I thought I'd been handling this self-quarantine, lockdown, whatever-you-wanna-call-it thing pretty well. I'm a homebody at heart, so I figured going into this not leaving the house lifestyle would be a walk in the park.
Well, that was proven wrong last night. It started with a mild headache yesterday afternoon and progressed to an upset stomach. Ben started making dinner and the smells that were coming into the den sent my headache into overdrive. I wanted to wretch. I told him I wasn't at all interested in eating at the time and closed the door.
After Ben had eaten I ventured into the kitchen, where he joined me. I turned to him and started crying. He came in for a hug and I just let loose. I didn't cry when my mom died. I didn't cry when my dad passed. And yet now—for seeming no reason at all, I lost it.
Amazingly after that good cry, the headache was gone as well as my upset stomach.
In his wisdom, Ben suggested we both get out of the house for a while, either together or separately. Cabin Fever was setting in. And you know I'm stressed when I reach the point I can't spend one more second in front of a screen of any kind, which was exactly where I was.
We didn't make it out last night because it was too late by the time I'd finished dinner, but when we woke today Ben said, "We need to take a drive."
Since the world is on lockdown, we really couldn't—nor did we want to—go anywhere that we'd run into masses of humanity, so we settled on one of the public spaces still open: White Tank Mountain Regional Park.
Back in the early 1970s after moving into our new home at 47th Avenue and Bethany Home Road, my family and I had an unobstructed view of the White Tank Mountains to the west. I often said that once I had my own car, my first destination would be driving out west to see them up close.
It took 42-some years to do it, but I finally did when I drove out a few years ago to photograph the White Tank Library. While there I contemplated driving into the park, but for a variety of reasons decided to put it off for another time. It took an additional three and a half years beyond that, but I finally fulfilled my teenage dream of visiting those mountains today.
We both felt much better—much relieved—when we arrived back home this afternoon. Ready to face another week of self-quarantine…