At least once a year (though usually many more times), the twins and I went to the local paint-your-own-pottery place and made a plate. I split the plate in half, and they would each paint one side of the plate. And then I would write the year at the bottom, the store would fire the plate, and we’d pick it up the next week. We did it every spring, and the idea was that we’d use the plates for dessert at their graduation dinner. People could share stories about them from the year on their plate.

The store sent out an email last week that they were closing. While it wasn’t stated outright, the assumption is that it’s another casualty of the virus, like so many restaurants and businesses. People haven’t been able to go in and paint pottery in five months. There is only so long that a store can pay their rent without having any customers.

The email came into my inbox right before bed, and I felt unreasonably sad. I put the emphasis on that word because it’s not my store. It’s not my livelihood. There are other places (hopefully) to paint pottery, and we’ll go to them. Or we won’t, and we’ll just be happy with the plates we have. Or we’ll make a few plates out of paper and display them on the table. I have options. The point is that the owner’s life changed. Their way of supporting their family changed. THEY have a right to be sad. I don’t have a right to be sad.

I curled up in bed, thinking about how we brought the twins to the store when they were four months old to paint the bottoms of their feet and press them to plates. How we stripped them down to their diapers once they could sit up on their own, and how the Wolvog would dip the brush and then immediately swipe it across his face, chest, and legs before we could wrestle the brush away. I thought about all the years of photos I have of them painting plates and cups and even tiny pet dishes to welcome Truman to the family. And I wanted to cry. I am crying now, writing this. I kept the email in my inbox so I would keep seeing it and thinking about it. It’s a digital scab I keep picking at, all the while feeling like I have no right to be anything more than disappointed.

But I’m not just disappointed. I’m sad. My brain can’t wrap itself around the enormous number of ill and dead, but I can mourn the tiny losses; the stores and restaurants. The people who move away. The events missed. The shows unseen.

I am sad because it was in our power to squash this virus, and we didn’t.

We bought a fan that blows directly on me in bed. It is a game changer. (All my middle-aged ladies, amirite?) I’m still waking up from hot flashes, but when I wake up, I am greeted by a cool breeze blowing over me, and I can get back to sleep quickly. I pretend that I am on a beautiful island, and I have left my window open, allowing the cool night wind to blow through our bedroom. I am good at pretending.

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This article by FiveThirtyEight—”Every Decision Is a Risk. Every Risk Is a Decision.”—perfectly sums up how I feel. Every decision I make feels weighty. And everything I do is a choice. It is my choice to wear a mask in the parking lot, my choice to not go on walks with friends, my choice to still do human-free volunteering. There are so few needs out there, and a shit-ton of wants that we pass off as needs. I take a long, hard look at my choices each week and weigh them out; what I can live with. What I can’t.

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The twins school is virtual until late January 2021. I am relieved and sad. The twins had already decided not to go back if school was held in-person, so they knew they would be home. So this makes it easier because everyone will be home, and they won’t feel pulled emotionally in different directions hearing about friends’ experiences. On the other hand, I am really sad for them. Provided they truly go back in January, they will have been home for ten-and-a-half months. If they don’t go back for the second semester, they may miss out on a year or more in a school building. This is just a really weird thought.

Not sure what #MicroblogMondays is? Read the inaugural post which explains the idea and how you can participate too.

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I love Fathom Events, and we see a bunch of National Theater Live shows every year. It makes London theater accessible for people outside London—it’s a brilliant idea. During the lockdown, National Theater Live streamed a show every week on YouTube. 16 weeks. 16 shows. I didn’t watch even one.

The Atlantic recently had an article about how to build that feeling of community from afar. Reading it, I realized what was missing for me with the NT Lives. When I see a Fathom Event in the theater, I’m seeing it with people. If they had set it up as a limited viewing similar to real theater—going live at a set time, not recorded, behind a paywall—so you knew other people were watching at the same time, you would have felt like you were seeing it with people. But being able to tune in at any point during the week and watch it without knowing if anyone else was on at the same time felt lonely. What made things easier also made things less enticing.

I think it’s still possible to build that same feeling of community from afar, but it has to happen in real time with everyone on together. It’s the difference between tweeting during the debates (knowing you’re seeing them with everyone else and talking about it in real time) vs. reading about the debates the next morning in the newspaper. One is a community experience. One is just imparting information.

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Are you also doing #MicroblogMondays? Add your link below. The list will be open until Tuesday morning. Link to the post itself, not your blog URL. (Don’t know what that means? Please read the three rules on this post to understand the difference between a permalink to a post and a blog’s main URL.) Only personal blogs can be added to the list. I will remove any posts that are connected to businesses or are sponsored post.

This statement made me pause:

“According to neuroscientists, there is not a single organ or system in the body responsible for timekeeping. In fact, psychologists have identified many factors that affect our sense of time, some of which explain our heightened awareness of it this year.”

We have eyes for measuring light, ears for measuring sound, tongues covered in buds for measuring taste, and noses for measuring smell. We have nerve endings that measure the hardness or softness of an object. But we have no body part that we use—even in conjunction with other body parts—for measuring time. We need to look outside ourselves to a clock to know the minute, even if we can guess the hour based on where the sun is in the sky. We allow time to rule our lives, even though it’s something that we can’t perceive without help.

Isn’t that such a weird thought?

The twins and I have still been volunteering during the lockdown because it’s human-free and outside. We clean enclosures and feed the animals.

This week, we were mucking in two separate spots, and they called me over because a rabbit had just given birth—as in minutes to an hour earlier. One of the bunnies in the litter didn’t make it—it was only partially formed—and the rest were outside the nest area. The mother was lying down, too tired to move in the heat, though one of her friends helped us along, hopping around the nest. We got to gently set down each of the nine, living baby bunnies in the nest where they squirmed together, burrowing down into the hay and fur. The mother’s rabbit friend watched over them.

My heart exploded.

Newborn bunnies are about the size of a mouse; hairless with their eyes closed. Each one was so warm and sleepy and snuggly. By next week, they will have fur and long ears. But right now, they are at the start of everything. We didn’t know they were going to be there when we got to work, which made the moment that much more magical.

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Stop procrastinating. Go make your backups. Don’t have regrets.

Seriously. Stop what you’re doing for a moment. It will take you fifteen minutes, tops. But you will have peace of mind for days and days. It’s the gift to yourself that keeps on giving.

As always, add any new thoughts to the Friday Backup post and peruse new comments in order to find out about methods, plug-ins, and devices that help you quickly back up your data and accounts.

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And now the blogs…

But first, second helpings of the posts that appeared in the open comment thread last week. In order to read the description before clicking over, please return to the open thread:

• None… sniff. (Especially because it was the 14th anniversary of the Roundup)

Okay, now my choices this week.

Inconceivable has a post about her truly final cycle. After they finished, there was still a feeling that they shouldn’t be finished. After a lot of back-and-forth, they tried one last time. And got a positive before another loss. It is truly the end of their road now. She writes so achingly beautifully about her daughter, named after a character in the Lord of the Rings trilogy: “If somehow walking out of Mordor with her is the biggest battle we faced, this is the day we go to the Grey Havens and bid good-bye to something precious and special and end this final chapter.”

Infertile Phoenix has an empowering post about not remaining stuck. She has been waiting for a moving truck, and it fell through on the assigned date. She responds with a cheeky: “Oh a two week wait that ended with an undesired outcome? I’ve been here before. Lots of times. Moving forward!” That made me smile, big time.

The Road Less Travelled has a post about Auntie’s Day. Like the rabbit aunt above, aunts make things better. She points out that few people posted about it and asks, “How else do we spread the word that this holiday exists, and that aunts deserve recognition too?” We start by telling each other about it—early, often, and even after. It’s the fourth Sunday in July, so put July 25th on your calendar.

Finally, Not a Wasted Word changed her mind on kids being in the classroom this fall, and she talks about the situation from a teacher’s point-of-view. I think she makes an excellent argument, so I’ll let you pop over there and read her thoughts.

The roundup to the Roundup: Baby bunnies. Your weekly backup nudge. And lots of great posts to read. So what did you find this week? Please use a permalink to the blog post (written between July 24 – July 31) and not the blog’s main url. Not understanding why I’m asking you what you found this week? Read the original open thread post here.