Lazy W Marie

Carpeing all the diems in semi-rural Oklahoma...xoxo

we can get through anything, together: john’s pandemic story

Until March, 2021, John Carpenter and I had enjoyed literally a passing acquaintance. He and I often log miles at the same park in Choctaw and have a few local friends in common, so we have exchanged plenty of runners’ waves over the past few years. It took pandemic for us to finally stop and introduce ourselves (from a distance). Vaccines had barely started in Oklahoma, and things were still tense socially from, well, from everything. I asked whether he would be interested in participating in this interview project. He quickly agreed, laughing and shrugging that people might not like what he has to say. I was instantly hooked.

John Carpenter is a true child of the sixties and doesn’t mind swimming against the current of popular opinion. But he hardly strikes me as being rebellious for rebelliousness’ sake; he is thoughtful and keeps a mellow, almost Buddhist force field around himself, so that even as he is acknowledging conflict or telling a true and terrible story from history, he emits calm. He knows how to flow with changing times, and that quality seems to have helped him thrive during last year’s ongoing tumult. This might be a product of his yoga training, or it could just be from a full, well lived lifetime of ups and downs. He is a vigilant observer of events and human nature, so talking to him about his pandemic experience flowered into a fascinating look backwards into the preceding decades, the life and history that made him who he is, someone who took a global pandemic pretty much in stride and stayed healthy and happy, though still opinionated, the entire time. The more I learned, the more questions I had and the harder it was for me to focus on just this project. Enjoy!

John Carpenter, avid reader, yogi, and local activist

In late 2019 John had seen news reports about a new contagious virus, but it was not yet in the United States. Having seen swine flu and other similar outbreaks in years past, he was not too worried. In early March, 2020, he and his wife of 41 years, Jo, were in Tulsa, Oklahoma, at a book reading by author Luc Sante. Afterwards they shared dinner at a Mexican restaurant. That evening out was their last normal-feeling event for a long time. Then, on March 12, 2020, when a basketball player tested positive for the novel corona virus and emptied the infamous Thunder basketball game on live television, John knew things were serious.

When shutdowns happened, John and Jo had no trouble staying well supplied at home. As he put it, they had “been through too many ice storms in which people panic shopped,” and happily, they never lacked for toilet paper. Well into retirement, their livelihood was unaffected by shutdowns, but John was accustomed to teaching a regular spin class and many yoga classes at a local gym and the YMCA, all of which came to an abrupt halt when the virus hit Oklahoma.

The Carpenters’ first masks were basic medical masks which he purchased at Crest Foods in Midwest City. He later found more online and had no complaints wearing them for the duration of the pandemic.

Daily life changed in noticeable but manageable ways during pandemic. No longer free to teach fitness classes at the gym or YMCA, John transitioned to posting yoga videos on YouTube for his friends and classes. He also kept up his boxing practice by replacing in-person classes with home workouts on a punching bag hung from a tree, plus exercising with free weights. He ran at the park a little more often and found more time than ever for reading books. These were good changes, he felt, as was spending more time with his wife. They developed a ritual of taking long walks together in beautiful outdoor spaces like local parks, Scissortail, in Oklahoma City, or a spot in Edmond they both love.

Entertainment at home included some movies and watching old episodes of The Office. The Carpenters did not seem to need new hobbies, just a shift and refocus of what they already enjoyed. He said that during shutdown, he realized he had been teaching too many classes and decided to cut back greatly once things returned to normal. He has sorely missed attending live music as well as the annual Metropolitan Library System book sale, which he had previously not missed in forty years!

John never contracted the virus, and today he feels great, both physically and mentally. He added that he believes wearing a mask all year prevented him from even catching a cold. Unfortunately, his brother did contract covid-19 and was seriously ill for some time. He lost a significant amount of weight and was nearly hospitalized. Thankfully, after a few weeks of fighting it, he recovered well.

Unsurprisingly, John had a neighborly view of “essential workers” and said he made a point to thank people more often. He exuded lots of warmth for people whose, “jobs that usually our society does not give a lot of credit to but kept us going during the pandemic.” His mother was an educator, and as we spoke his love and respect for teachers shone through.

January 6, 2021, held double importance for John. He was in a parking lot in Seminole, Oklahoma, waiting to receive his first dose of the newly approved covid-19 vaccine, when his phone came alive with news alerts. The nation’s Capitol was under siege, and widespread violence was threatening to explode. The Insurrection, as people came to call it, happened on the very day that life could have been turning a positive corner. Though angered by it all, John took that day in stride, too.

Knowing John is generally outspoken about politics and social issues, I was curious to hear his opinions about how the pandemic was handled both by government leaders and fellow citizens. (John himself ran for local office a few years ago on a shoestring, grassroots campaign, and those stories alone were fascinating and distracting to me, ha!) He said without blanching that our governor should have enacted a mask mandate and that as a state we probably opened back up too soon. “I was happy to see Choctaw enact a mask mandate,” he shared, but, “was disappointed at the pushback from a lot of citizens who felt like they were losing their rights by having to wear a mask. I am sure part of it was political, but the refusal to wear a mask still surprised me and it continues to this day! The YMCA has a policy where you have to wear a mask except while exercising. My opinion, you need to be wearing a mask the whole time you are indoors, exercising or not. I have taught all my classes wearing a mask, if inside and I have had no issues.” (This part of our conversation happened early springtime, when masks were still required most places.)

Beyond politicians, we discussed how society at large could have handled things better. His answer was simple: He wished we had better grasped the dangers. “I think just because it impacts mostly older people, a lot of younger people (were) not taking it too seriously. People seemed to think they (were) giving up their rights by having to wear a mask or get a vaccine. They (did) not realize we are all in this together.”

We reflected on lessons available from past crises and global pandemics, especially World War II and the 1918 Spanish flu. He said about those chapters in history, “We got through it,” then elaborated on how society then had a sense of communal trust. People trusted science, and they trusted that hard times would not last forever. We also talked about the Vietnam War era and what common ground we share with that generation, today. We share racial tension, social unrest as we make fundamental changes, and a deep political divide because of it all.  

John regards social media as a mixed blessing. While he admits to sometimes venting his frustrations online and does not shy away from a lively debate on Facebook, he sees that generally the internet tends to provide a breeding ground for anger and conspiracy. John has a degree in sociology and is happy to discuss complicated things openly, so I could have listened to his ideas about group behavior for a hours. He also has dozens of great stories to tell about the genesis of our own town of Choctaw, OK, and the rapid evolution of nearby Midwest City, home of Tinker Air Force Base.

How truly captivating to think of life and local history being shaped over the decades not just by money, industry, and generational growth, but also by diverse and powerful human personalities. Specific people, just living their lives. Individual persons and groups of people can do so much to hurt or help a community, and John’s collection of stories illustrate that beautifully.

Certainly, music and popular culture have significant roles to play, he explained. In his own coming of age, protest music was common on the radio, and as a teenager John supplied himself with albums by Bob Dylan, The Beatles, The Who, Grateful Dead, and more. He acknowledges they must have had a deep impact on his thinking as a young man. And reading magazines like The Rolling Stone and The New Yorker expanded his world view in a time before the internet. He learned to think differently, to see other groups of people in new, maybe unconventionally (for the time) loving ways, and to think for himself. He recalls watching television news with his Dad, who, despite being from a very different place and time, was apt to explain and thoroughly discuss current events with his son. The Nixon-Kennedy debates in 1960 made an impression on John’s social and political views, as did James Meredith’s enrollment in the University of Mississippi in 1963, to which the National Guard was called. John also followed the Kennedy family closely and was himself a Senate page at our State Capitol in 1966. All of this laid the foundation for how lovingly and seriously John would process the Black Lives Matter movement this past year.

John was bold to answer my questions about how he vets information in an age when we have unlimited access to such a wide variety of it. These days, he is choosy about his news sources, favoring The Atlantic, Harper’s BAZAAR, New York Times, Washington Post, NPR radio, and still The Rolling Stone. His criteria lean on longevity of the publication and how well researched the writers are. John shared that he once met a longtime columnist from The Rolling Stone and took the chance to thank that man for contributing to his thought shaping over the years. I find that beautiful. Locally, John likes KTOK radio, The Gazette and, now that it has changed hands, The Daily Oklahoman. Does The Lost Ogle count as news? He likes that website, too, ha.

Our most recent conversation was early this June, long after vaccine rollout was underway and mask mandates ended here in Choctaw. As things inch toward normalcy, John shared that he and Jo had not been in a restaurant since that night out in Tulsa the previous March. The first restaurant they enjoyed post pandemic was Zoe’s in Edmond, where they dined outside. The second time they ate out was at Picasso’s in the Paseo district. They are still eagerly awaiting their first live music event.

Going forward, how is he changed, besides planning to teach far fewer classes away from home?
“I think I will appreciate everything in life a lot more from here on out. I will try to get the most out of each day. I also know when I go to my next concert, whenever it is, it will be an emotional moment.”

I love what John had to say about the gifts of pandemic: “I believe it showed me I could adapt to most situations. I think being older and hopefully wiser kept me from ever really feeling too depressed or panicky about the situation. I trusted the scientists and I am confident I was on the right side.”

Hearing about both John’s nearly unflappable year in pandemic as well as his coming of age in such an exceptional time in history sparked all kinds of thinking for me. It left me struck by how crucial it is that we help our young people frame things well. This moment in our communal history is shaping our children and teenagers just like the sixties shaped John. How our kids emerge from this pandemic will have everything to do with how they navigate future inevitable crises. It’s common sense of course, and we all know these things; but John’s generous sharing of his life experiences drove it all home for me.

May we all handle with great care our future thought leaders and politicians. May we deeply nurture each other and continue the hard, thorough conversations so that we see beyond where we are, like John did. None of this has to be wasted.

Thank you for sharing so much of your inner world with us, John! Choctaw is lucky to have you.

“Mention me when they ask you what happened.
I am everywhere under your feet.”
~Luc Sante
XOXOXOXO

HE’S ON A BOAT YO

A year in pandemic spurred many of us to reevaluate life in unexpected ways, and maybe we made some adjustments or adopted new hobbies; but how many of us uprooted ourselves and moved across the country to buy a boat, and then live on it? Please meet Steve.

Steve Zimmerman

In late February, 2020, Steve was in Boston at a large gaming industry convention when pandemic hit the United States. In fact, he was in a huge, closed building filled with more than 80,000 people just as that city was being identified at a covid-19 “hot zone.” News spread quickly, and he soon received a call from the company’s CEO offering the option to shut things down early and get home. Steve was already a stickler for personal health and hygiene, citing long standing habits to ward off the dreaded “Con-Crud,” so he decided to close out the show as planned. His own journey back to his then home in Los Angeles overlapped just two or three days with the country’s fast and hard shut down. Looking back on that week, he considers it “wildly lucky” that neither he nor any of his colleagues contracted the deadly new virus.

That plane ride back to LA was the last time he flew all of that year. Compared to 2019, when he logged 170 hours in flight, that was a steep nosedive and one that precipitated a series of hard questions and life changes.

Leading up to that trip to Boston, he and his girlfriend Audrey had been planning and preparing for a big, Irish style party aimed at Saint Patrick’s Day in March. They had already purchased thirty pounds of corned beef, almost as many pounds of potatoes, a case of Guinness beer, and four bottles of Jameson. They were seasoned hosts, old hats at feeding and entertaining their large circle of friends (the Girl Gang, as Steve called them) for frequent cookouts. The Irish party was nothing new, except that it was also meant to be a belated housewarming to celebrate the pair having put down roots together the year before. When the pandemic changed everyone’s plans, Steve and Audrey found themselves suddenly over-supplied with meat, potatoes, and alcohol. Their freezer was packed! That, plus good general home organization and a bizarre bequeathment of specialty Japanese toilet paper from Steve’s late grandmother (this very good story probably merits its own blog post), meant that emergency shopping was unnecessary. They simply thawed small amounts of corned beef every other month and supplemented their potatoes with grocery deliveries from local companies.

Steve is the Vice President of marketing for a successful video game company. They occupy a fascinating niche focused on making a positive social impact on the world and interfacing with education and documentary-style entertainment. They have earned prestigious awards for their efforts and were invited by the BBC to develop a game related to The Blue Planet series. Most of his job keeps him traveling frequently and networking with people by the thousands. When travel came to a screeching halt, he felt lucky to have already pivoted to a fully remote environment two years earlier. The digital predisposition of the entire industry translated well. In June, 2020, in response to pandemic, the rest of the Arizona-based company also went fully remote. That same month, their newest video game released.

In fact, throughout the first half of the pandemic, his industry enjoyed booming business. He told me about deep sea divers who couldn’t get to the ocean but could suffice their appetites somewhat by playing his games. He clearly seemed proud of the family-oriented, education based material. “It filled a need” so many people were experiencing, and “it has a soothing soundtrack.”

Quarantine life in Los Angeles was a mixed environment, “a whole wishy washy, push-pull situation.” Much of the public was resistant to wearing masks and staying home, so Steve felt thankful that his peers took it seriously. They talked on Zoom plenty, had a handful of small lunches in backyards, and made front porch soda bread drops just to do wellness checks on each other. His main focus for much of the year was keeping his people safe and looking forward to vaccines when they became available. His parents are in North Carolina, and like many people in our generation Steve found himself in the brand new position of “parenting upward.” His nagging and shaming tactics worked, and eventually they did come around to take their own healthy seriously.

We talked a little bit about politics, but Steve was guarded. He displayed a mellow, almost neutral view of how politicians at large handled the pandemic. Or maybe he has strong opinions and hid them from me, choosing instead to express compassion for people making tough decisions. Regarding specifically the vaccine rollout, he said, “There were no real winning solutions for politicians.” We waded ankle deep in other political topics, and if time ever allows I want to hear more of Steve’s thoughts on how the then-President and his cabinet could have better led the country during shut downs, social upheaval, and more. His public relations education and background provides a great perspective: “I think the pandemic was bungled by most politicians, particularly the guy in the white house at the time, to the detriment of our entire country.”

While staying home did not hamper his effectiveness at work, the sudden lack of travel did reveal a need for something, a need that could not be filled with backyard lunches and baking bread. He began to feel restless and ached for something far off. What illustrated and proved the idea to him was a long road trip he made to Virginia Beach in September. His best friend from college, and his wife, had just welcomed their first child during quarantine, so Steve rented a car and drove east for four days, not stopping to see any sights, treating every hotel room like a crime scene and bringing much of his own food to avoid restaurants and retail exposure as much as possible. It was an out-and-back trip that afforded him many hours of self reflection. He soon realized how heavily he had been relying on travel to soothe an itch. It was hardly a lack of love for the people in his west coast life, but maybe just for the place. Maybe it was just the far removal from the east coast waters where he was raised. As beautiful as California was, as filled as it was with his beloved friends, it wasn’t where his heart needed to be. And he decided to face that.

Steve had grown up not just near the Atlantic Ocean but on it. Native to New York, he and his Dad spent years sailing together competitively. Steve has lived in a life jacket since he was a little boy. Boats and saltwater and a wild competitive streak were in his bones. All of it was part of him.

He missed it, to say the least, living in Los Angeles these past five years, and moving around the country before that for college and various jobs. Sailing was a fundamental part of his identity which he had been neglecting, and the stillness of those months in pandemic helped him see the personal neglect more clearly. He realized that he wanted to move back east and buy a boat, a legitimate, seaworthy, liveaboard cruiser.

This began a long, painful process of unearthing his deepest desires and presenting some new truths to the woman he loved, with whom he had just barely missed celebrating a Jameson-soaked housewarming. As he described some of this process to me, those first sad, difficult conversations, he was visibly moved and spoke tenderly. This life change is still fairly raw, and he obviously still holds deep affection for Audrey.

Steve turned forty in October, so he had to actively eliminate the possibility that this was a classic mid life crisis. He examined himself. He asked himself all the good, hard, necessary questions and did not rush into anything. “This was not a flight of fancy.” Steve took this so seriously that he also consulted with his mental health professional to kind of run it up against their wisdom, make sure he was making a sound examination of his own heart.

“If not now, when?” In February, 2021, he made his final drive east, “this time for keeps.” Pandemic not only caused him to feel uncomfortable; in many ways it also proved to be the perfect time to make some big changes. Once Steve decided to uproot himself and begin this new chapter, the Universe started dropping pieces into place like magic.

Audrey was supportive and loving about his move, though they both were heartbroken. They sought to make a conscientious uncoupling and are trying to remain friends now. She even sent him an inflatable pirate ship to keep his newly purchased slip from being vacant while he waits for his real boat.

His parents were also supportive of his return to the nest, offering good, aka free rent for the space above their garage. Steve and his two rescue cats are living there while he remodels his boat. All he has to do in exchange for room and board is cook the family meals. Citing the vacuum of good Mexican food in North Carolina, he favors that and Thai food for expanding their culinary horizons. So far the reviews are mixed. If his Dad says a dish is “interesting,” that means he likes it. If, however, he calls it “different,” that’s a clear down vote. I asked Steve whether his gracious parents have enforced a curfew on him. He burst into slightly aggressive laughter, leaned all the way forward way to the computer screen, and almost shouted “Marie there is nowhere to go to NEED a curfew!” He came from Los Angeles, with a bustling population of ten million people, to a small town with just thousands, and at 40 is lowering the average age there considerably. Ha!

Adding to the synchronicity, Steve found his dream project boat almost immediately upon deciding to move and just a few weeks before he did finally head east. An online group conversation led him to a 1984 boat in New Jersey, whose previous owner had just retired to Puerto Rico. The buyer-seller timing was perfect, the vessel is thirty-eight feet long and well suited for living on, and it needs exactly the kind of refit-and-restore modernizing Steve craves to do. Also? He got a great deal.

After one brief hiccup with the CEO of his gaming company, who did not immediately understand that Steve was moving east for good, all is well. He is smoothly working remote, has the boat title in hand, and should receive it to his slip this May. In the meantime, he is in remodel planning mode and practicing a streamlined kitchen routine. He and his Dad also raced together recently, placing second after a decade long hiatus!

“It is wildly surreal,” Steve said, gushing. He is no longer just thinking about this dream; he is acting on it. He never planned to be at this point in life, so young, and he is grateful to be getting after it while he is healthy and able. We chatted about the pitfalls of waiting too many years to live fully, but then he surprised me. He gently suggested that every chapter can be valuable, that everything we do leading up to (what we think of as) our dreams can serve us. He seemed to be saying that we don’t always have to dismiss chunks of time as delays, because they are all part of our story. They all have immense value.

I was big time intrigued by this remark and asked him to indulge me. I wanted to know what he would say to high school seniors or college graduates, to young adults about to launch. Steve’s own college path was pretty fascinating, leading him from one interesting major to another, specializing him eventually in public relations and politicking (ahhh that’s where the diplomatic answers came from). Then his career took lots of meandering, but always fruitful, curves. So how does one know he is on the right path?

Steve spoke firmly about striving to “balance better from the word go,” rather than focusing solely on either work or relationships, or any other single aspect of life. They are both important. It is all important. We are complex creatures. He said you have to “chase your happy,” regardless of what’s going on around you. His advice was different from a typical motivational speech, because he pressed into balance. He pressed into the satisfaction of a good, meaningful career as well as fulfilling relationships. He talked about being honest with yourself and living with authenticity. “The judgment of others is an utterly useless currency.” He said he would urge kids to not be scared of change and that if they crave something, it is always worth looking into. It’s good to be okay with being uncomfortable, he repeated.

I asked about his spiritual life, because so much of his journey seems to have been directed and touched by unseen forces. He was raised Catholic but now identifies as mostly atheist (whoops, here comes rent!). He does not believe in visualization per se, but he does seem intrigued by the undeniable patterns in his life. He definitely supports self reflection and asking for help when you need it. He also believes in self discipline. “If I say the thing, I’m gonna do the thing.” As we talked a little more about his difficult but already rewarding journey this past year, he blew me away with his version of something I think all the time: “I will honor the difficulties of the decision.” He intends to do everything he can to not squander the opportunity, for everything that was lost to get here. He trusts that everything will work out, that he will be better for it all, and that others will be okay too. In fact his concern for how he affects the people in his life was palpable.

A year and change after that last flight home from Boston, Steve is still not craving corned beef anytime soon, but he does still love to cook. He still has his two cross country cats with him in North Carolina, and so far has not suffered a parental curfew for living above their garage. He still works remote for the video game company and is actively fascinated by how the industry might evolve in the post-pandemic world. Will massive public conventions return? If so, will they establish a proof of vaccine policy? Time will tell.

His boat project is coming along nicely, though, appropriately, she is nameless as of this writing. As with drivers of classic cars, a boat captain has to become acquainted with the vessel, has to understand her personality and “have a serious conversation,” before suggesting a moniker.

Steve remains close friends with Audrey, and he dips into the LA Girl Gang Zooms as often as possible.

Most inspiring to me, he stands wide eyed and responsive to the ongoing Truth of his life. He wrangles discomfort, determines his own path, and follows it thoughtfully. His voice sometimes shakes, but his resolution does not. And I love this.

“You don’t want to outsail your boat,” is one of the last things Steve offered me before we said goodbye. He described the lifelong learning curve of sailing, of how a person can be experience-heavy but knowledge-light, as he assesses himself right now. He was electric when he talked about it, about the competence, physical ability, and wisdom needed to face down challenges on the water, and how a captain can easily discover himself “outclassed by the situation,” so he has to prepare.

He is excited to race more often, live on the water, and explore the coastline. He is excited for every challenge, and I have every confidence that his brave honesty, steadfastness, and work ethic will braid together for an unforgettable adventure.

“I’ll be alright,” Steve said, even if this idea fails. And I agree with him. He posses that inner compass that will make sure he finds his way, always.

May we all find that compass and never let it go.
XOXOXOXO

globe trotting & soul searching

Kaanji granted me a Zoom conversation on her Saturday morning (in Oklahoma I was Zooming on my Friday afternoon). She had just woken up in her childhood bedroom, in Melbourne, Australia, where she has been staying since last autumn. It was raining there. She was looking forward to a quiet day and a series of other Zoom calls with her friends in far flung places, including Gen and Julia, who I have to thank for this fun introduction.

As soon as we exchanged excited pleasantries, Kaanji grabbed my hand and without warning took me screaming and laughing on a wild jump over her mile high cliff of storytelling. I barely knew which end was up. Speaking in her irresistible Aussie accent, she told me about why she fell in love with Los Angeles, why she isn’t there right now, how the rest of the world views the United States’ handling of the covid pandemic, and what might happen next in her life. She told me about care packages to herself and hotel quarantines and hot cross buns in cold weather, as well as manicures, celebrities, online dating during a global pandemic, and more. She made me want to stay up all night just listening to her stories!

Her year in pandemic has been in many ways as frustratingly typical as anyone’s but also very unlike any other, because at the height of it all, she flew halfway around the world and got stuck. Let’s rewind a bit.

About six years ago, Kaanji came from her native Australia to Los Angeles, for a birthday vacation. “Obsessed with Vanderpump Rules and Keeping Up with the Kardashians,” she was happily seduced by all the celebrities and American pop culture. She even met Will Smith on that trip. Just five months later, she moved to LA for work, never met another celebrity, but began putting down roots anyway. By then, it was something more genuine that grabbed her. The diversity and melting pot environment, the great big city with “a place for everyone,” had captured her heart. She also found her community.

As an auditor, then, and having previously worked for the Melbourne Symphony Orchestra, Kaanji crossed professional paths with Gen, who then worked for the Los Angeles Philharmonic. The two forged an instant friendship. Even after Kaanji left that job, the two remained close. Gen absorbed her into the warmth of the LA Derby Dolls social circle. The “squad” as Kaanji affectionately refers to them, became her family that filled up her home away from home. Just no book reading for her, thanks, no matter how many book clubs the Derby Dolls attend. She continued flying back and forth between the continents, visiting loved ones and living a full and happy life.

In February, 2020, when covid-19 was barely on anyone’s radar, Kaanji and a few friends were in Melbourne to watch “The Tennis” (also known as The Australian Open). People were sanitizing seats and surfaces everywhere, and rumors were flying about food shortages, but Kaanji wasn’t buying into the hype yet. She thought, “Whatever, hoard away.” That sentiment would change in just a few weeks, back home in LA.

Keeping in mind that Australia had just wrapped up a long, horrifying chapter of devastating bushfires, some people there were already accustomed to wearing masks, never mind that they were ineffective against smoke inhalation. Kaanji remembers hearing about masks to mitigate the virus and thinking, “Oh my god so dramatic!” That was the response many people had in the beginning, but her friend, whose dad is a physician, convinced Kaanji to take two spare masks which they found at the hospital. She accepted them but did not wear them on her flight back to Los Angeles.

Upon landing at LAX, she witnessed just one employee wiping handrails with alcohol and towels and thought that was odd. Already she could see that people were behaving so differently in LA.

She resumed her California dream but watched with everyone else as covid updates began picking up steam.

On March 15, she was enjoying a proper manicure, one of the few personal indulgences she cannot do without, when news came that lockdowns in California were imminent.

Kaanji was absolutely caught off guard for food supply and toilet paper. Being a single girl often at work or on the go, she never had a need to stock pile much in her apartment. When the city plunged into its first serious lockdown, she was startled by the empty shelves at Ralph’s grocery. Exactly one onion remained in the produce aisles! At CVS, she found nothing in the freezer cases and resorted to buying offbeat foods, whatever she could find. She somehow managed to make a single roll of one-ply bamboo toilet paper last her for four months.

Even once she was able to replenish her groceries, stress snacking was unique for Kaanji. She had a long standing custom when she traveled of shipping herself packages of her favorite Australia treats. Having just been home for The Tennis, she soon benefitted from that trip’s shipment and spent lockdown enjoying her favorite Australian chocolates, among other treats. (I forgot to ask her about vegemite!)

Entertainment in quarantine seems to have crossed over plenty with personal grooming, and it was the most relatable thing ever. She minimized being out and about as much as possible, but one private indulgence remained: She had to have her nails done professionally. “That is one thing I cannot do without!” she laughed generously, and showed me her pretty hands, temporarily bandaged for protection from cooking. “I draw the line at not getting my nails done.” Months into shut down, she cautiously paid a friend to come to her apartment, both of them masked and stretching their arms as far as they could, to file and shine her nails. (I curled up my own fists in my lap and made sure Kaanji could not see my gardening, animal- tending eyesores as we spoke.)

While California (and much of the United States) at large was not locking itself down nearly so strictly as, for example, Melbourne was, Kaanji and her friends took the virus seriously. They wore masks now, when they had to be out. They avoided crowds and sanitized judiciously. During those first months of the covid pandemic, they all worked from their respective homes and stayed apart but connected with Zoom calls at least every other week. “This is the only constant I have in my life,” Kaanji said a bit pensively. Living for several years separated from one set of loved ones or another, she had learned to communicate electronically, which was now serving her well. She even had a friends’ Zoom open in the background several months later, the day she packed to fly back to Australia.

That spring and summer, the atmosphere in Los Angeles was tense for more than worries about the virus. Political and social conflict simmered hotly then boiled over, and Kaanji happened to live in a neighborhood where some of the biggest, most violent protests took place. She laid out for me her decision making process of whether to attend certain rallies and why, of which human responsibilities were most urgent at different times. “There were bigger issues,” she said, almost pleading with herself, clearly conflicted. She told me about witnessing a woman being shot with rubber bullets, plus other firsthand accounts of violence. I could hear the compassion in her voice, could see the worry on her face for how people were being treated, for the social values at stake. She told me about a night she tried to help monitor a small business in her neighborhood, hoping to ward off rioters and looters, and the National Guard followed her aggressively. All the humor and novelty of pandemic drained out of her when she shared these memories. It was obviously a heavy chapter for her, for everyone.  

As the year wore on, these stressors plus some personal losses caused her to reevaluate her life in Los Angeles. She had enjoyed an online romance with a man, but it ended before they ever met. Then a close friend of hers died from cancer. By midsummer she was thinking about spending Christmas in Australia. This was also around the time that she, along with everyone else in the U.S., was anxiously awaiting the results of the presidential election. The prospect of a holiday trip was welcome distraction.

It was a collision of perfect timelines and a little serendipity. Just as she was weighing her options, Kaanji learned that the Australian government was offering paid hotel quarantine for people returning home within a narrow window of days. Remember that Australia’s version of lockdown was from the beginning far more extreme (and effective) than anything we have seen here in the United States. Their freedom to move about was truly eliminated, making it almost a police state; but this did result in unbelievably low infection rates. She trusted that she was headed to a much safer part of the world than Los Angeles.

As it happened, she was able to find deeply discounted airline tickets that fit the required window, so she took the leap and booked a flight home for November 29th. This would begin her long, somewhat open ended absence from the melting pot city she had come to love. 

The Australian government paid for her to quarantine in the Sydney hotel, and it was a true quarantine, unlike anything we have seen here. People in town needed a permit to move about past a three mile radius, and she could not leave her room at all for two weeks. Three times per day, meals were delivered with an impersonal knock at the door, and the food was rarely good. The rooms boasted questionable hygiene, and she was lonely. She also suffered an ear infection during this time.

Still, true to her go-with-the-flow spirit, Kaanji summoned her creativity and networking skills to get through those strange days. She found a Facebook group comprised specifically of Australians in hotel quarantine (because of course this exists!). She salvaged brown paper bags from food delivery and used tiny scissors from a travel sized grooming kit to painstakingly fashion a Christmas tree decoration for her wall. She grew a lighthearted “Keeping Up With Kaanjo” social media following, just to maintain her sanity. Stuck between her two homes, it all had far from a holiday vacation vibe, but she was safe. Eventually she did get to join her family for Christmas.

Sadly, just two days after Christmas, Kaanji learned that her aging aunt had contracted the deadly virus. Her aunt lived in London at the time and had been using a hospital transport to attend weekly kidney dialysis treatments. Since she had been extra careful in every other area of life, the family surmises this is how she was exposed. Due to her already vulnerable health and advanced age, she succumbed to covid-19 after a long, difficult month of suffering. “She was so weak,” Kaanji shared.

Suddenly, the importance of family nearness, however altered because of travel restrictions and a lack of large group gatherings, was underscored. Although they felt angry to have lost their loved so few weeks before the vaccine was made available, it was good just to be a little bit closer to each other. It somewhat lessened the sting.  

We talked about the vaccine and the sharp contrast between how the United States has behaved during pandemic, compared to the rest of the world. She shared that most Australians, for example, have been fearful of the virus and content to stay put. They readily dismiss travel in order to stay safe. The restrictions are just accepted, perhaps because they have lost their freedoms before. Moreover, they see the rebelliousness of Americans as a bit selfish, as risky beyond what we need. In Australia, just one positive case can shut down a city, as we will see later. Extreme contact tracing is a foregone conclusion, not a debatable intrusion to anyone’s privacy.

Kaanji is rightfully proud that her home country has handled public safety better than we have, but she also admits that she is envious of our vaccine rollout here. Their cases are zero, but they are unable to leave. They have “no empathy” for anyone overseas, and overall there is definitely an “us-versus-them” mentality.

Kaanji has reached a gentler conclusion about it all. She spoke in the same mellow, loving voice she used when remembering the riots in Los Angeles: “You can’t control anyone but yourself.”

She continued working remote for a time, but that had to end too. By early 2021 Kaanji had to tell her employer she was not returning to the states any time soon, and she began the long, arduous process of not just finding a new job but also fully undoing her life from another continent. She offered personal possessions to her friends then paid her regular housekeeper once more to clean her LA apartment and sweep through, taking whatever she might want from what was left. “It was the least I could do,” Kaanji almost whispered. Her friends helped at every turn. Gen took care of loose end banking business in LA and eventually helped return her leased vehicle. It was a lot for Kaanji to organize, but the activity was helpful. Kaanji found that all the list making and short term tasks and goals kept her busy in a good way, kept her from over thinking things that were outside of her control.

And so Kaanji’s life in Australia has pressed on in limbo, under these bizarre quarantine circumstances. She is living in her childhood bedroom, happy to have reconnected with cousins and appreciating the time with her Dad, enjoying daily walks and no snakes (unbelievable). But she is also weary of isolation and missing her life back in Los Angeles. “My life is a distraction,” she said with a smile and a little bit of surrender. In recent months she has taken up cooking elaborate, picturesque meals like Japanese Katsu curry, though she rarely eats the food. She just makes it for the Instagram photos, ha! She once ordered $60 worth of yeast and that never arrived then spent five hours teaching herself to make hot cross buns, one of her favorite seasonal treats.

By this January, 2021, Australia no longer had a mask mandate. Kaanji described a whole new kind of culture shock, in adjusting to this. The short plane rides when they actually served meals. She accepted a position at a firm in Melbourne and had to acclimate all over again to the old ways of riding in elevators with others, shaking hands, and speaking face to face without masks. She said that a year later, it all finally hit her, when she began to feel normal.

In March of this year, Kaanji and a few friends were back at the Tennis. She was actually at a match when another eerie announcement was made. A single positive case of the now familiar virus sparked the city’s shut down. Officials dropped a midnight curfew which was enforced by patrolling officers and hefty fines. Kaanji and her friends spontaneously crammed three days’ worth of tourism into a “one epic night,” barely making it back home before midnight. She said it felt like a scene from an apocalyptic movie, running away from the train station.

I was thirsty to know how Kaanji remained buoyant in the midst of so many changes and plot twists, so much fear and upheaval. She had been smiling almost constantly as we spoke, sharing her stories matter of factly, only occasionally dipping into shadows. So I asked about her mental health. She boldly expressed her gratitude for the Derby friends who provided constant support.  They certainly bolstered each other. “No words can thank them enough.” She also shared that at some point during this strange year she reached out to her former therapist in Australia and rekindled a good dialogue, virtually. “Telehealth is the greatest thing to come out of pandemic!”

Kaanji’s heart is in more than one place at a time, but for now her body lives in Australia. She expects to stay there for the next year or two, and now that pandemic is winding down she has some soul searching to do about how to spend that time. She is already campaigning hard for the Derby group to visit her for “the trip of a lifetime!” when it’s safe to travel. Eventually, she plans a return to California, to live in a house on Manhattan Beach in California, adopt a midsized rescue pup, and take up paddle boarding.

When I think of the meandering path Kaanji’s life has taken, especially this past year, and the exuberant ways she chooses to live, I feel excited for her. She strikes me as the kind of person who can flow with purpose and self determination through and around any obstacle, like the strong, roaring Thompson River in Colorado, using the rocks to direct her considerable energy and maybe carving gently away at them, too. Shaping the rocks themselves with her will.

However she chooses to spend the next couple of years, I know she will extract goodness from her life. I know that when her California family comes to visit her in her homeland, she will absolutely give them the trip of a lifetime. And when she moves back, I hope to meet her on Manhattan Beach and discover what breed of pup she has rescued.

XOXOXOXO

she chose joy

Some people have an inner mechanism, like a filtering system, that enables them to see the world more joyfully. It is more than being able to focus on the silver linings; it is more like a universal translator that helps them automatically interpret challenges as opportunities and detours as excursions into unknown, and most likely adventurous, territory. I don’t know whether these people are more often born with such a guidance system or whether they develop it over time, but I definitely recognize them when we meet. Kori McKinney Wilson is one of these people. The great covid pandemic of 2020 had nothing on her ability to reclaim a brand new version of order from chaos. Please enjoy her story.

Toward the end of January, 2020, Kori and her family of five joined their extended family for a big cruise vacation. The group numbered fifteen people in total, and it was their first such adventure together. They had lots of fun and were only barely aware of corona virus news updates, thinking at that time it was akin to SARS and not likely to be a problem in the Unites States.

Several weeks later, the news was accelerating. Kori remembers huddling at her seventeen year old daughter’s soccer game, irritated by the cold early spring weather. Noting her mood toward the weather would almost haunt her later, because soon enough she would be yearning for gatherings with friends and strangers, no matter the weather.

Kori is a dental hygienist by trade. On a Thursday afternoon in late March, 2020, as the office was emptying for the weekend, her boss told everyone to expect to shut down for a few weeks, but that they were waiting for more clear direction from the American Dental Association as well as Oklahoma leadership. Just hours later, they received word that the state was strongly encouraging shut downs but that the final decisions were up to each office. Kori’s dental office decided to close for at least two weeks, through April ninth. She remembers the pandemic feeling real at the end of those first two weeks. They were ultimately closed for a full seven weeks.

The first week of lockdown coincided with her kids’ spring break. Luke, Kaley, and Brennan were in the fourth, tenth, and eleventh grades last year, and skipping spring break led to skipping sports and friends and part time work, too. The Wilson family is a tight knit group, though, so under their parents’ leadership everyone managed to sink in and enjoy it all. They were especially thankful that the weather improved, as it allowed for family hikes at the Wichita Mountains and other outings. Kori also started a daily ritual of drinking her coffee outside on the patio, often urging her husband of 23 years to join her, and this was just the beginning of her beautiful intentionality during pandemic.

The Wilsons’ initial shopping trip for lockdown happened during their second week at home, when Kori realized it was all going to last much longer than anyone expected. She is not a saver or collector by nature; she tends to only keep on hand what they will need immediately and doesn’t mind shopping in small, frequent bursts. This new environment required a 180 degree turnaround in strategy to meet her family’s needs. Even then, she was cautious of buying too much of anything at once, worried that other people would be unable to find enough. She settled on about a three week supply of groceries and goods, leaning on an actual written inventory of everything in their pantry and deep freeze. She wrote a specific plan of what they would eat and shopped accordingly. They stuck to this plan for several weeks, exhausting the bottom of the meat supply even to experiment with rabbit meat gifted from a farming friend, and were able to make just small weekly shopping trips to add to their creative non perishable menu.

Happily, Kori’s enthusiastic and comprehensive menu plan was well received. Much to her delight, the kids even approved of ham hocks and split pea soup! Her family of five sat down for a home cooked dinner every single evening for six weeks solid, and they loved it. Additionally, the kids were enlisted to help cook and found themselves on a wonderful learning curve in the kitchen. Over time, their Dad Mike included grilling lessons, too.

Kori described their sudden glut of time at home like the most wonderful kind of culture shock. They were so used to a busy sports schedule and hectic, overlapping social calendar, all of which was fulfilling, but this was a welcome pace. They all not only loved each other; they liked each other. They enjoyed each other’s company and really hunkered down with a sense of affection and adventure.

When it became evident that the kids would have quite a bit of extra time at their disposal for the foreseeable future, Kori seized the chance to amplify their life experiences and supplement their curriculum. She brainstormed a series of home-centered projects that did more than fill the time; they helped her children chase after learning experiences they could never indulge in at school. The list included meal prep, woodworking and painting, gardening, and physical fitness and leadership. They also took time to learn more deeply about social issues, taking cues from so many weighty current events last year and fantastic docu-series available online. She saw the “finality” of her older kids growing up but also the glittering opportunities of being together now.

They tackled woodworking projects which Mom designed. Dad taught them to use power tools safely, they did the building themselves, and they sanded and painted their finished products.

They all learned to cook full family meals, and Brennan especially discovered a new level of appreciation for the planning and effort that feat requires. They posted their weekly menu to Facebook and enjoyed both encouragements along the way as well as an incoming flood of recipe suggestions, things they “just have to try.” Kori is flirting with the idea of printing the recipes they tried into a “Quarantine Meals” family scrapbook for the kids.

They designed a raised garden bed and did all the studying to understand ecosystems, carbon emission, photosynthesis, and more, before growing their own vegetables. They hauled dirt, propagated their own seeds, and tended everything. This project turned out to be one of Kori’s personal favorites, “because everybody was involved in it,” and she expects to continue growing a garden together every year.

To keep everyone physically active in the great vacuum of team sports, Kori enlisted the older two kids to design a five-week fitness regimen for everyone. The whole family joined in all the workouts! “It was good for them,” she said cheerfully. Kori and Mike were pleased to discover that while the kids outdid them in all other activities, they had more stamina with the jump rope than the younger generation, ha!

The more I heard about their ongoing adventures, the more I see how much of a gift this entire year has been for their family. She may have jokingly called it “Jesus Take the Wheel Home School by Kori,” but that implies desperation she just does not seem to possess. The rhythm and momentum she kept was clearly joyful. Indulgent. Life-affirming.

Her husband Mike works for the FAA and had already been keeping remote office hours, so having a full house was a small adjustment for him during work hours. But overall the family thrived. They also had no problem wearing masks on the few occasions they left the house. Kori’s perspective on masks as a dental hygienist means she wore them almost by instinct, even before they were mandated. She did express compassion for people who maybe found masks too uncomfortable to wear outdoors in the heat of Oklahoma summer.

The more Kori and I chatted, the less I was surprised to hear that she didn’t really have a stress snack. It almost sounded like a foreign concept to her when I asked about it! She expressed with total believability that she has “felt lucky and healthy together, content.” No need for stress snacks.

Managing school in the midst of a pandemic was challenging, but Kori’s kids all rose to the occasion, as did the Moore school system where they attend. Brennan and Kaley, then junior and sophomore, found solo, home based academics easier in some ways. They are both naturally good self managers, and the school administration had established a grades freeze that prevented anyone’s average form slipping too far (not that they needed that insurance). The work they did from home was almost optional, but they still did it, allowing Kori to take a more passive approach with supervising them. It all served to condition them both for this school year. Kori was excited to share that Brennan and Kaley have now plunged into concurrent enrollment at the nearby community college and Brennan has earned a two year scholarship. Congratulations!

Luke, in fourth grade when pandemic hit, also benefitted from the insurance of a grades freeze but was more enmeshed in a structured curriculum than his older siblings. The teachers worked hard to quickly produce thick packets for six weeks’ worth of learning at a time. They also coordinated weekly Zoom meetings, both required and optional. It was a lot for a ten year old to manage, but he had all the help he needed at home and has done well every step of the way.

Kori is thankful for how the schools responded to the time crunch, the safety concerns, and the unique challenges the kids faced last year. This year, she is impressed by the investments being made for air filtration, the detailed efforts everyone continues to make to keep kids in pods and at a reasonable physical distance, and more. All three kids are back in the classroom now, they feel safe, and they are happy to be with their friends at least a little bit.

Limited socializing last year affected the entire family. They took quarantining seriously and were judicious about the few times they did choose to see people in small gatherings or outdoors, maybe occasionally regretting a choice based on what they learned after the fact about other people’s exposure, etc. The same dilemmas many of us have faced. The kids missed their friends. It was perhaps hardest on Brennan, who is normally always on the go. Kaley coped with the solitude a little better, slipping “into her element,” at least for the first month. She is an avid reader and is good at setting a variety of goals for herself, so she made good use of the hours and days. Luke, the youngest, was at that perfect age to truly enjoy the whole family being home together. By the end of summer, Kori said, he was ready to see his friends again.

Mike and Kori missed their friends, too, and they simply craved time with a variety of loved ones. They have close couples-friends who had to be extraordinarily careful because of the vulnerable, elderly family members in their care. The Wilsons also have friends with whom they had one get together last May but not since, and that feels especially strange because those people only live ten minutes away. Mike’s best friend lives next door, and their relationship has had to adjust. Kori had reconnected with friends from school and had fun with her best friend, a memorable girls’ day in Midtown OKC, visiting Factory Obscura and more, just before shut downs. Last summer was supposed to be their summer of fun. They all had such “grandiose plans,” as Kori called them, “then the world shut down.”

I noticed a strong sense of steady confidence as Kori described all of these meaningful friendships and the outings they skipped. She never once called it a loss, only described it as a kind of pause. Like she and Mike had perspective from the beginning that the time apart was temporary. I find that absolutely stunning, in the best way. So many of us have marinated in grief ahead of time you know?

The Wilsons’ efforts to stay healthy paid off. They all stayed covid-free until later this March, when their oldest son tested positive for the virus as he was being admitted for knee surgery. His symptoms were minor and allergy like, and thankfully they resolved quickly; but Kori made him quarantine for a few days, in his bedroom away from the family. He couldn’t believe that, ha! When he felt good enough to go out again, he drove himself to get tested. He was virus free again, and yes, his knee surgery was successful.

One of the most fruitful learning adventures they took together might have been the ongoing discussions about politics, social issues, and history. Among other things, Kori pressed her oldest two children to watch RGB and learn more about Thurgood Marshall. They explored complex social and racial issues and generally reinforced an open family dialog about difficult topics. She talked to me about how she and Mike wanted their kids to learn to use their own voices. They “liked to be on the same page, but you can come to your own opinions.” They worked all year, using current events in the news, to teach the kids to have an ever widening world view. “Your experience isn’t everyone’s experience,” they tried to reinforce. It felt like something much better than tolerance; it felt to me like grassroots love for your neighbors, both seen and unseen.

Kori and I spoke on the phone one year and two weeks after the cancelled spring break that started it all. Mike has not returned to the FFA building yet, but Kori has been back at the dentist’s office for several months, and the kids are now back at school. Everyone is healthy and happy, on their way to being fully vaccinated, and living life fully in this chapter.

I asked what new habits and rhythms might carry over into post-pandemic life. There is a family consensus that life is returning to normal, getting busier in good ways, but Kori was happy to share that they are still enjoying movie and game nights. Maybe not as many as during pandemic, but they had gotten a little burned out on those anyway, ha! Still, they are definitely enjoying more than before. They make time for each other now and realize how precious and genuinely fun it is. The kids continue to request family dinners, too, sometimes including Brennan’s new girlfriend. They have all come full circle back to soccer games, part time jobs, and some socializing.

For such a beautiful, life filled year, I felt wistful on Kori’s behalf, noticing that it was mostly over. I asked her, will she miss it? “No…” she answered softly. I could hear the honest, wide eyed shrug in her voice. “I am grateful for the moment, you know? Life changes. That was an opportunity, that’s what made it special. We all walked away with something.” She went on to reinforce the specialness of their year in pandemic without ever sounding overly sentimental, just happy and nourished.

Wow. This stranger on the phone summoned choking tears into my throat.

Her projects and seize the day attitude gave me energy. Her sincerity about accepting sudden blessings gave me peace. Everything is temporary. The hard, the wonderful, the beautiful, the disappointing. And what is true for one family does not take away from what is true for another.

“Our family is in a good state of mind.”
~Kori McKinney Wilson
XOXOXOXO

How beautiful.

let them eat cake

Please enjoy a glimpse into the life of a fairly private woman, someone I admire deeply for several good reasons. I met Lisa through a running group in Oklahoma, but when she moved to Colorado we got even better acquainted online. She is one of the nimblest thinkers, loveliest adventure seekers, and hardest working people I know. She is also tender and careful and funny. Enjoy!

In late December, 2019, and early January, 2020, Lisa was “pretty aware” of the spreading novel corona virus, increasingly so because she works for a firm that provides support for military aircraft. This made her privy to updates early on about emerging travel restrictions and evacuations. Travel restrictions are common in her line of work though, thanks to a variety of constant global threats; this new threat was not initially startling.

In late January to early February, she and her husband Wayne went on a long-planned Caribbean cruise and felt safe doing so but gradually noticed changes. Passengers’ temperatures were being taken, travel restrictions tightened around China, and everyone was paying close attention to the news. Back home after the cruise, the last normal feeling life events they enjoyed were a Roaring Twenties party for work and a Sadie Hawkins dance for their high school-aged daughter, Ella.

Tension about the threat of the virus gradually increased, but Lisa wasn’t scared until late February when she heard reports of the first untraceable community-spread positive case in the United States. That got her attention, and they immediately hunkered down at home.

Career military service people, Lisa and Wayne had years before, in a tour in Guam, learned the value of being prepared for long stints without shopping. She also lived in Moore, Oklahoma, during the unforgettable 2013 tornado, so emergency preparedness is ingrained in her nature. Their home was already well supplied with the basics. As shut down became imminent, all she had to do was take a thorough, pen-and-paper inventory to make sure they could stay indoors for at least 30 days. They could. They even had enough toilet paper, but she laughed (and got me laughing too) while telling a story about a gag gift they once won at a Secret Santa party: A “Tushy” bidet, this kind of bum-rinsing device you attach to your toilet stool lid. So she knew that if they ever did exhaust their TP supply, they at least had that, ha!

In the past, Lisa’s job had her travelling at least every other week. She had already made some adjustments in May, 2019, that had her and many of her teammates planted at home more and more. The more she worked from home, the more she moved from the dining room table to her proper home office. She made the space fully functional by Thanksgiving preceding pandemic. She also furnished it with a new Peloton bike which she uses to stay moving on long conference call days and an eclectic gallery wall of artwork that includes a semi topless portrait of Frida Kahlo. That troublesome little glimpse staring over Lisa’s shoulder while she connects with colleagues via her laptop has started more than one interesting conversation. It is her lean, left or right, that makes all the difference.

When pandemic started, Wayne had already been working from home full time for about a year. They didn’t know it yet, but this and Lisa’s corporate culture shift was all a fortunate lead in to what was coming. After flying home to Colorado on February 28, 2020, she was not on a plane again for almost a full year. To put that in perspective, it was the longest stretch of time Lisa was home since she enlisted in the Air Force at age 19.

People who don’t travel as much as she normally did for work might not realize how many hours every week she would spend in airports, waiting, driving, and shuttling to and from hotels, even as it slowed down. Those hours added up, and they were suddenly all being spent at home with her husband and daughter.

At first, she said, it “felt weird, having so much extra time. I kept wondering if I was forgetting what I had to do.” But she filled the time with reading plenty of books and baking and staying active as well as binging lots of television. She and her husband are normally avid movie goers, but this year, a $20 monthly streaming service had to stand proxy for their viewing entertainment. She said they watched everything, including lots of movies she would normally have passed up.

Most importantly, she realized the time she’d been given to spend lots of time with her daughter. At age seventeen, Ella’s years at home were numbered, so they all seized the strange gift of extra time and made a year’s worth of special memories.  

Gardening was one of the new interests they explored together. Lisa took her interest in growing food and flowers a step further than most, though, by diving in and converting their suburban front lawn to a xeriscape wilderness. (I have greedily followed her progress via Instagram.) She has done so thoughtfully and steadily, keeping native plants and pollinators in mind throughout the process. Lisa is as elegant a gardener as she is everything. She also devoured the Marie Kondo series and acted on all that purging advice. “This is the cleanest my house has ever been.”

Lisa is a wonderfully athletic woman (we first met at a group run in OKC several years ago), health conscious and fit in every way, so I was especially curious about her stress snacking habits during pandemic. Her answers delighted me: Ella made them cookies frequently, and like most of America they made “all the banana bread.” There was also a flour tortilla experiment that sadly ended with disappointment. But mostly, their three-person household discovered an insatiable appetite for every possible variety of cake.

“Oh we made so much cake,” she moaned. When they could eventually visit stores, they bought ready-made bakery cakes, too. They gobbled up standard commercial ones with themed frosting designs, like one memorable castoff they found after the suddenly cancelled March Madness season. Lisa said it was the “ugliest basketball cake anyone had ever seen,” but it was delicious. Once, later in the year, her Mom visited and noticed in their kitchen a bakery cake frosted with “Happy Birthday.” She inquired, whose birthday had she missed? “No one’s, Mom, we just like cake!” I had to ask Lisa which flavor combination became her favorite, after so much indiscriminate sampling and experimenting. It turns out this elegant woman has a shameless affinity for the common, cheap, fluffy white cake with the too sugary, butter cream style frosting.

The heart wants what the heart wants.

Ella’s high school in Colorado faced all the extreme challenges we have all heard about from around the country, but Ella harnessed the bizarre circumstances and put them to work for her. Spring Break 2020 bled into lockdown, which evolved into a remote teaching environment that was perfect for her learning style. She is beautifully self motivated, her Mom beamed, and had no trouble excelling in her classes all that spring plus the next fall, 100% online. Ella did so well, in fact, that she did not need the built in grades floor (Colorado schools decided no student’s grades would fall more than 5% during lockdown, and college entrance systems eliminated the ACT and SAT scores) and managed to transfer to a charter school this spring, 2021. From there she graduated high school a full year early.

A full year!

Lisa certainly felt proud of her only child, but then the frenzy set in: College! Her baby was preparing for college a whole year earlier than expected. The gift of extra quality time together was growing more precious every day.

I asked Lisa what Ella wants to do with her one precious life. Apparently, a long mother-daughter tradition of watching Forensic Files and other such shows has kindled in this bright young woman a spark for pathology work. She wants to be a pathologist’s assistant, but not for morbid reasons and curiosities. When pressed for reasons why, she told her Mom, “I really want to give people closure.”

How beautiful. She will no doubt blaze a remarkable trail for herself.

While Ella excelled in academics this strange year, she experienced many of the same social discomforts adults have been experiencing. She has simply missed her friends. Lisa described her daughter as valuing a smaller group, a friends circle based on quality over quantity; but she still has needed to be around them, and that has not been possible. This has been understandably hard. Mom’s advice has been, “Just hang in there,” and a reminder that at college she will be able to magnetize friends with similar qualities and interests.

Just hang in there is the kind of good, warm advice most of us could use at the end such a long hard year. And if Ella is very much like her beautiful Mom, she will have zero trouble finding good people in a few months.

Lisa and her sweet family took masks and social distancing seriously, and they felt safe. They were happy to be “very home centered,” often not leaving the house at all for well over a week, and they used copious amounts of hand sanitizer. These safety measures helped them stay healthy all year, but a friend’s son and several of her team members from work did contract the virus. Her father in law, a Lutheran pastor in small town Idaho, also got sick. He had been careful, so they don’t know how he caught it. Interestingly, his wife, who has chronic asthma, stayed virus free, although they did not quarantine apart from each other. Lisa describes this common phenomenon aptly, like any Oklahoman might: “It felt like a tornado, how it hits one house and destroys it but completely misses the one right next door.” Thankfully, her father in law experienced lingering but not life threatening symptoms and is now recovering well.

A year later, with some things relaxing a bit, Lisa finally went for a manicure. After such a prolonged carefulness, she caught herself wide eyed, thinking the whole time “Is this how I get it?” It’s a minor stress that dissipated quickly. She is also now vaccinated and thankful for that. She and her husband expect to still wear masks on airplanes and in some social settings. Even if she is vaccinated, she said, she feels a sense of responsibility for other people.

For all their romance and domestic harmony, the Petersens do not always agree politically, and this past year has been a whopper for everyone in that arena. Being home together so much more served to highlight those differences. She seems to take it stride, though, teasing gently that, “criticizing your government is the most American thing you can do.” Being home together more also highlighted personality differences like how naturally quiet he is and how much more of a talker she is, at least in a private setting. Overall, the experience has made her even more thankful for what they share.

Lisa was a deep well of insight when we started talking about the broader social scenery during pandemic, how people handled things, and how our government provided (or failed to provide) leadership. She wonders how much better off we would have been had the former administration not been “so ready to paint a rosy picture or make it all feel like a non-event.” She made a vivid point, contrasting the initially minimized treatment of the corona virus against the newsier publicizing of an Iranian official’s assassination. She also described studies and systems in place since 9/11 that were specifically meant for shielding the population from chemical warfare and wonders why those weren’t mobilized earlier. “We have a lot more tools in the box,” she lamented, saddened by how many people died needlessly from the virus.

Wisely, Lisa also acknowledged that we, the American people, have something in our DNA that prevents us from sacrificing our personal liberties for the greater good. Why have so many people not wanted to wear masks and give up their freedom to move about? “We’re not culturally set up to do that,” she said. The history of America’s rebellious nature just means that we will “enforce our will” and fight for our own rights even at the expense of the collective.

We theorized about the World War II generation and tried to pin point what was different then, that so many people did make spectacular and creative personal sacrifices for the greater good. We had a great conversation about this. She is left feeling irritated at our peers, our generation now. “All you have to do is stay inside,” she said.

There is the difference of information overload. Was it a narrower, almost singular news source that kept the nation focused then? Even more so than in 2001 when the 9/11 attacks happened, we now live in a time when so much information is available to us at all hours of the day, and many people have trouble discerning fact from fiction. This seems to have morphed into a bizarre and dangerous kind of cynicism that has kept many people from viewing Covid-19 as a credible threat. Was it an overarching fear of the enemy that bound everyone together then? We didn’t find any good answers, just some frustrations about the mix of independence and selfishness.

How are the Petersens taking stock and looking forward?

They are thankful. They are thankful for their health and safety, for their family’s strength and love for each other, for Ella’s happy trajectory, and for the ways their corporate worlds have thrived under these circumstances.

Lisa shared amazing news about her firm’s recent generous gift: To celebrate a record setting year of profits, the CEO affirmed his desire to invest less in buildings and facilities and more in his people, so he provided his own kind of stimulus and paid out $32 million to his 25,000 people. Amazing! The remote work environment has certainly been a success. Both she and Wayne predict continuing to work from home for the foreseeable future. They love it now and are excited to fold in more living and more travel for adventure as it becomes possible.

Ella missed out on milestone events, of course, like her prom, homecoming, and graduation. They are still brainstorming how to make amends for these. But they are still so thankful for her personal excellence and happiness. Other missed events, like a much anticipated hiking trip to Italy, Lisa is filing away as simply “adventures delayed. It’s for the best,” she says peacefully.

But this is where her real hope and intention for the future emerges, the big lesson she is taking away from a year in pandemic:  “In the future, don’t delay. If there’s not a good reason to put it off, don’t put it off.”

More of that good, warm, solid advice from an old soul in a young woman’s body.

Thank you, friend, for sharing your time and your experience. You continue to inspire me!