By Jeanne Albanese
There’s one essential Central New Yorkers need to get through this period of social distancing and quarantine.
It isn’t Lysol, hand sanitizer or toilet paper. You can’t order it on Amazon or grab it via curbside pick up at Target.
It’s sunshine. I know, not rocket science, especially if you live in the 315.
The sun makes everything better, we all know that. Whether it’s beating down on your face as you stand on your back deck or it’s streaming through your windows while you’re disinfecting your kitchen yet again. That quick dose of Vitamin D and warmth, the beautiful blues and yellows in the sky when it’s out just helps lift our collective mood. I am pretty sure I, along with everyone else around me, suffer from from touch of Seasonal Affective Disorder, and how can we not when the gray can stretch from October to April. My father used to joke that the only way to survive a Syracuse winter (the ones that run from October to April) was a hefty dose of prozac or valium. Every time they would make the drive up Route 81 to visit, he’d comment on how blue skies the whole way always yielded to gray once the Carrier Dome was in sight. He wasn’t wrong.
These days, find my self inexplicably exhausted some days, which is ironic since even though I feel busier than ever in some ways (all the cleaning, cooking, cleaning, cooking, disinfecting, homework checking, disinfecting questions about which ocean is bigger and who gave New York its nickname), I’m probably moving hardly at all compared to the days pre-COVID-19. I don’t sleep all that well, many of us are up nights with worry these days, but I am just a woman of a certain age who sometimes wakes up in the middle of the night and can’t get back to sleep.
So mornings have become harder. I usually love getting up early, before the bustle of the day, to have my coffee, catch up on some news and get moving before the family rises. I struggle to do that these days. And this morning, when I forced my eyes open at 8 a.m. and I heard the thrumming of rain on my roof, I sighed. It’s Monday, the day to rally for the week, and it’s raining. And that made it so much harder to get out of bed.
I thought about what that sound used to feel like. Every once in a while I was grateful for a cold, rainy day and the excuse it brought with it to stay in bed a little longer, cuddle under a blanket, watch a movie, read a book. A built in excuse to take a break from the errands, the driving, the commitments and the busy. But stay in is all we are doing these days, so that sound now dose the opposite. Makes staying home all the drearier.
A few of you were up earlier than me and you caught today’s silver lining, you know the one Governor Andrew Cuomo implores us to find in his daily press briefings. It was a rainbow-colored one, in fact. I saw many gorgeous posts of rainbows and double-rainbows set against a misty sky. It made me happy to see those, and it gave me the push I needed to start my day with a smile, and then gently rouse my teenagers out of bed for our scheduled breakfast, which creeps later and later with each passing day.
And I thought about something Governor Andrew Cuomo said yesterday about one of New York’s mottos: Excelsior. Ever Onward. I’ve heard that word before but never gave it two seconds thought. Okay, I only ever associated it with the hotel in New York city. But not only is it a fun word to say (like Francisco, Elf fans!) but I love the meaning. Ever Onward. He talked about how New Yokers specialize in stamina, strength and stability. And that we can continue to strive for more.
“We can be better. We will be better. We are going to aim higher. We are going to improve ourselves.”
There’s a lot going around on social media these days, lots of great connective stuff I am grateful for right now, but also stuff that can make you feel pretty inadequate. Deep and detailed home-schooling schedules, activity after activity to do with your kids, major chores being done, etc. And all that is wonderful, but I’ve also read stuff that says this is a national crisis people, it’s okay if you don’t brush your hair or change your pjs’ for a few days. I like to fall somewhere in between those two.
So today I am going to think about Excelsior and what my Ever Onward is going to be, today and every day. Today it will be feeding my kids, walking my dog, keeping everyone calm yet mostly on task, laughing a little bit at myself and heck, carving out time to write, which I just did — and not having it consume my entire day like yesterday’s piece did. (Oh and of course, tuning into Cuomo at 1:30!) And while I see the rain misting outside my window, I am instead going to picture those rainbow posts and think about Monday. I used to dread Mondays, until I met someone who insisted that Monday was the best day of the week and he convinced me of it, too.
The best day of the week to start soaring Ever Onward.
