Quarantine: March 2020

Week 1: Stuck at home

A photo featured in Keep Your Distance, my photo book on the first year of the pandemic — March 2020.

The narrative in this series of “Social Distancing Diary” entries picks up on March 24, 2020. Three days earlier, I had traveled to New York City from picking up our son and his girlfriend hours before Manhattan shut down.

Alexandria went into lockdown at midnight on March 25 — my wife’s 55th birthday. During that first week, I journaled six days in a row.

March 24

With Emma, Ben, and Gaby now staying with us, our two-bedroom townhouse is suddenly crowded. Today, I looked for places to work on a freelance writing project. Even though Jill’s job — working for a nonprofit that serves K-12 school counselors — has benefits, cash soon will be much needed during an unanticipated lean time.

Events I’ve had scheduled for months into the foreseeable future have been cancelled. My only job now is this story I’m writing.

Writing for clients is a solitary act. Removed from newsrooms for almost two decades, I need quiet to concentrate. That’s impossible in the house now, so I walked to a nearby hotel where I sometimes work in the dining area that serves free breakfasts and then is mostly quiet for the rest of the day.

Soon, I was told, the hotel will close to all not staying there. The parking garage is virtually empty.

I stayed nine hours working on my project, standing up occasionally only to stretch or go to the bathroom. The person behind the front desk seemed bored and uneasy, which is understandable. The only other person I saw was a man sitting at the other end of the room. Other than a nod in each other's direction, we did not speak.

Walking home, I crossed King Street — the road that divides Old Town Alexandria’s north and south — and realized another new reality: An area that normally bustles with activity at night suddenly feels like a ghost town.

March 25

Normally we would go out to mark Jill’s birthday, but Alexandria is officially in quarantine, so tonight we are having her favorite childhood celebration meal: a steak and baked potato. One problem: To replicate the childhood part of the experience, she needed A-1 sauce.

My daughter Emma and I went to the store and, while we were out, purchased a bottle of wine for a family friend who is cooped up alone in his townhouse. We dropped off the wine — “The Federalist,” which I picked in part because he is a federal employee — on his stoop and told him of the delivery via cellphone.

March 26

Today, Jill and I went on a five-mile walk. Originally, I didn’t want to go. Allergies and pollen are driving me crazy, and I use any excuse not to exercise these days. Outdoor exercise, however, is one of the only reasons you can leave your home, so we’ve started walking — a lot.

Others apparently decided to do the same on this beautiful spring day. Most kept their distance, but some acted like nothing was wrong, a sad and disturbing reality on the day the U.S. took over the top spot for COVID-19 cases.

Today was supposed to be opening day for Major League Baseball, a day in which we planned to be at Nationals Park to celebrate the 2019 World Series champions. On our walk, Jill and I both wore our Nationals gear in homage to the day that should have been and saw a number of others wearing it too.

There were friendly waves and the occasional smile in acknowledgement, when collectively we all knew where we really wanted to be this afternoon.

March 27

This was the first time I didn’t leave the house except to take the trash out. Allergies went into overdrive after yesterday’s long walk and haven’t let up since. It’s been a weird day.

Three weeks ago, our oldest daughter got married. I’m grateful they didn’t wait until April or May. Who knows if the wedding, small and intimate as it was, would have been held at all?

I thought about this while sitting at the top of the stairwell in our house this morning, having realized my parents were married on this day 56 years ago. I was born 9 months and 21 days after their nuptials.

I wonder how many children will be born in December and January because of the quarantine. I imagine it will be a lot.

March 28

Old Town Alexandria’s Farmers Market — the oldest to be held on the same site in U.S. history — is one of our weekend go-tos. We love the sausage biscuit from Hog Hill Farms, and my wife rarely leaves without fresh flowers, fruit, pie, or some type of pastry. Open every Saturday rain or shine, the market is held outside City Hall and regularly draws huge crowds visiting 40 to 50 vendors, especially when the weather is good.

Last week, the mayor shut down the market at 4:30 Friday afternoon, leaving many small family-owned businesses that are already vulnerable to COVID-19 losses in the lurch. A compromise was reached this week, with the city allowing residents to pick up pre-ordered food items. No new sales were allowed. Shortly after 9 a.m., only four or five pickup stations were open. A line with four people in it stretched some 25 feet.

Yellow tape has become one of the universal symbols of “Don’t Cross,” “Do Not Enter,” or “You Can Stand Here.” In just a few days, that has become another sobering reality.

We are trying to support our local businesses as much as possible, although the grocery store, streaming services, and Amazon have gotten the bulk of our cashflow. Last night, after another long walk, we stopped to get carryout at Mia’s, the only restaurant near the water on King Street that is still open. Only a few people were still out at 8 p.m., and no one stood in the tape squares.

March 29

AMC’s Hoffman Center 22 opened in 2001, the year my wife and I moved to Northern Virginia with three of the four children. (Nicholas, my son from my first marriage, remained behind with his mother and stepdad in Greensboro.) At the time, Hoffman was a state-of-the-art facility, part of the mega movie houses that were being built in the days before the Internet took over the multiplex.

When our kids were young, their annual dance recital was held nearby. The Woodrow Wilson bridge was being expanded and rebuilt, which turned rush hour traffic into a living nightmare. Jill’s annual conference always conflicted with the recital, which turned me into single dad for the weekend. Rather than face the traffic, I took time off from work and went with Ben, Emma, and Kate (with occasional visits from Nicholas) to the movies. It was a nice ritual and a less stressful way to go into the weekend of dance shows.

Walking today, I decided to go toward Hoffman. Like other multiplexes, it has started showing its age even while being updated regularly. AMC was one of the first movie chains to close all of its theatres due the coronavirus, and as we all know, moviegoing is limited to our screens, laptops, tablets, and phones at home for now.

Who knows if movies as we knew them will ever come back?

Keep Your Distance: Walking Through the First Year of COVID is available for $40 plus $5.95 for shipping and handling. You can order it by visiting this link.