Like millions of people the world over, this has happened in my life in a myriad of ways, most trivially here on the blog. Instead of continuing my travelogues series, of which I had just one day left of the Grand European adventure, I will suspend that for now. I still intend to write a lot, just not about travel. It just felt tone deaf to continue in a world that has tilted on its axis.
Many other things have changed. I now work from home. On Sunday March 15, South Carolina’s governor announced the closure of schools through the end of the month, although the way that things look from all the evidence, two weeks is only the tip of the iceberg. We spent two days at work planning enough lessons for ten days of instruction; I had to do this for two different contents. As I wrote this, I just started the first full day of work at home where the district expects me to respond promptly to any student questions. So far, I have created two screencastify videos to help explain how to operate the technology to complete the assignments. Since I sit at the start of what could become an extended length of time, i do not know how this will continue to change things.
As everything closes, I have to get creative for my speedwork and strength training. My gym closed indefinitely on Monday the 16th. That could become a good thing as far as speedwork since it will push me out of my comfort zone aka using the treadmill to reach the pace I need. I will need to work harder for strength training since that normally requires more equipment than I have. Fortunately, i had already started looking into more information on that and had already purchased one kindle book and requested another through interlibrary loan which I picked up less than an hour before the library closed to the public indefinitley.
A change of plans that hasn’t happened yet but could if we end up following in the footsteps of some European countries would also involve running. In Spain (and since I first started writing, Italy) you face hefty fines for running outside, even if you run a lone out on the trails. I sincerely hope that things don’t come to that although if I had to judge from the continued skeptics and photographs of way too many people still on California beaches after the governor issued a stay at home order, I fear the worst. If you don’t make the choice to restrict your personal freedoms, the government will come take them from you.
In this rapidly evolving environment, the only consistent thing is inconsistency. For a planner like myself, this could completely unnerve me. For as long as I can remember, I plan things out way in advance, years even. Although I have slowly and sometimes painfully weaned myself of this habit, certain things, like travel, require some sort of planning now made impossible by this virus and the ensuing uncertainty. I tentatively have a trip int he works, to Ottawa over Memorial Day weekend for the marathon. As each day progresses, the likelihood of a swift end to this crisis diminishes. I have flights booked for myself and Dad but had I tried to book them even a couple days later, I might have found myself out of luck. Canada and the United States jointly agreed to pause all non-essential travel between the two countries. Additionally, the State Department issued its highest possible travel warning. Basically, don’t.
I have also made the personal choice to restrict my own movement, changing plans like starting to use the Swamp Rabbit Trail (for its diminished amount of elevation change) for my long runs. I still plan to run outside, just starting from my house. I make this choice to play my part to flatten the curve. I do this when even more conservative members of my family, all of them unfortunately ironically part of the most affected age group, still choosing to go out and about without any change to their daily routine. (Since I wrote this section, some of them have begun, thankfully, to modify this behavior.)
This leaves me in a position of lacking concrete answers for anything. People, myself clearly included, don’t like this sense of uncertainty or deal well with all the changes to plans. When some of it starts to unsettle me, I turn to that which does not change even in times like this. I serve a God who has guided His people through pandemics and wars and natural disasters that the people who lives through may have considered that crisis a signal of the end of the world. God knows how this all will turn out. I can rest in that knowledge and cease scrambling to figure it out for myself.