Week 7
View from…Boise, ID: We ended up spending a third week in Boise. We are packing today (Friday) and headed home to Sausalito on Saturday. Lots of ups and downs this week - even Theo is ready to go home. You'd think it would get easier after 3 weeks, and maybe it's because the end is in sight, but nope! Harder. Good metaphor for the SIP orders, too.
Sam was saying he doesn't want to get our hopes up that Theo could go back to daycare in June for fear of a major disappointment, and I was saying I needed motivation to keep experimenting until we found a semi-sustainable schedule at home. Granted, that's still probably getting ahead of ourselves - I'm guessing we will have another 2 weeks of family turmoil readjusting to being home (fingers crossed we're wrong).
Planning is particularly challenging in a pandemic - you need things to hope for and look forward to but my coping style is to tell myself they won't really happen. Examples: We booked a trip to Hawaii for our 10th anniversary in October with the timeshare inherited from my stepfather, but that seems too good to be true right now when we only get to talk to each other in-depth every 2-3 days. Next week I'll do another round of investigating what things are the best contributions to keeping our life sane and balanced.
(Re)Learnings and observations
Living in uncertainty and wildly discrepant understandings of the epidemiology of the disease and the economy is hard. I was reflecting with a mentor yesterday that there is such a cognitive dissonance between believing in the science as we've understood it for the last 6 weeks, and the actions of state and federal government to re-open without any of the testing or other precautions we've been told we need to do so safely. I guess we'll see how much of a uptick in cases we get in 2 weeks.
A different type of learning: The limited existing epidemiology of COVID in children seems to indicate they are less likely to get COVID, less likely to get severe COVID (unless they have other things going on) and unlikely to pass COVID to adults. This is good news for considering putting kids back in daycare/schools (though as always, more research needed). Relatedly, an article written by a friend about the history of the child care movement, which includes the story of when federally-funded childcare was expanded during WWII so that women could enter the workforce. I find myself entirely frustrated that the school/childcare issue is being left out of the conversation about re-opening the economy.
So many of my professional roles have involved executing someone else's vision and plan - and indeed, the "service" parts of my current role still involves helping shepherd other people's ideas to fruition. But there are part of my job that are to engage in rigorous science that I perceive to be most interesting and important to me. This week I was reminded that I sometimes slip back into the "I ought to" (e.g. my service role) as opposed to "I want to" (e.g. my PI role). Paying attention to what I want and what I think is important can be easy to forget to do - and crucial to practice - in both personal and professional life, even if those things get negotiated.
It's difficult to keep privilege in sight when things still seem hard in your personal life. We're very lucky to have family we could drive to get somewhat of a break on childcare and catch up on work. I'm very lucky to have such a backlog of data and papers to work on with a great group of colleagues and mentees. Having been in a community organization before coming to SF, I'm very aware of how hard work and good ideas require the right mentorship and environment to be most likely to pay off. If there are ways I can share my good fortune with you in the coming months, please tell me what would help you and we can brainstorm next steps together.
Gratitude & appreciation
A Sunday hike and Wednesday bike ride gave Sam and I much-needed time to talk without interruption or being overheard.
I got out for other exercise this week in the sun (you can tell how much I'm leaning on exercise for sanity these days).
I deeply appreciate all the friendships and communities I've become part of during the nearly-5 years we've been in the Bay Area. Having multiple communities allows me to not rely on one to solve all problems/needs, but to be able to shift between them to have various types of connection and support needs fulfilled.
As in past weeks, I invite you to report in on your wellbeing, share 1-2 small goals you are hoping to work on next week (especially related to our collaborations, if we have one), and report in on your progress from last week's goals
Thinking of you and hoping you and your loved ones stay healthy and safe.
-Krista