"Back in March, when working from home became a reality for us all, the transition was rather easy for me. See, in 2015 and 2016 I had a trial run of sorts. I was writing my dissertation at the time, and I strategically planned work sessions: three-day weekends that I extended to become four or five days reclusively hidden away in my house, completely focused on writing as much as possible. Appropriately, many of those “vacations” were in the springtime. So there was familiarity and comfort cleaning off my spare bedroom/library/work room’s desk (an old door from my great-grandparent’s farm house propped up on two thrift store filing cabinets) and returning to a state of at-home productivity. I quickly fell back into the natural rhythms that I honed four years ago (I get my best creative work done mid-mornings, my best editing done mid-afternoon). As the weather warmed in April, I started again spending time on my back patio, which is fabulously serene in the morning.
Last month I wrote a blog about our department ramping up our transcription operations so that people would have remote work during COVID-19 times. At this point, we have around thirty people transcribing our oral histories; so needless to say, I am kept busy managing those workflows as well as the SWC social media. But I’ve noticed over the last few weeks the increasingly disconnected feeling we all are getting as we float further from our anchor—our building and its physical holdings. This week is especially difficult. We spent a considerable amount of time in early 2020 planning an exhibit and symposium surrounding the 50th anniversary of the May 11th Lubbock tornado. That symposium would be this weekend. The exhibit remains undone in our empty halls.
But life goes on. That’s something many have remarked on during these times—what day is it? What week? What month? The sun continues to rise and set. And the work continues. And so we keep going. We must. We plan for a 2021 symposium and a better exhibit since we have more time now. We do what we can with the spaces we have, while we have them.
Every day, I remind myself that I am writing from a place of extreme privilege. I am a single woman with a multi-room house that has patios! I have a job that affords me the opportunity to continue working from home. Though I’m at an elevated risk for catching the virus, I mask up and drive around our stretched out West Texas town, able to go to the grocery store when needed or partake of our abundant curbside pick-ups and drive-throughs. I have a nine-year-old Havanese who has always been a Velcro companion dog, and she has helped create greater structure and normalcy throughout this surreal time.
I took the desk picture on my first day of working from home, while preparing remote oral history work packets for various library employees. I’ve had a chance to start playing piano a bit again, since it’s so close at hand. I’ve also set up my sewing machine to make masks in my spare time. And there’s a large dog tent nearby, full of blankets and toys, that clutters the floor. But Emme Lou still much prefers my desk chair or the desk itself."
