Day 20----

It's past bedtime--bambi is watching Puffin Rock in our bed and I'm writing at my desk while jesse cooks dinner. Hester just pounced at my elbow. Light is lasting longer now. It's still light-ish out now--the kind of light that's only light by contrast. I can see the neighbors across the street gradually switching on lights-- or their tvs emerging into sight as daylight fades. The emptied apartments, who's humans fled the city, are darkly evident.

Oh and its been 20 days since jesse started working from home and isolation first began-- we were bad at it that first week but I still think it should be recorded. Because no one knew how to do this then. The fact I took the bookcart out that first Saturday of isolation-- and waited in the doubled twice around line in the Knickerbocker Post Office the next Monday to mail my biggest shipment of books ever... both very bad ideas. But I am glad we walked to the new coffee shop around the block everyday for the first week. They opened so recently--I hope they re-open after this.

Day 19 isolation----

I spend large swaths of days lying side by side on the floor of her room with bambi as she screams with rage--at me, at jesse, at our apartment, at germs. We can hear the arm of her solar (or lamp as the day maybe) powered mew mew (lucky kitty) waving loudly, both urgent and soothing. At first only audible between wails, we gradually find both ourselves listening to it more than her--a compromised silence.

I'm better at writing about nothing. Like the loudly splatting rain while I press flatbread dough into the skillet for a very late dinner--I forgot to put the beans on till 4 something--even though I was home all day. Obviously.

I go back and forth thinking rainy days are easier. Less explaining to do. And longing to feel cold sun on my face, seeping through my jeans into my bones on the fire escape while she naps but feeling guilty because all she'll feel are the beams that taunt across the living room floor.

Day 18 isolation-----

We found out during (video) church this morning that an old man from church has the virus. The doctors told him to stay home. Which is not a good thing for an old person right now--it usually means they don't think chances of survival are good. But maybe that's not what it means. I don't really know any details at all.

The first Sunday we ever brought bambi to church when she was so tiny, he sat behind us and whispered quite audibly (half the congregation could hear), "Don't worry about any sound she makes at all. Her voice is Beautiful!" over and over throughout the whole service. Quite sweet--and awkward.

talking to jesse from my desk during naptime.

Day 17 isolation----

29,158 cases in New York City as of 10 am today.

Last night I moved an old typewriter cart into our room to make room in bambi's closet for the tiny new washer when it's not in use. So now I have a desk in front of the window looking out on the sparrows on the fire escape and the deserted street below with it's rarely passing, masked humans. I've wanted a desk for so long.

I made banana bread this morning and we left the apartment for the first time in 7 days. We walked the mile to the grocery store and bambi and I hung out in a soggy basketball court while Jesse speed shopped. They are limiting the number of shoppers in the store-- the guard said, "we're at capacity" as we watched Jesse disappear through the door. She ran a little then spent the rest of the time, hands shoved deep into the pockets of her wool coat, kicking sticks into storm drains. I felt bad... what if it clogs the drain and it floods because non-essential construction is banned now? Or worse, the flood becomes essential and the workers get the virus. I don't want to leave the apartment again for a long time.

Every night our fingers talk to each other and lately it's gone like this: "So! How was your day? You sad and worried?" -bambi to me and Jesse.

reading poetry and playing video game side by side while our bambi naps.

Day 16 isolation---

Margot sobbed in our bed this morning over a book because she misses swinging in big kid swings so much. And we got an angry text from our landlord about rooftop noise levels. Which--makes sense.

pretend picnic in the living room.

Day 15 isolation---

The sun felt hot on the roof. We danced to Belle and Sebastian till our feet hurt and we gasped for breath (can the air be thinner just six stories up? or is it the unnaturally fresh air from the lack of traffic?) and laid flat on our backs, her head nestled into the hollow of my shoulder. Then round after round of red light, green light--her "car" kept hitting animals (not fatally, they'd recover in a row beside me, becoming her audience), a dog, a frog, an elephant and a raccoon. Laughing and using funny voices, and all the while my brain kept playing fuzzy movie reels of her falling, falling six floors below. And ambulance sirens wailed their way to New York Presbyterian. Again and again and again.

Later Jesse walked to the bodega for milk and a pack of ciders. We scrubbed each bottle down with hydrogen peroxide just inside the door. Then drank them on the fire escape in dazzling, tone deaf sun while she napped, sirens still filling the air.

As we were reading and praying with bambi at bedtime, an ambulance pulled up to the building across the street and left ten minutes later with a neighbor.

Can anyone's brains reconcile springtime horrors?

All this time we were doing tiny loads of laundry in a tiny machine washer we got delivered.

Day 14 isolation---

We were all in moods today. A lot of three year old shouting. And not a lot of grown up shouting but we did raise our voices a bit and she can't stop telling me how much that hurt her feelings. I asked her forgiveness. We had a chat about it. I asked her to think about how if that hurt her feelings how it must make Jesse's and my feelings feel. She was quiet for a bit then said, "So. I think about it. The right thing is the stars, they shine. and the moon. And I have a deer and they growed up. You talk to the deer." So the deer and I chatted. It had a deeper version of a three year old voice. We talked about the stars and the moon and the right thing. But we never made it back round to the shouting bit. It was confusing. For me. And Jesse. She seemed very unflustered. But she went to bed without shouting. Then asked loads of questions about "why tears fall" and "what gravity" and I'm so tired. Why am I typing this.

I think we need to ease up on the video chats. I can't handle that much social interaction. And none of its with people who we'd be interacting with in person anyways. Except for small group. And that's always too much for me. I think its too much for bambi too.

I started reading aloud to her from her first chapter book... The Lion, The Witch, And The Wardrobe. She plays with her animals on the floor. Except for this picture... she wanted to share my hot water bottle and jump on me.

They say we need at least 14 months of this.

She kept chanting, "up to the sky!... down to the ground." which is what we say when she's pumping on the big kid swings. My aunt sent her a book about Central Park-- which is so considerate--I often give gifts that share/force my city life on the recipient and I think that's most peoples' impulse, but she gave bambi something to do with bambi's own life. We've read it over and over and over since yesterday afternoon when it arrived. It makes me choke up... missing spring migration.

We talked about the parties we would have when we can leave our apartments. Rolling in the grass and running as far as our legs and eyes can take us. Grass on our cheeks.

They found out the virus stays on tote bags for nine days.

Less than a month since New York banned plastic bags and now tote bags are banned and I'm afraid to touch the inside handle of my apartment door, with all our tote bags hanging from it.

Charlie's roommate is symptomatic. Four roommates and a dog. The sick guy's wife and their dog have moved into the living room. And Charlie working in the hospital with mostly old and immunocompromised patients who have to have dialysis everyday.

Day 12 isolation---

I've started taking photos again. So bambi's fuzzy memories of this time can slowly turn into the photos she looks back on. My first memory was from when I was three. My mom taking me out in the woods in front of our house ("the blue house") and catching tiny tree frogs together and climbing over moss covered logs and my baby brother (brothers?) wasn't with us.
I wonder if bambi's first memory will be of isolation. I mean, that would be a very historical and badass first memory. When the entire world couldn't leave our homes. When the entire world became our little Manhattan rent stabilized apartment.

From the past few days:

animal potluck with Jesse while I read.

peek-a-boo over lunch.

pantsless afternoons while bambi naps.

exuberance over safe outdoor space and finally getting rooftop access after five years of living here.

one of the harder days so far, today.

Breakfast, create complex animal worlds with garden (upside down orange crate with wooden block steps), ferry (well timed birthday present) and tiny vintage pots and pans laid out on a makeshift table made from the lid of a wooden dominos box (it says D O M I N O S in beautiful fading font like a ghost sign), family yoga, drawing party, cousin club (daily zoom call where the two older girls read to bambi and her cousin who's the same age, then the younger girls have show and tell), lunch, roof (not today, its sleeting steadily without pause), nap, self portraits, alone play/read, one of us makes dinner, bed, shower, tv/read/game. I fall asleep so early lately.

Day 11 ----

I dropped baby koala into a cup of fresh tea. I washed koala and her weird little outfit and put her on the radiator to dry. She's fine. My tea was ruined. It's fine.

The bambi pretended we had a record player on the rooftop and we all danced to imaginary songs. Pausing every few minutes to turn the record. I wore my long winter coat and it spun around my legs. Jesse and bambi danced in their stocking feet.

Isolation day 10----

Our laundromat is closed. But we got secret rooftop access.

Isolation day 9 (I think...losing count and it's not been that long yet):

Sometimes I'm just sitting here waiting for this to feel weird... this is not dissimilar to my entire winter. But Jesse is home... talking on a conference call in the bedroom right now. The bambi is sitting at my feet arranging her animals around an oversized (to them) teapot. That's actually one difference. I'm getting better at just doing my own thing and she shakes herself out and busies herself up once she realizes I'm writing or doing some reading. Still no lockdown. California has declared one. But Cuomo is inexplicably freaking out over semantics apparently. Everyday fewer things are allowed but he just won't declare it. Now we are getting official lists of essential services: healthcare, pharmacies, transit, grocery stores-- the expected and the more New York-ish additions: take-out, cocktails to go from bars, liquor stores and hardware stores. But still no official reason to need essential services.

One week of social isolation viewed from the fire escape during naptime:

I watched the print shop across the street, where we get our Christmas cards printed, post a closed for the virus sign and pull down the gates for the last time till who knows when. Then Jesse tapped on the window and I climbed back inside the bedroom and erased all signs of fire escape sitting to the sound of bambi crying from a too short nap.

Around 5pm the tall man with the thick grey mustache and gold rim glasses like mine who owns the hardware store across the street, stoops out of his doorway and stands on the second step between the shop and the sidewalk. He gazes up and down the street. His shoulders have fallen months ago. Two or three people pass by. Too many. Then someone enters the shop and he follows them in.

(I'm realizing that, while yes, wire frames are back in style, the main reason I wanted them was because all the old people here in chinatown wear them and they look beautiful on them... so I guess that's a sign of aging: taking fashion cues from the owner of the hardware store.)

From every building I've seen one or two people exit and stand surrounded by luggage, waiting for a car to carry them far away from here.

Today is day eight, or maybe nine, and the sidewalks are nearly empty. But there's no lockdown yet.

Day 7 of self isolation:

the first day we didn't even leave to go around the block.

Day 6 of self isolation:
left the apartment to mail books (a huge tote bag full) and put books into the Free Little Library. I tried to meet up with Loretta so the kids could run laps around the park and distract each other from not being able to use the play equipment but we decided not to meet up when I told her how massive the line at the post office had been. I let bambi run a few laps around the garden and library courtyard but it was eery and empty and yet too many people for comfort so we left shortly after arriving. I saw an old friend from the bookcart who had been wintering in India. She just got back. I'd been up in the night wondering about her and worrying-- nowhere is safe. So it doesn't matter where she is but I wondered if I'd ever see her again. Then I looked up from the garden and saw her on the other side of the fence walking down the sidewalk. She had a mask on and told me she wasn't well. She's very old and I don't think she's been in good health for awhile. I'm glad I saw her even though it doesn't help much. But at least she knows I remember her and am so happy to see her.

a city going dark-- really I just did a bad job exposing this shot from last November--here are no school busses looking up East Broadway toward the post office today.

Day 2 of self isolation:

Just as spring makes an early appearance, the city is tip toeing about, re-cloistering ourselves. There's so much fear but it feels distant still. I'm lucky and we're young and healthy and.... I'm thrilled for state ordered cloistering. I dread spring every year--that feeling of the blankets being ripped off mid REM cycle--but maybe, just maybe, that won't happen this year. Maybe the CDC will shake loose from Trump's head in the sand and send the nation home. And I will be able to love spring again without being told to get out more, to meet up "now that the weather's nice", to be able to bask in my open window with my ample library. Has my home library been built for just such a cloistering?? yes.
The street outside my open window is quieter, emptier. We passed a few elderly people this morning walking to the park but not the usual amount. Just now I heard two groups of kids walking home from school--normally they blend in with all the other street sounds. But today it was quiet enough to notice the audible passing of hours. Not silent...I don't thing Chinatown will ever be silent. The lobsters still are being sold. The winkle shop is open. I think the winkle cat is giving birth, in fact.
And now my bambi is awake. And I have to decide if we should walk outside. It's not a gathering. Just her and me. But the playground could be coated in germs that live for days. The river could be safe.

"The inhabitants sat on deck, clattering with plates and cutlery, while cats arched their backs between pots of geraniums." p. 25

"a few weeks later Sonja came to see me. She was pregnant. ... That day at the grocer's she had handed in her notice; she intended to move to a houseboat on the Lea." p. 50

"I remembered the feeling of astonishment I always had when the train put the yards, buildings, roofs, and scrap heaps of Hackney and Bethnal Green behind it and plunged into open countryside. ... It felt strange to be standing in the very landscape whose sudden transition from town to country, seen from a train window had seemed so unreal to me, and even stranger to think of passengers looking out of passing trains and seeing me standing here now. Somebody peering out of a train window on their way to the airport or the Thames Estuary and astounded by the abrupt change of scenery, momentarily anxious perhaps that she had boarded the wrong train, was probably watching me now, registering me as one of the disconcerting features of the landscape, a nameless item of the incomprehensible and sparse Walthamstow Marsh furniture." p. 56

"We drove past the airport, under the signs for Mississauga. Again and again along the way the city already seemed to be crumbling away into rows of one-storey shops, car dealerships and workshops with gaps between them, only to catch and hold its breath again with yet another suburb." p.102

River by Esther Kinsky

All this is a case for river and sea bound cities, and one reason suburbs strike horror in my heart. So many children's books wax eloquent on this ephemeral land-- a house at the edge of town. I always have an image of the inland shore of Jamaica Bay toying with the back of my mind. If we can't afford rent here, maybe there. But I'm afraid to visit it. I'm afraid it's not as lovely as the shore on the edge of my mind. And that the trains don't actually stop there. That's what makes these landscapes so otherworldly.
The unreachableness.