It’s Friday morning on Kenmount Road and I am standing on a snowbank, soaked from the cold, driving rain as I wait for cars to come through the overpass so I can get a suitable weather shot.
Normal times on one of the busiest roads in St. John’s, this would take a minute, but it takes me 20 minutes to get the right photo.
Next I am in the parking lot of the Basilica on Military Road, the howling wind shaking my little car.
My mind is replaying the morning so far as I wait to get a respectful photo of people out in the weather collecting their hot lunch takeout meal and supper sandwiches from The Gathering Place, which serves vulnerable clients who otherwise might not have any meals on this day.
About an hour earlier, I left my house where — like so many other Newfoundlanders and Labradorians — I am working for the foreseeable future.
What brings me out is part work, part personal, trying to keep the outings to an absolute minimum.
Monday, I went to the veterinarian's office to pick up medications, but I forgot something and was almost out of an item my dog needed. and had to go back on Friday.
Wherea on Monday I had walked right in and kept my social distance, by Friday, there was a sign on the door: “knock, but it may take awhile.”
My turn taken, as I went through the out door, I recognized a dog going through the in door on the opposite side of the front of the building.
I called out a hello to the owner, but the wind swallowed my words. Normally, I might pop my head back in and offer greetings.
Not today.
Not for a long time is any of this going to be normal.
Passing shuttered stores on Kenmount Road as I hunted for a photo, I’m thinking of how the “winter sale” signs in the window have frozen the stores in time.
It could be June before staff are back to work, and how odd that will be when they return to racks of winter clothes.
I run into a pet store to get a couple of cans of food and inside the door a table blocks customers from entering. I explain to the clerk what I want and he brings me the cans, like an old-time grocery.
I have no complaints about it; these are just tiny snippets of how life is different.
Our world at home is in turmoil these days, far beyond our wildest expectations even a month ago.
And my role in it as a member of the media is conflicted.
I worry for the health and well-being of friends and relatives here, in my home province of Nova Scotia and across Canada, as well as friends in the United States.
I worry for people I don’t even know.
I feel guilty because I am one of the lucky ones — still working and not laid off, not having to close businesses temporarily or stop self-employed activities.
I feel guilty that I don’t have to stand in the rain, queueing up for a hot meal.
I feel guilty that I have a warm place to go home to.
Even though I keep my social distance and identify myself, I feel guilty for even being outside somedays, taking photos or trying to do my job of describing our world during this crisis.
The rapidly changing landscape plays on my mind every minute of every day.
The must-watch live stream of mine and everyone’s day is the daily briefing from chief medical officer of health Dr. Janice FItizgerald, Health Minister Dr. John Haggie and Premier Dwight Ball.
As the numbers of the infected are tallied, I hope these measures will protect our world here from becoming the horror it has become in places like Italy.
Covering grocery-store shortages, talking to shipping companies, poultry processors, non-profit organizations, ordinary citizens — trying to explain fact from fiction from social media hysteria — these things have been part of my role in all this during the past few weeks.
Just a few of the topics my SaltWire colleagues have dug into include the travel horrors of Newfoundlanders and Labradorians trying to get home, implications for school children, first responders, mental-health services and even the rarely heard voices of sex workers.
We all know the economic realities of this and how long it will take to bounce back.
COVID-19 — there are thousands more stories to be covered.
What our world will look like as you are reading this even, I don’t know, because this is changing so fast.
I just hope for the sake of anyone who has contracted this virus, that they recover, that the curve is flattened.
I hope our first responders and hospitals don’t get overwhelmed.
Please don’t let this get hellish.
I don’t want to cover that.
None of us do and I feel so, so sorry for those who have had to suffer and grieve over it, to witness it even in the rest of the world.
Barb Sweet is a reporter with The Telegram. She can be reached via email at [email protected]. Twitter: @BarbSweetTweets
