My Turn: At least there's dinner to look forward to

Now in our sixth year of home confinement — wait, it’s only been three months? — I have some time on my hands. Lots of it, actually, to set down my thoughts on the matter.

Outside, the sky is falling. Pandemic lockdown, Trump, economic meltdown, George Floyd, racial injustice, chaos in the streets, Trump, not to mention the looming slow-motion train wreck of climate change. The future looks bleak, at best. Too many crises for our nervous systems to handle at once.

We get up in the morning, my wife, Joan, and I, have coffee and breakfast, and try to figure out what day it is, what month. No weekly trip to the diner for omelets or bacon and eggs. We read Newsday over breakfast. Bad news, and more bad news. No real sports to follow. Only consolation: the Mets have yet to lose this season. We take silver linings where we find them.

We have transitioned from lives on Autopilot — work, doctor and dentist appointments, family get-togethers, socializing with friends, theater, museums, travel, restaurants, shopping — to lives turned inward. Time, without structure, becomes elusive. Too many choices each day — what to read, watch, eat. Days slide by without texture.

Turning inward, I take stock of my life. Bad move. I reflect on mortality, the meaning of life. Very bad move. I look in the mirror — haven’t had a haircut in more than three months. I’m beginning to look biblical. My wife is calling me Moses.

Our 3½-year-old granddaughter in Virginia FaceTimes with us. She calls in the morning to show us her new trampoline. For 15 minutes we watch her jump up and down.

“How cute!” my wife keeps saying.

“What’s for dinner tonight?” I keep asking.

Finally she stops jumping and comes to the phone. I make silly faces, which she used to like.

“Control yourself, Grandpa!” she scolds.

How deflating.

Our daughter-in-law moves the phone to our grandson, all of 2 weeks old. He seems totally disinterested in grandparents. We plan to drive down for a week in June; 4½-hour drive, no stopping at public restrooms. That should be an adventure.

We go for our daily walk, 2½, maybe three miles. We wear masks, which are getting a bit uncomfortable in the warm weather. My glasses fog up. By summer’s end we should have two-tone tans — white from the nose down, tan from the nose up — the masks indelibly imprinted on our faces. We treat each passing person as radioactive, socially distancing. Joan, a naturalist, points out every bird, flower, tree. I, a glutton, peruse the takeout menus of restaurants we pass. New Thai restaurant just reopened for takeout — very exciting!

I tell myself this is a good time for self-improvement, to learn things, take up new hobbies, read books I never had time to read. I download a course on piano for beginners. We have a baby grand in our living room that our kids played when they were growing up. I’ve been on lesson three for four weeks; the left hand refuses to cooperate with the right. The neural pathways needed for piano playing have hardened, refuse to learn new tricks. I hope to graduate to lesson four.

I read books. Our house is full of them, mostly unread. I tell myself I will read the classics I never read: the great Russian novels, Austen, Proust, Joyce. Modern classics. History, science, biography. I pick up a Louise Penny mystery and read; junk food for the brain.

We had planned to go to Iceland in June; Canadian friends sent a novel by the great Icelandic novelist, Halldor Laxness, who won the Nobel Prize in Literature in 1955. You’ve heard of him, right? Neither have I. I slog through it, secure in the knowledge that I’m the only person on the planet beyond Iceland reading this. It’s quite good if you like stories about the trials and tribulations of rural Icelandic shepherds. It is filled with characters whose names look like they’ve been assembled from random letters, like tiles on a Scrabble rack only much longer and unpronounceable. I now understand why Iceland has such a small population. Many native speakers must have tripped over their tongues, with grievous consequences.

It’s late afternoon now. I have to go find out what Joan is making for dinner. Next up, dinner for two.

Michael Golden,

Great Neck