I've planned this for weeks. As soon as we could spend more than one hour outside, I wanted to walk to the beach 40 minutes away and spend some time there. This is the first weekend with restrictions eased. We get two -- two -- Two! -- hours outside each day now, and it doesn't have to be exclusively for exercising, as long as we stay apart. And all the family members can spend those hours together.
So we dressed in shorts and t-shirts -- it was warm enough for that. Dug through the closet to find the sunglasses. Packed water bottles and apples and peanut butter cookies -- not quite enough food for a picnic, but enough for a pleasant snack.
And then we walked.
Across the busy street into the park between.
See how blue the sky, with puffy white clouds? The city looked good behind us.
Through the park, past a few more blocks, and across another busy street, to where you can see the bay, stretching beyond the palm trees.
The beach!
Selfie on the boardwalk.
The water was clear and cool, the sand soft under my toes.
Calm and blue and dappled with sunlight.
There was even time to relax on the sand, pandemic style.
There weren't as many people as I had expected. All wearing masks, like us, except the few actual swimmers, the toddlers, and the gulls.
And then at home, we only had 14 new cases of virus today. It will bounce back up, I am sure, but if we can hover near this low, life may be back to nearly normal before summer arrives. There can be more beach days!
I know it wasn't a good day in other places. I know my optimism may be misplaced. I know that I don't know anything.
But right here, right now, today, this is what a good day looks like.
Notes: I wrote this post in early July, describing self-diagnosed reasons that I was struggling. But I didn't publish it. Too raw. In the weeks since then, things have changed enough. The measures our state is taking in the pandemic are working. I am teaching again, finding fulfillment and mental stimulation there that had been missing. And perhaps I am just getting used to peace at home, chaos everywhere else. It's an interesting post in any case. I may want to read it again. So this time I'll publish it.
****
8 July 2020
After a spike in cases, the city of Melbourne is back in lockdown for six weeks.
And I am fine. We are ok. We have everything. Food, health, economic stability. I am ok. I am not ok.
I recently read a recommended article from the Harvard Business Review, located here:
The article, written an eternity ago in 2015, is actually about company culture, and how to shape it to make your employees the most profitable, so whatever. But what stuck with me was the bit about motivation. They cite a study from the 1980s on the six main reasons that people work. Three reasons are good, and lead to increased performance, and three reasons are not good, hurting performance.
Honestly, I don't care about performance. Let's talk about happiness and motivation during crises, and why it has been so so so hard to keep going, in spite of the fact that me and mine are healthy and safe and economically stable.
Motivation for working.
Good reasons, leading to increased performance:
1. Play. You love the work.
2. Purpose. You are doing good for the world.
3. Potential. You are developing important skills for the future.
Bad reasons, decreased performance:
4. Emotional pressure. If you don't work, others will be disappointed.
5. Economic pressure. You have to pay the bills.
6. Inertia. This is what you have been doing. So keep doing it.
The world is ending. The US flails in chaos that seems to be perniciously designed by its leaders to stoke chaos. Police are rioting. China is treacherous. Russia is doomed. Brazil is dying. Australia is has locked up the vulnerable and I don't know how to help.
Here, at the end of the world, who can focus enough to work on abstract mathematics? And what good does obscure mathematics do? Will the skills developed lead to anything useful in a future of war, plague, famine?
Then carry on because the students need me. The dean expects it. The bills have to be paid somehow. I did it before, I can keep doing it now.
Did you see that? Did you see how the mental reasons for showing up on zoom have changed so so so quickly from the three good reasons, happy reasons, to the three negative reasons?
Everything is good. Everything is ok. Nothing is ok.
Later today, the state government is supposed to announce what our path out of lockdown might look like. Five weeks ago, we went into a six-week, hard lockdown, with a curfew and limits on outdoor time and shopping distance. Our daily rate of cases of covid-19 has come down from nearly 1000 per day to under 100 per day, but on the other side of this curve we're on, it didn't take long for under 100 to become nearly 1000. So the lockdown is working, but doesn't seem to be working as fast as everyone would like. I feel bad for the state government. Whatever they say at today's press conference, there will be people very upset. Continue the lockdown a few more weeks? Nooo! Remove restrictions? Nooo!
From a personal perspective, the only variable in our lives is the high schooler. He studies from school or from home depending on what the government tells him, and he makes it work either way. Tim and I are just home, full time, online.
Anyway, to change the topic somewhat, for the last four years, I've participated in a step-counting wellness event at work every spring. That first year, they gave us all a step counter, and challenged us to achieve 10,000 steps daily. So for about four years, I've kept that little counter in my pocket, and I've been counting my daily steps. Even when the challenge isn't on I've done a pretty good job of keeping my daily count near 10,000 on average, aside from travel days and sick days and lazy days (mostly Sundays).
When we went into stage-four hard-core lockdown five weeks ago, that changed. With only an hour of allocated outdoor time, I found that I could only cram in about 8000 steps, and that was if I power-walked for the whole hour.
So when work sent the email about this year's step challenge, I jokingly forwarded it along to the folks on my team last year, commenting that we'd all have to take up Olympic race walking to meet the step challenge goal this year:
To my surprise, they all wrote back and said, yeah -- we'd better sign up this year because we're not getting exercise otherwise. So my joke email turned into a commitment to take 10,000 steps per day. In lockdown.
How is it done?
Most days, Tim and Jonathan and I take our one hour of outdoor time together. Since we can only be out in public with one other person, we switch walking partners. I walk for 20 minutes with Tim, then we meet at the back gate and switch, and Jonathan and Tim walk together while I'm on my own, and then we switch again 20 minutes later, and Jonathan and I finish up the walk for the last 20 minutes. Tim and Jonathan are not into running, but I tried running for my 20 minutes alone, and speed walk with them, I get 9000 steps. Not quite there.
So early last week, I actually tried the racewalking thing for a whole hour. It was a serious workout! My legs were sore! Not to mention my abs, from twisting the hips around like on that video. You start out by trying to keep the pace of your steps as fast as possible. You realise quickly that you can walk faster if you reach out with your hips for every step. And so super-speed walking naturally turns into that freakazoid walking on the video.
Anyway, I did that for a whole hour. A whole hour! By the end, my legs were burning, I was breathing hard, and sweat was dripping from my body.
And then I checked my step counter. It had recorded a measly 7000 steps. 7000! There was no way that workout was only 7000 steps! Not when I get 8000 from a fast walk. What was going on?
The step counter counts steps by counting bounces. Each step bounces the counter a bit and it ticks up. Guys, freakazoidal race-walking is too smooth! It doesn't bounce the step counter appropriately! So I didn't get ... maybe 1/4 or maybe 1/2 the credit? I have no idea!
I was going to write and say "happy spring", because it is now September, which is spring in Australia by decree. Then Twitter reminded me that at least Perth, on the other side of the country, was not Europe and should not be trying to follow European seasons.
So I looked up the actual seasons on this side of the country, as they were watched by the aboriginal people for thousands of years, and found that there are seven annual seasons that match the changes in the land and weather here, and two seasons (flood and fire) that happen less regularly. You can read all about it here: https://www.visitvictoria.com/Things-to-do/Aboriginal-Victoria/Aboriginal-seasons-of-Victoria
Anyway, happy Petyan, or season of wildflowers. The native wattle trees are all in bloom now. Of course, while our local park does have many native trees (figs and eucalyptus mostly), for some reason it does not have wattle trees.
During our one hour allowed outdoor time, still in the midst of stage four lockdown, Jonathan and I walked to a neighbouring park, keeping an eye out for wattle trees.
And we found one! Only one.
The flowers on the wattle tree we found were white. Often they are golden yellow. I have pictures of other wattle trees from my time, long long ago last year, on campus:
Or in the far distant two-years-ago past, in regional Victoria:
