The Process

My day looks languorous. I have been getting up later, but still well before everyone else. I wear t-shirts, sweatpants, flannel.

But just below the surface everything is changing. Will the kids go back to school in the fall? If not, how do I keep them engaged in a structured manner? What of the essential sadness of Natalie's college experience being splinched by the crisis? What will college look like for Graham?

Then there's business. Trying to navigate through these markets while figuring out how to transition to a virtual operating model and just keep clients sane and on track in their own thinking is a bear. A large part of my job is talking to them about how their jobs are being impacted and thinking about the likelihood of a change of employment status six months down the road: are they adequately hedged? Will their business or their job survive?

Out back there's the park. It's been mostly quiet as it's been officially closed except for walking, running, swimming, boating, but we've had occasional outbursts of chaos as people test the limits. The other day some guy wound up drunk and bawling in my neighbor's yard after he accidentally killed his dog, most likely while putting his boat back up on its rack. He said the dog drowned but both he and it were all bloody. He sat there in the yard for a couple of hours, accompanied by a couple of female friends. My neighbors offered them water. They asked for coffee. This actually happened.

There have been other incidents.

Meanwhile, our TV, a lifeline of sanity in the evenings for the family (we've been watching Community on Netflix) is no longer connecting with our WiFi. So I have to plug my laptop into it. It's a little thing, but just an additional task at the end of the day. Sigh.

And of course there's the guilt of knowing how entirely first-world these problems are. It is hard to keep that front and center and just be grateful for it.