Love in the time of Covid....

Yes, that was an intended pun from the book by Gabriel Garcia Marquez, “Love in the Time of Cholera”. But it has been an interesting journey during this National and State distancing and Stay at Home orders this last month due to our pandemic.

I am a pubic school dance teacher. Yes, I get paid to teach kids dance all day. It is a rewarding and often times exhausting journey. No matter how tired my aging dancer body gets, I would trade working full time for the economic and personal tragedies that are occurring now. Our country and the world are experiencing a pandemic that I hope, will be once within my lifetime. Maybe I will write again on the other side of this experience. Maybe it will be about a return to what we might say is our ‘new’ normal. Despite the sadness and sometimes depression that I feel for a loss of something I can’t even put into words, this experience has given us an unexpected gift, a gift of time.

We have been asked to work, live and BE at home, unless we need to leave for necessities. My every other week trip to the grocery store is a big journey. Compared to my life before where a minimum of an hour round trip commute and commitments of classes, rehearsals and experiences, this time seems slowed somehow.

My daily life consists of working remotely for school, jogging and daily flamenco practice and classwork. This is a rare time in my life where I have been FORCED to do less. Even if I had wanted to leave, there is no where to go and nothing to distract me.

I know I am one of the lucky ones. I still have an income. No one, so far in my family, has been affected by Covid-19. I have food to eat and a home where I feel safe. The question during this time is, what is really most important to us? Can we hold onto this opportunity to reflect and focus. It is a chance to be grateful for the ones we love; time spent cooking, eating and being; time to reflect on our life before and time to decide what should come back in when things get back to their crazy pace….and they will eventually. So now, as I even have time to write I wonder, What will be after?

Me rehearsing during our Covid-19 pandemic.