Today, like most weekdays, I woke the kids at 7:30 a.m. for our morning routine of packing lunches, getting dressed, eating breakfast and grumbling about the day ahead. (Oh, are there so many grumbles in the morning.)
By 8:25 we were in the family taxi, shuttling to school. I dropped the boy about 100 meters up the road so he could walk himself to class without crossing the main street. Then the girl and I drove 10 minutes to her new intermediate, discussing her many frets and worries along the way. (Oh, are there so many worries.)
By 8:50, the whole family had been delivered safely to their destinations, and my dog Moses and I got a minute of peace at home.
That morning routine -- give or take a few steps -- has been the way I've started my day for roughly 10 years now. I've made the boy a bowl of oatmeal every. single. morning. of his old-enough-to-eat-real-food life. He once told me that Mom stands for "Many Oatmeals Made," and I adopted that as my official tagline. I've made the girl a peanut butter and jelly sandwich, just the way she likes it, for every. single. lunch. she's ever taken to school. She's 11 now, and she still doesn't eat the crusts ;)
Part of my morning routine includes checking in with another world, a place we can't be physically but that's always on our mind -- America. I'll pull up a few American news websites before I even get out of bed in the morning just to see what's happening with the people we love. How bad are the case numbers where Mom and Paul live? How cold is the weather in Texas where my in-laws are? What crazy political news broke overnight, and what are our DC friends dealing with?
I absorb all of that information and the feelings that come with it -- and then close the tab. I put the phone down. I go back to the regular life we've been so lucky to continue here in New Zealand.
It's not just America. Nearly the whole world's going through a sad and scary time, one filled with loss of life, of normalcy, of routine. But that's not happening here. Not really. Life goes on in New Zealand pretty much the way it always did. Since last March, we've now had 3 lockdowns that ranged from 3 days to 8 weeks long. Those lockdowns were intense -- only grocery stores and pharmacies were open. Kids did online schooling. Shane worked from home. Walking the dog was the furthest we got from the house. But we've been so fortunate in New Zealand that those lockdowns end. They work. The virus gets back under control, and normal life resumes.
We sometimes forget that the rest of the world isn't like this. We grumble about having to go into lockdown again when a new community infection emerges (sometimes I grumble the loudest of all), not thinking about other countries that have been living with similar rules for nearly a year now. We feel a rush of fear when we read about one new case that's cropped up somewhere in Auckland, not knowing the true anxiety of living in a community where the virus runs rampant.
When I've mentioned to people here that I've lost a few close family friends to the virus, they're surprised. For those who don't have connections abroad, the tragedy exists only in the news, in the numbers. It's all too easy to forget the real people behind the headlines.
But as Americans living in New Zealand, we're aware. We feel as if we're living in two worlds. Our bodies, our everyday life exists in this sort of Shangri-la, a beautiful, tranquil safe haven from the pandemic. And oh are we grateful for it! But our hearts are still connected to home. We miss her -- the distance even more real now that we can't get back. We worry about her, and we feel the loss even if we don't have to experience it ourselves. It's a strange feeling, living in two worlds. And there's a sense of survivor's guilt that comes from being lucky enough to live in the better of the two.
As I write this, our local news is warning about a possible new source of infection at a Kmart here in Auckland. A close contact of a recent, small (6 cases) outbreak went to work, and now 1,000 shoppers have been asked to isolate and get tested. We'll see what happens. It seems the sort of situation that would prompt our government to issue another lockdown to prevent any spread of the disease. Just thinking of that possibility gets my blood pressure rising...
But then I take a breath and look around my quiet house. This morning, I think, I woke everybody up, made oatmeal, packed lunches, tied shoes, fixed collars and got two kids to school -- real-life, in-person school where they're safe and (mostly) happy and surrounded by friends. Shane took the bus to work, and I walked the dog and everything is normal. Normal in the most extraordinary of times.
How extraordinary is that?
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