -what fun! It takes 3 to play. We are looking forward to playing frequently now that we have the hang of it. We laughed until we cried as we devised tricky responses. This has been such a fun Christmas. We have enjoyed each other and out time spent together.
December 29, 2020
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Has the pandemic disrupted your plans for the future in any major way? If so, talk about the most significant disruption(s).
I think the most major disruption was the postponing of my internship. I needed one in-person class before I could do that, and it was cancelled twice. So now I am looking at an internship in the Fall of 2021. I hope that the current restrictions will be fairly lifted by then. I am grateful that I am not just trying to launch a career right now. College students have been hugely impacted and have had their plans disrupted in a more drastic way. Moving back home is itself stressful for young adults and their parents.
December 29, 2020
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How is the coronavirus pandemic affecting your life right now? Tell us about your experiences, feelings, and thoughts.
We celebrated Christmas this week and I was at home with my family the way we always celebrate. It's almost like we could forget that the pandemic was going on. Only a few differences: instead of going to church on Christmas eve, we watched the service on the computer while sitting downstairs around the Christmas tree. Also, instead of spending time at the mall shopping for Christmas presents, most of the shopping was done online. I didn't like that part because I enjoy shopping for things in person, but it was OK for one year. I truly hope I don't have to shop this way next Christmas though. We spent the day eating, laughing, playing games, doing puzzles and enjoying family time. I am truly grateful that we got to be together after not being able to hang out all year.
December 29, 2020
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During the pandemic, has anything changed in how you get food, prepare it, or eat it?
Food for my husband and me during the pandemic has consumed time and provided bright spots as well. Getting food has felt different over the months, but food has always been available. Early on shoppers felt a sense of uncertainty, and that led to hoarding and to adjusting to the 'changing normal' at our local grocery store. Products were not always available; bare shelves were a new sensation. We adjusted and now don't think twice about wearing masks, following directional arrows down the aisles or social distancing. I do enjoy food preparation, so I've spent much time poring over recipe ideas. Plenty of time has been available for cooking and baking; that has helped to keep me busy as well as to add delicious coziness to our home. We've made a habit of lingering longer over our meals: plenty of reading of digital edition newspapers at breakfast, slower lunches as we watch the birds delighting in our bird feeders, dinner accompanied by world news, Jeopardy, and PBS Newshour. No fast-food here; no take-out. We enjoy healthy, homemade meals, but OH how we miss being able to meet friends for lunch or dinner! Here's to 2021!
December 29, 2020
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How is the coronavirus pandemic affecting your life right now? Tell us about your experiences, feelings, and thoughts.
When winter break starts, I usually have plans to see all my high school friends, but this year COVID has made that difficult to impossible. I miss them all a lot. Not really in the mood to write much more at the moment, but yeah.
December 29, 2020
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How is the coronavirus pandemic affecting your life right now? Tell us about your experiences, feelings, and thoughts.
Most of my journal entries have been pretty personal, but I also want whoever reads this journal — my kids, my grandchildren, anyone else — to have a window onto the kinds of headlines we’ve been seeing and news we’ve been reading. I’ve found myself thinking more than ever about how family-centered and emotionally intense a holiday Christmas is, for good or for bad, for so many people around the world. Although it’s not my holiday, I’ve been thinking a lot about how devastating it must be to be apart, or to be navigating family fights about whether it is or isn’t ok to be together, or even — like hundreds of thousands of families around the world, including some interviewed for the WaPo article below — trying to celebrate after having lost a loved one, or even several. Lots of moving stories in that article, but I was really struck by the story of one woman who’s resident of the Atlanta area and an only child, and who lost her father and both of her grandparents to Covid in recent weeks. The article describes how instead of preparing traditional Christmas foods together this year with them, they’re all buried side by side in a family plot. - Merry ‘Covid Christmas’? https://www.washingtonpost.com/national/christmas-gatherings-covid/2020/12/24/f6232ade-456e-11eb-90fc-79662011cb49_story.html Here’s another piece I read earlier today — about how confused and uncertain we all are about how to even protect ourselves and those we love. Also in the Washington Post: - All I want for Christmas are covid-19 mandates - https://www.washingtonpost.com/opinions/2020/12/23/all-i-want-christmas-are-covid-19-mandates/ Two other items in the news are burning in my mind. One is the death this week of Dr. Susan Moore, a Black physician in Indiana who was hospitalized for Covid, denied pain meds she needed, and treated in not only a disparaging but ultimately a fatally dismissive way by physicians — professional colleagues in the medical guild! — who denied her voice, dismissed her authority (both of her own body and professionally), and quite frankly denied her humanity. She leaves behind a 19-year old son and two elderly parents struggling with dementia. She was the sole breadwinner for all of them, and now she’s gone because of COVID and racism — racist doctors, racist institutions, racist system. I first learned about her death on Twitter, and a day or so later it was written up in the New York Times. She posted a video about it on social media in which she talked about how she’s been treated, essentially predicting her own demise. - Black Doctor Dies of Covid-19 After Complaining of Racist Treatment: https://www.nytimes.com/2020/12/23/us/susan-moore-black-doctor-indiana.html The other news item I can’t get out of my mind is actually something I read about in a post here — about a social worker in Chicago, also a Black woman, who was arrested and handcuffed in her own home, naked, by a swarm of police who forced their way into her apartment in search of a suspect she didn’t know. The officers didn’t have a legitimate warrant, as one of the officers eventually admitted after stepping out of her apartment, with the bodycam running. This happened in 2019, but it sounds from the local Chicago coverage like she still hasn’t seen justice. In the journal entry I read here, a white woman (like me) wrote to express the horror and terror that this could happen, as well as the clear sense that it almost certainly would not happen to someone like her in the US because she’s white. - CBS News: “Chicago Police handcuff innocent, naked woman in botched raid”: https://m.youtube.com/watch?v=zdmRkN_WW0g This fucking country is so deeply fucked up.
December 29, 2020
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How is the coronavirus pandemic affecting your life right now? Tell us about your experiences, feelings, and thoughts.
Aspirations ditched Lives, jobs and revenue lost Mankind in crisis
December 29, 2020
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How is the coronavirus pandemic affecting your life right now? Tell us about your experiences, feelings, and thoughts.
A holiday week, and normally I’d be busy packing for a trip to see family, gathering with the work crew and gathering with neighbors. Instead, I’m hunkering down with my husband and the dogs for a quiet holiday at home. The work crew and I decided “no presents, just love” since it’s been a hard year financially. I wish I could hug them. And my family connection will be phone/FaceTime/zoom. ( doesn’t feel the same). But here’s my gratitude: No one I love is sick. My business is afloat. My mortgage is paid up after a few rough spring months. We have at least 6 more months of this and we’re all tired. What sustains me: Yoga. Qi gong. Daily meditation. Going to the office each day like things are still normal. Cooking healthy food. Talking with my neighbors at a distance. It’s just a year. Hope we learn from it.
December 29, 2020
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How is the coronavirus pandemic affecting your life right now? Tell us about your experiences, feelings, and thoughts.
It has been good to laugh this week!!l
December 29, 2020
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How is the coronavirus pandemic affecting your life right now? Tell us about your experiences, feelings, and thoughts.
It has changed the holiday season... Altering, cancelling, or what was expected, anticipated, and valued. There are people I miss being with, something that ZOOM falls short of. We can still communicate, just no commune. When I think about the first thing I want to do when we no longer have to abide by pandemic restrictions is to go on a hugging spree! And then throw a party! I took a week off of the journal with the end of the fall semester, since I was pretty depleted. There isn't much about this year that I want to remember or really pay attention to. My anxiety level is up, my depressive symptoms have increased, along with insomnia. I made a grilled ham and cheese sandwich, and left both ham and cheese out on the counter overnight... I misplaced my ID and pass key for work today, only to find it hanging up on the door (put there so I wouldn't leave without it!) I spend more time escaping the absurdities of the world today in murder mysteries and police procedurals, both on screen and in books. The best thing about the pandemic for me was the discovery of e-books at my local library. I can choose from books all over the state from my laptop. No more lost books, coffee spills (Contigo cheap silicone washers that expand with exposure to heat; with no replacement parts), or late fees. I don't have to drive to the library, either! I can't help thinking about someone I know who is very vulnerable to any passing pathogen. A talented musician who is self-isolating because he doesn't want to catch COVID, but is dying inside due to loneliness. He misses his therapy group, his volunteer work, and teaching music. "I never thought my last days would be like this" was the conclusion of our last conversation. Multiply him my millions.... Someone else has to brave the cold weather to "visit" their spouse at a care facility through the window...Yet another may never be able to see her mother alive again (she is in a care facility and her health is declining). So much to grieve over... The pandemic has attacked us right where we are most human; it has tried to rob us of our connectedness. And yet witnessing one of the most vindictive scorched earth retreats in history.... Everything that can be done to make life difficult for the incoming administration is being done. Creating chaos by refusing to sign legislation that his staff helped draft, taking this country to the brink of insolvency and then signing it... There will be many glitches in the safety net programs that would have been more seamlessly funded without the grandstanding... I know people who never got their unemployment compensation. The moratorium on evictions was only extended for a month! That takes us into the coldest part of winter...
December 29, 2020
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How is the coronavirus pandemic affecting your life right now? Tell us about your experiences, feelings, and thoughts.
I've always had a hard time being cheery during the Christmas season. While everyone is bopping around all happy and embracing the festive spirit, holiday movies and music make my cry at the drop of a hat. I cannot help but perpetually think of the exact opposite of cheer. During the holiday season, I am counterintuitively attuned to the enormous numbers of starving, homeless, poor, unemployed and underemployed, sick, dying, or imperiled persons scraping to survive life on our planet every day. Songs and music tell us to revel in family, joyous reunion, feasts on tables. It's so out of touch. Also, every happy ending has to have a low spot from which to build up. The reality is the low spot is whole narrative for the vast majority. I wonder if the pandemic will help people be less cheery in a productively sensitive way, and that it sticks. I was wary of my fiance's request to go inside her mom's house a few days before Christmas for a 10 min visit; it was too cold to hang outside, and we don't go in for fear of unwittingly exchanging the virus one way or the other. I acquiesced, it was much longer than 10 min which should have triggered my anxiety but oddly didn't, and overall it was amazing. Then I felt awful that neither of us could hug her. Christmas morning Zoom session with my fiance's family was the best I could have hoped for - no tech glitches we couldn't overcome in a few minutes - but it was still lackluster. And then I sense one my fiance's siblings agreed to another session with another portion of the family at a certain time, which we ran up against; they kind of abruptly left, which prompted everyone else to feel compelled to depart. So when it was over, the time felt quite short compared to the typical Christmas morning bleeding into afternoon and evening. That was a big letdown. Christmas for me, personally, didn't feel super different, but I've been privileged to have my parents be part of a mutually exclusive pod since mid-March. However, I worry they're not nearly sensitive enough to the fact that C. didn't get to be with a single member of her family in person on Christmas. My dad is in late 70s, and he's really starting to show some trouble moving around(likely due to inability to go to the gym, be physically active otherwise outside during New England winter, or be socially active at all). My mom's mental acuity hasn't fully returned since her cancer treatments ended mid-March, though I don't know how observant she'd be of my father's aging anyway. So now I'm faced with both the task of navigating this space: trying to get my mom to be less ornery toward my dad, helping them access what they need, having the awful discussions about end-of-life care. And nothing triggers my depression more than the thought of them dying, of not being around anymore.
December 30, 2020
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How is the coronavirus pandemic affecting your life right now? Tell us about your experiences, feelings, and thoughts.
12/23/20 C has had covid, I didn't realize, I thought it was just her partner. Her leg is still hurting her a lot and she doesn't want to go to the doctor because she's uninsured. She does feel better though thank G-d. worry about her and wish there were more I could do. I think she was deliberately vague while she was sick so we wouldn't all worry about her, she only talked about her husband's symptoms. A local aid society had a special low cost holiday meal and we ordered two. How sweet! What a lovely thing to do. (It turned out to be not very much food and not really very good, but still a lovely thought) Slept badly, crying, kept feeling like I am stubbing my mind on my aunt being gone -- something sticking out that keeps causing unexpected surprise pain. Mediocre chat with R who was not focusing on me but lovely chat with T and then with B. But all feels so effortful, I can cobble together support but I have to work so hard at it, and being connected to my aunt was so easy! 12/24/20 S runs a half marathon for the first time! Definitely a pandemic project for him given the lack of gym access. He ran the whole way wearing a mask. L's relative in the hospital with a non-covid condition can only get one 1/2 hr visit a day because of Covid and has to be restrained while on ventilator. So very sad. 12/25/20 Miserable night of sleep, crying about my aunt (you left without saying goodbye!!) 12/26/20 Got to watch two premiering movies (Soul from Pixar, a lot of death! but sweet, and Wonder Woman 1984, utterly ghastly even though I love Gal Gadot) that we wouldn't have seen otherwise because it's so hard for me to go to movie theater, need a lot of special equipment and preparation and sometimes it's just not worth all the extra trouble and pain. Fun to have the pandemic streaming premieres. 12/28/20 Signed up for a remote grief support group. Would be a lot harder for me to access if it weren't over Zoom, the facilitator says she's never done one over Zoom before
December 30, 2020
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Think about your neighbors. How do you think they are doing right now?
During the pandemic we are definitely getting a little more connected to neighbors in our building than ever before. I don't know why it took us so long. We've done a bit of unofficial food sharing, etc., which makes me happy. Most of the students who lived in our building have left town so there's a slightly strange ghost-town feeling in the halls.
December 30, 2020
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Waiting for the vaccine.... can't wait. Two members of my family have been vaccinated. One is a doctor and the other works in a hospital. My 99 year old mother gets vaccinated tomorrow.
December 30, 2020
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How is the coronavirus pandemic affecting your life right now? Tell us about your experiences, feelings, and thoughts.
My daughter, who is in 5th grade, is home for winter vacation for 2 weeks and it is eerily reminiscent of summer vacation: too much TV, too much Minecraft, too much Youtube. You know what? I don't give a shit. She is fine. She actually needs to zone out after working so hard, in school, 5 days a week. The teachers deserve medals as do the kids. She's been lucky to be at a school with the ability to have full-time, in person education. It's a small school with small classes and they have done a tremendous job keeping our kids, not only safe, but happy and curious in their education. While she told me today she is ready to go back, I have a feeling she will make the most of the rest of the vacation before heading back in 2021.
December 30, 2020
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When Queen Rlizabeth address Great Britain on Xmas day - the cameras panned through the royal cavalry. I marveled at the trooper/musician in his saddle sporting a full sized tuba! Attention must be paid for this valiant soldier has not an easy task! This mounted orchestra member indeed harbors immense determination. I am momentarily reminded of a cello playing Woody Allen in a marching band - complete with mobile chair he drags along with him! He also is determined to play his part as he sctively marches through the streets! I have served in a mounted guard and during a parade for Labor Day, Veterans Day , Thanksgiving Day J am most grateful Ionly needed to hold tight the reins!
December 30, 2020