Isolation is our middle name
My wife, Jackie, and I live a rather isolated existence the year-around in NW Minnesota not far from the Canadian border, and the sudden onset of the coronavirus makes it even more significant as our mobility, including that of all our family, has been so drastically curtailed.
Both of us arrived in northwestern Minnesota from somewhere else, in the fall of 1979. She moved into Marshall County. I came to Roseau. We were married to one another in December of 2008; I retired in 2017, and now find ourselves living farther away from our immediate family, than we’ve ever been.
Jackie’s four children and grandchildren live mostly around St. Cloud, Albertville, and Wisconsin; and my daughter and her husband reside in Roseville. Three of our parents have walked-on years ago; Jackie’s mother, 97, is in hospice at a New Brighton nursing home, and as are all nursing facilities statewide, closed to visitors; she is depressed by her lack of visitors; Jackie too.
Our 10-year old grandson from Wisconsin visits us a couple times a year. The seven-hour one way trips don’t get any shorter with each mile marked by his repetitive questions of “When will we be there? How much farther now? Are we there yet?” despite a laptop computer, Gramma’s huge collection of his favorite movies, a pair of headphones, and frequent stops to stretch our legs, he still asks, “Grampa, why do you live in the middle of nowhere?”
Well, No. 1 reason for me, back in 1971, was “To get away from it all,” and I did, somewhat. But two marriages later determined that not everybody felt the same. So, one-by-one, they left. Now, at a time when mobility, time, money and health (to an extent) all fall together within the current time period, isolation has become the word of the world: STAY HOME.
Because we fall into the over-sixty age group of vulnerable adults with underlying health issues, my wife has launched an aggressive defense against the virus by limiting our exposure through deliveries including the mail by spraying items with Lysol sanitizing spray before it enters the house, and frequent in-house smudges of medicinal sage, thick fragrant smoke that engulfs every corner of every room from top floors to basement until it practically wafts from the vents in the roof; as well as frequent hand washings and the use of sanitizers.
I do all the grocery shopping, noting the other evening at the store, whenever I was in an aisle, someone would turn into it -- then turn back out to go somewhere else. I wouldn’t have thought twice about that, if it wasn’t our new normal. I also recognized all the cash register and bagger personnel were young people.
But life does go on.
Before the plague was upon us, I had initiated the huge undertaking of cleaning out our estate of items ‘that didn’t bring us joy’ anymore, and with an old full-size pickup I had recently acquired, started to take loads to the landfill (Yes, yes, yes after recycling all that I could), and in turn saying goodbye to years of good ideas gone bad, broken weed-whackers I’d someday fix when I had the time, bungee cord hooks and broken straps, bent nails I’d straighten someday, chewed out Phillips-head woodscrews, broken massage seat cushions, an old Singer sewing machine, that on-line, was going for between $25 and $149 on bid, an old HP Plotter printer I had bought for five bucks at the toy factory, among other items similarly valued. I felt freed of them, even though I secretly loathed the idea of burying them as garbage.
The Roseau County Transfer Station, vaguely resembling the no-nonsense Canadian Customs side of the border with its drive-up and stop area by the front door, has become familiar. The employees there don’t wear uniforms with badges nor brandish weapons & ammo belts, but they do wear smiles, and on Tuesday one gentleman explained the operation of their new coronavirus barrier they had installed just inside the door of their building made from plywood, with a two by four as a gate.
“Yeah, we built this last week to keep people six feet away,” the guy at the desk said. “But one customer walked right around it and stood ‘right here’ beside me to give me his money. After that, we put in this nifty two by four lift gate to serve as a deterrent.”
Other than this gentleman, there didn't seem to be another person around; there weren’t even birds flying. The Demolition Area caterpillar sat idle, its cab empty. No trucks came in or out. I heaved my garbage stuff into huge dumpsters the length of semi-trucks; threw steel plotter legs onto piles of bicycles, screendoors, overhead door panels, steel siding, wheel rims, coiled steel cable, and stuff I recognized from my last visit, like aluminum folding chairs, curtain rods, a bunch of Joe’s wheelbarrow-full scavenged junk, and about twenty pounds of one-inch galvanized roofing nails.
Back in the day, I’d be looking hungrily through a pile of stuff like that and taking things home, but no more. I just can’t. I’m ashamed at how cluttered some areas of our place looks off the yard; but then I smooth my feelings over remembering I’ve lived here forty-one years and there’s bound to be a little debris, like was found at ancient Indian villages along the Knife River, in North Dakota; where bone chips still lace the earth’s surface after several hundred years. I don’t know if our debris will generate such interest, so I’m hurrying to eradicate what I can, as I can.
Leaving the dump . . . er, ‘landfill,’ I chose to make a swing through Beltrami Forest via the Bemis Hill road because it was such a nice day. The sun was shining, snow was still deep in ditches and in the fields and woods; the wind was low, and there was no indication of the coronavirus that so gripped our hearts and imagination as an invisible enemy.
I felt free of the nightmare we were all experiencing, so deviated from the route home by heading east instead of west, and slowing down instead of speeding up. The old truck was a four-wheel drive with good tires and enough gas to get me there and back. Life was good. I took some pictures; the last one (taken the first trip to the dump) was chosen for the Wiktel page. Hooyah!
My wife, Jackie, and I live a rather isolated existence the year-around in NW Minnesota not far from the Canadian border, and the sudden onset of the coronavirus makes it even more significant as our mobility, including that of all our family, has been so drastically curtailed.
Both of us arrived in northwestern Minnesota from somewhere else, in the fall of 1979. She moved into Marshall County. I came to Roseau. We were married to one another in December of 2008; I retired in 2017, and now find ourselves living farther away from our immediate family, than we’ve ever been.
Jackie’s four children and grandchildren live mostly around St. Cloud, Albertville, and Wisconsin; and my daughter and her husband reside in Roseville. Three of our parents have walked-on years ago; Jackie’s mother, 97, is in hospice at a New Brighton nursing home, and as are all nursing facilities statewide, closed to visitors; she is depressed by her lack of visitors; Jackie too.
Our 10-year old grandson from Wisconsin visits us a couple times a year. The seven-hour one way trips don’t get any shorter with each mile marked by his repetitive questions of “When will we be there? How much farther now? Are we there yet?” despite a laptop computer, Gramma’s huge collection of his favorite movies, a pair of headphones, and frequent stops to stretch our legs, he still asks, “Grampa, why do you live in the middle of nowhere?”
Well, No. 1 reason for me, back in 1971, was “To get away from it all,” and I did, somewhat. But two marriages later determined that not everybody felt the same. So, one-by-one, they left. Now, at a time when mobility, time, money and health (to an extent) all fall together within the current time period, isolation has become the word of the world: STAY HOME.
Because we fall into the over-sixty age group of vulnerable adults with underlying health issues, my wife has launched an aggressive defense against the virus by limiting our exposure through deliveries including the mail by spraying items with Lysol sanitizing spray before it enters the house, and frequent in-house smudges of medicinal sage, thick fragrant smoke that engulfs every corner of every room from top floors to basement until it practically wafts from the vents in the roof; as well as frequent hand washings and the use of sanitizers.
I do all the grocery shopping, noting the other evening at the store, whenever I was in an aisle, someone would turn into it -- then turn back out to go somewhere else. I wouldn’t have thought twice about that, if it wasn’t our new normal. I also recognized all the cash register and bagger personnel were young people.
But life does go on.
Before the plague was upon us, I had initiated the huge undertaking of cleaning out our estate of items ‘that didn’t bring us joy’ anymore, and with an old full-size pickup I had recently acquired, started to take loads to the landfill (Yes, yes, yes after recycling all that I could), and in turn saying goodbye to years of good ideas gone bad, broken weed-whackers I’d someday fix when I had the time, bungee cord hooks and broken straps, bent nails I’d straighten someday, chewed out Phillips-head woodscrews, broken massage seat cushions, an old Singer sewing machine, that on-line, was going for between $25 and $149 on bid, an old HP Plotter printer I had bought for five bucks at the toy factory, among other items similarly valued. I felt freed of them, even though I secretly loathed the idea of burying them as garbage.
The Roseau County Transfer Station, vaguely resembling the no-nonsense Canadian Customs side of the border with its drive-up and stop area by the front door, has become familiar. The employees there don’t wear uniforms with badges nor brandish weapons & ammo belts, but they do wear smiles, and on Tuesday one gentleman explained the operation of their new coronavirus barrier they had installed just inside the door of their building made from plywood, with a two by four as a gate.
“Yeah, we built this last week to keep people six feet away,” the guy at the desk said. “But one customer walked right around it and stood ‘right here’ beside me to give me his money. After that, we put in this nifty two by four lift gate to serve as a deterrent.”
Other than this gentleman, there didn't seem to be another person around; there weren’t even birds flying. The Demolition Area caterpillar sat idle, its cab empty. No trucks came in or out. I heaved my garbage stuff into huge dumpsters the length of semi-trucks; threw steel plotter legs onto piles of bicycles, screendoors, overhead door panels, steel siding, wheel rims, coiled steel cable, and stuff I recognized from my last visit, like aluminum folding chairs, curtain rods, a bunch of Joe’s wheelbarrow-full scavenged junk, and about twenty pounds of one-inch galvanized roofing nails.
Back in the day, I’d be looking hungrily through a pile of stuff like that and taking things home, but no more. I just can’t. I’m ashamed at how cluttered some areas of our place looks off the yard; but then I smooth my feelings over remembering I’ve lived here forty-one years and there’s bound to be a little debris, like was found at ancient Indian villages along the Knife River, in North Dakota; where bone chips still lace the earth’s surface after several hundred years. I don’t know if our debris will generate such interest, so I’m hurrying to eradicate what I can, as I can.
Leaving the dump . . . er, ‘landfill,’ I chose to make a swing through Beltrami Forest via the Bemis Hill road because it was such a nice day. The sun was shining, snow was still deep in ditches and in the fields and woods; the wind was low, and there was no indication of the coronavirus that so gripped our hearts and imagination as an invisible enemy.
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| Thompson Forest Road |
Isolation has its perks.
Nothing like a good road trip to clear the mind and raise the spirits.
ReplyDeleteAwesome post, Steve! Just the right length. ;)
ReplyDelete