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And that is the word we kick around here, “Return.”

Such as, “When we return to normal,” or “When we return to riding the subway,” or “When we returning to eating out…” When it’s late at night, and I can’t sleep, that’s when I start thinking about the things, and how we might not “return” to a lot of stuff quickly. Moving back to New York, I was ready to return back to the puppeteering world, but I don’t know when theatres will be opened again.

The other thing I get asked, is what do you want to do outside of your apartment when things open up?

See, there isn’t one thing I want to do, or go to.

What I miss is coming home. That it’s the end of the day, I am returning to my safe space. The place I spend with my wife and kid. I miss the joy of coming home, and choosing not to leave.

It’s so much work to be outside of the home in New York City, and that was the good old days. You can’t get anywhere quickly, and you are around people when you want to be alone and introspective.

Got off the rails here…

Anyway, one day we will return to something.

What has been taking up our time is just getting used to this being what our life is like. I am working from home, and that doesn’t lend well to helping with the schooling of the kid, which the wife has to do, pretty much, alone. Grocery shopping has to happen during the week to avoid huge lines, and even then, it still can be a three-hour chore. Laundry just feels dangerous, and even though the laundromat I go to is clean, enforces social distancing with people by limiting the number allowed in at one time, but still, and this is an emotional reaction not a logical one; it just feels unsafe for some reason. And lots of walks, but not so much with the working out, and that does need to change soon. The weather is getting better, so hopefully we can get on that.

And that is what life is sort of like, which is not bad compared to other people, but it also feels like this will go on forever. It feels like the only thing that changes is the weather, and we just wash and repeat every day. It’s like we are living “Groundhog Day,” and I do wish Bill Murray was here.

I fell off cliff when it comes to writing. All writing, not just this, but I haven’t written in my journal, no short stories, and I haven’t worked on any of my novels. Just nothing. And I haven’t really been as creative as I had I would be in this time. I was thinking that working from home would allow me to power through my work and then have the time to jot down ideas, and then at night work on those ideas. That hasn’t materialized the way I though it would. Work takes all my time, and then I need to help out with the kid and her online schooling. With walks, making lunch and dinner some days, by the time we get the kid in bed, it’s booze time, and just trying to relax our way out of the day and this existence. I don’t want to sound too downer about it, but by the end of the day, everything has worn us down, and it’s like just a victory to survive the day and be healthy. But tomorrow, that might change. And it makes it hard to do the long-term work that is writing. You have to believe that you get to have a great many tomorrows so you can create a book, or even a decent story. This is the first opportunity that I feel that I have had in two weeks to sit down and think about putting words to what I am feeling.

Thankfully, we are all healthy in the apartment, and generally dealing well with each other.

I have walked to the grocery store, and I am waiting in line. We are all spaced about six feet apart though some are more bold with ten to twenty feet. Cautious; yes. But they are causing anxiety in the line; making it needlessly longer. Who cares about safety, I need triple ginger snap cookies!

Walking over, cutting into the north part of the Upper West Side, it seems like a rather average number of people are out. Out with masks, but out. I guess this is what the new normal looks like. Or is this a part of the City that doesn’t give a shit?

Personally, I still don’t know how to gage what is happening. One day it feels like this isn’t so bad, then yesterday, I was having a hard time figuring out what would happen if we lose our jobs. I know I’m not alone in that thought.

I guess making fun of grocery lines is how I’m trying to cope.

Today would have been my mother’s 73^rd birthday.

Ma’s birthday and mine, which is a few days earlier, were always wrapped together in the spin of Winter and Christmas preparations. I’m trying to stay merry for the kid, but today is especially hard. It’s not that I feel on the verge of crying, or I can’t get out of bed, or make a joke. It’s just like a little cloud is over everything that happens to me.

I can’t stop being sad, and I don’t want to stop it either.