A Day in the Life

I ventured out for a drive yesterday for the first time since March 22, 2020.  I thought I needed a change in scenery even if I would enjoy it alone.  I loaded up my arms with my Clorox wipes, my hand sanitizer and my camera and went to the Dog Park.  The picture above is of a man at the Dog Park.  He was dressed in his finest "hazmat" gear while taking his dog for a walk.  These are the times we are living in.  This is the fear that has become associated with Covid-19.

I got out of my car and kept far more than my 6 foot social distance from people.  I got to take pictures of people adhering to social distancing and some who had a complete lack of regard for the distancing order.  In fact, I saw a group of 6 teenagers at the park, shoulder to shoulder, eating McDonald's food.  It saddened me that they were blatantly disregarding the order.  Young people (teenagers) never think bad things will happen to them, but they do.

As I drove around Mosquito Park I couldn't help but notice that the place was virtually empty.  There were no boats docked at the marina and the Concessions were closed.  Everything was closed.  The park looked desolate except for the few fisherman who were enjoying their social distancing order.

We live in a different time right now and I'm not sure it will ever be the "way it was" again.  I think that we may be forever changed.  We are living a dreadful part of history that is bound to change the way we view things in the future; it's bound to change us.

Being at the park was wonderful.  It got me out to enjoy the fresh air and watch people interact under this Social Distancing order; but I had to get home after spending an hour and a half at the park.  I had a very important meeting at 5:00PM.  It was a date I couldn't miss; a date that I had been anticipating for 2 days.  I was meeting up with 3 friends for wine (lots of wine), cheese, crackers and grapes.  It would be a virtual meeting via Zoom, but a meeting where all four of us would be together.

The Zoom meeting was awesome!  We spend 4 1/2 hours together and it seemed like minutes.  We talked about good times and not so good times.  We talked about memories that this Covid-19 will never be able to rattle.  For a few hours, the novel Coronavirus was in the background and our friendship was in the forefront.  You see, we were all suppose to meet up in Colorado at the end of April because we all live in different states.  The plans were made and the itinerary was set, but those plans were thwarted by the evil enemy we now face.  It was a sad realization that we wouldn't be seeing each other as planned.

We did not grow up with computers and Face Time or Skype, we grew up with telephones and they weren't mobile either.  We stayed in touch by seeing each other face to face on almost a daily basis.  We kept in touch and knew almost everything about each other.  We shared good times and bad times.  We shared hopes and dreams and our future plans.  Never, did we think that we would be separated by circumstance but we were.  The Zoom meeting was just what all of us needed.

Yes, we may have drank a little too much wine, and we may have whined a little too much but for a brief period of time it felt like we were together in the same room enjoying the same food.  The only thing lacking was that human contact that I think we have all come to realize that we need so much.