During our daily Hangouts video call, Squatch and I were discussing how Little Man is adjusting to being at the lake. I told Squatch it is like we never left. Little Man loves it here, wants to spend all day outside and never come in, and he sleeps on his own, not needing for me to be laying in bed right next to him! As we talked, we discussed what is happening in the world around us, and we we see as being the “new normal” once all of the quarantines/shelter in places/stay at home end. Granted, this is assuming society learns something from all of this and doesn’t just jump back into the way we’ve been living our lives up until COVID-19 took over.

The first thing I can see changing is how we work. With this virus, we are seeing that it is possible to work from home, and to teach at home. I know, I keep seeing the memes floating around as well: “Teachers deserve $1 Million per year!” I think that will be short lived. What I am seeing in regards to schooling, at least, is that students are getting their work done in 2-3 hours a day, leaving them with the rest of the day to watch tv, read, play, etc. My goddaughter was saying she doesn’t understand why she has to go to school all day when she gets her work done in 3 hours a day, and that includes the virtual lessons from her teachers. A lot of employers are finding that they can still perform their day to day business with employees at their homes. If this continues, I can see a big shrink in the square footage of office space, as companies downsize to smaller offices and employees rotate coming in to the office. This will leave a lot of prime real estate available in larger cities, so it will be interesting to follow.

I also believe that more people will continue to spend quality time outside. When we were in the suburbs, I already saw this. All day, there were people out walking; walking dogs, parents walking while their little ones rode a bike, pulling kids in wagons or pushing them in strollers; they were enjoying their time together and being out in nature. Here at the lake, just due to where we are, people are always out walking, and I’ve seen some new neighbours out and about, as well as old one. On FaceBook, friends have posted how they are putting bears in their windows, for local children to find as they go on walks. The lake has our own version of this: we are decorating hearts and putting them in windows that can be seen from the road. Little Man and I did our part after our post-lunch ride, and drew with chalk on the driveway; we found a few hearts in windows on our walk and ride earlier.

I am loving this sense of community that is pulling together as we make our way through this difficult time. I have not seen this in about 20 years. The weeks immediately after 9/11, we pulled together as a nation, and there was hope that feeling would continue, but it did not. I think (I hope) this time is different. 9/11 was an immediate hurt; we all remember where we were when we heard about the attack, we saw the towers fall in real time. With COVID-19, it is all around us, but it is a gradual loss of our freedoms. We have been gradually easing into this new way of life, which should make it harder to leave once the shelter in place/quarantines end. If we can continue watching over each other, helping each other, putting those smiles on faces, we should be good, for a while at least.