Impending lockdown

Our governor announced this morning that the whole State will go into lockdown tonight at midnight. Nobody is to leave their homes for three weeks except for essential trips (medical care, groceries, fuel) and all the shops are closed except for those considered essential. Since two neighboring States just did the same over the weekend, I can't be surprised, but I am deeply affected.

I was already at school, in my office, on this first day of emergency distance learning. I had just sent email to students in all my classes, telling them what to expect this week in terms of assignments and my new online office hour schedule. Received a heads-up text message from a friend just before the governor's press conference (which I watched live) and haven't been able to concentrate since.

I'm telling myself I spent last week preparing for something like this and I'm as ready as possible. That I'm lucky I have a computer and internet at home so I can continue to work from there. That I'll be safer in isolation in my own house than I would be at campus.

And yet...And yet, I will miss my pathetic basement office. This old desk with its broken drawers. My collection of professional books (too many to bring home). The accumulated debris and detritus of almost twenty years of teaching. The sounds of the other people (fewer than usual at the moment) who inhabit these basement spaces. The way the sun comes through the window and hits me in the face for about an hour each morning. I'll be installed in my house's attic on a card table with my piles of office supplies on the floor around me by tomorrow, and it will be strange. I'm sitting here thinking, "what could I take home with me today to make it better?" But there's nothing in particular and I can't take it all.

I packed a hopeless box anyway. Whiteboard markers and a little whiteboard for video teaching. A few papers. Records for our majors and minors that are only hardcopy. All the candy. My desk dinosaurs. My favorite periodic table.

This is my song for the week, and I need it.
Don't Worry, Be Happy by Bobbin McFerrin