Chrysalides
Photos/Amanda Cane.
By Amanda Cane
At first it was happening far away. Lockdowns in Europe—something strange and sad and foreign that we watched on the news. It was a little scary, but mostly interesting, touching. Italians were singing opera on their balconies, and these gestures of love for fellow humans stuck inside tiny apartments filled me with emotion. I was moved by the kindness of putting more flowers out on the fire escape, of placing encouraging hand-lettered signs face-out in the window, of giving your talents to your neighbors because that’s all there was to give.
And then, suddenly, it was here. On March 14, 2020, it was snowing in northwest Reno. My son had just had his very first sleepover, the last day of school before spring break, and we took my daughter, too young for sleepovers, to brunch. There was no line at Peg’s, usually a madhouse on a Saturday morning, and they had taken away the tub of little prizes for kids to grab on the way out. Because we couldn’t reach our hands into the same container anymore. We couldn’t touch each other anymore.
When we went to pick up my son, things already felt different. We chatted in the driveway with the other parents about how strange everything was getting, we came home, and that was it. None of us has been inside a friend’s house or a restaurant since. No more swimming lessons, no more ballet class, no more school. We just never went back.
We can do this, we told ourselves. We’re all in this together! I knew we were all in it together because all the marquee signs outside closed businesses and the painted rocks tucked under neighborhood shrubs said so. “Stay strong!” said the chalk drawings in the driveways. “We can do this!” the rocks proclaimed. I loved those rocks.
It’ll be fine. We’ll finish out the school year with Zoom lessons and the work the teachers send home, and then it’ll be summer. This will all certainly be over by then. I’d been a stay-at-home-parent for years, I could handle this! My freelance work took a back seat, and day-to-day kid survival became my full-time job. Museums and zoos, musicians and children’s book illustrators set up special online programs to help stunned parents give their kids something to do. We bought toilet paper and junk food and hot chocolate. It felt special at first, like hunkering down for a snowstorm.
And I was ok, as long as I didn’t think about the fact that my daughter never said goodbye to the teacher she had for three years, or the fact that my son wouldn’t get to build on the new friendships he had finally made at school. As long as I didn’t think about what this would do to their emotional development. Online yoga for kids! Zoom ballet! How to draw your favorite characters! Build all the forts! Pen pals! Keep them busy, collapse into bed, and repeat.
I’ve never sent as many texts to fellow moms as I did in those first days. We hadn’t realized we wouldn’t see each other again, wouldn’t be back in the school pickup line together in a couple of weeks, wouldn’t be back watching primary ballet class through the glass or high-fiving at the gym. We compared notes about how quickly our worlds had changed. We planned Zoom calls for third graders and listened to them try to play Battleship through a screen.
We struggled, as primary caregivers, with the immeasurable weight of trying to give them what they needed. Just us. There were no more teachers, no more coaches, no more scouts or church groups or friends. No more people. We looked out the windows at empty streets and scoured Pinterest for solitary indoor things to do. We strained every nerve to be positive, because they were young and living through something almost unprecedented. Their lives were up-ended overnight, and we had to make it ok. Make them safe, fill their buckets, and be enough.
What we forgot, as primary caregivers, was that we were ourselves living through something unprecedented. Our lives were also up-ended overnight. We forgot to make ourselves safe and fill our own buckets. At least I did. I ate frozen lasagna and barreled through the day toward a happy hour that started earlier and earlier. I used every scrap of their screen time to nap, because I was always inexplicably exhausted. I spent my waking hours looking for enrichment for them, books for them, exercise for them, then collapsed into bed, and lay staring at the ceiling. In the mornings I cried, another day of this new life stretching before me with no answers or timeline to give them.
In the beginning, there was so much to do on screens, so many digital offerings to keep us busy and connected that we forgot to look up. When we finally did, we remembered where we live, and we went outside. We walked trails in the freezing cold, laughing as our puppy cut new paths in the snow with his face. We hunted for lost golf balls in the bushes next to the golf course, each one feeling like a treasure, especially the shiny gold one dug out of a half-frozen mud puddle. When it warmed up, we planted a garden and grew more food, not knowing in those early days what would happen to the produce supply chain. We threw any extra money at outdoor activities. Since there were no more lessons to pay for, there was corn hole, a hammock swing, and portable soccer goals. We sent away for caterpillars in a cup and watched them grow. As promised, they made their way to the underside of the lid and made chrysalides, fascinating us all. And when they emerged, even the stubborn one that took the longest to stretch his wings, we released them into the garden and wished them well.
On a particularly difficult day, when the monotony and the solitude had turned to anger and frustration, we went down to the river. I grabbed a rock and threw it into the water, an activity that I still find irresistible even at 43 years old. The kids followed suit. And then we started yelling. We attached something we were angry or upset about to each rock, and we flung them with all our might into the freezing, rushing stream. “I miss my FRIENDS!” “I miss my SCHOOL!” “I don’t want people to be SICK!” “I hate MASKS!” “I want to hug my GRANDMA!” they yelled, emphasizing last syllables as their little arms chucked stone after stone. We went home exhausted and sore, but feeling like we had unloaded something important.
When nothing had changed by August, I opted for homeschool, aware of the privilege that allowed me to do so. I set up a classroom in an odd part of our living room, a space that had never made sense before, as if it had been waiting for this opportunity to serve a purpose. Each kid got a desk, but as time went on, most of our work happened all together at the kitchen table. I got to watch them learn, something I hadn’t seen up close to this degree since they were toddlers. I admit to having been intimidated by home school, and I also admit to not loving every second, and to maybe not sticking to the schedule. I chose to let them play. As long as we stayed caught up in math and everyone could read, I wanted them to play. Their relationship grew as their Lego structures did, and I got to watch their imaginary world expand in proportion to how their actual world had contracted.
In the beginning, my extroverted nature cried out for company, for chats with strangers in coffee shops and in line at Trader Joe’s, for handshakes. I made jokes about the uncomfortably long hugs I would give total strangers someday, when this was all over. Now we’re past the year mark, and hundreds of thousands of Americans have died, many of them alone. We’ve managed to stay safe, if emotionally battered, by building a cocoon around ourselves and our tiny world. This year has given me time to see my rapidly-changing children up close, magnifying them for me in a way I’ll likely never have access to again. They have become more attached to us, and the transition back to school will likely challenge them in ways it wouldn’t have before.
The adults in their world are vaccinated. We are returning slowly to outdoor playdates, to extended family gatherings. And we’re optimistic, looking forward to being back at ballet and swimming and school, back in the school pickup line, and high-fiving at the gym. But I do wonder whether we’ll be a little like that last stubborn caterpillar, emerging cautiously, maybe even a little reluctantly, from the snug world we’ve made, taking just a little longer to stretch our wings.
Amanda Cane (she/her) is a transplant to Reno from Washington, DC. After a 10-year career in the museum field, she made the totally unexpected decision to stay home with babies and became a freelance writer, editor, and translator. When not spinning all the plates at once (like all parents everywhere), Amanda enjoys hiking and biking with her family, running in Reno's delightful 30-mph winds, watching true crime documentaries until she's too scared to sleep, and trying to come up with ideas for a podcast.
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