.SOMETIMES RAW.

I am a moon junkie. Every time I look at the moon, I feel less alone and less afraid. Of course, the movie Moonstruck with Cher and Nicolas Cage is one of my favorites. I tell my son that moonlight is a magic blanket and the stars above us are campfires set by friendly aliens. I track lunar cycles on my iPhone and sometimes I take my son outside when a moon is new or full or blue. We call this “moon hunting” and we bring tiny flashlights.

During one full moon a couple of years ago, we drove to an open field and climbed into sleeping bags and howled at the night sky. As we drove to my preplanned spot, my son once again reminded me to stay in the moment and stop overthinking. He kept pointing at the huge moon, shouting, “Mama, it is right there. We don’t have to drive to the moon. It came to us!” We pulled over and I abandoned my previous plan. I spread out a blanket and we snuggled together. We both made wishes. I wished that my son would be kind and happy and I would wake up healthy. My son wished that everyone in the world was a robot. And more Lego.

Who is this little guy who follows me for almost seven years?

My son has a dark eye color that I can get lost in. He loves to run around and strongly identifies with Harry Potter these days. He recently told me, “Mama, do you want to know something funny about me? I am afraid of little things and not afraid of big things.” I think he was talking about bugs and elephants, but I understood what he meant in a very deep way. He is delighted when I laugh at him, but he is no ham. He is sensitive and stubborn, and as of now, wants to become a paleontologist or a doctor. Or Iron Man. He asked me the other day, “Are you sad that you don’t have a penis?” I told him that I was happy with the parts that I had. I then reminded him that girls have vaginas and everyone is different and each body is like a snowflake. He nodded in agreement and then looked up at me with a serious face and asked, “But did you once have a penis and break it?” The bond between mother and son is powerful stuff. I firmly believe that every boy needs his mom to love him and every girl her dad to pay attention to her. My son needed to figure out if I had ever owned and operated a penis. I get it. His penis is important to him. Anyway, he starts college next year. Just kidding, he is six. He recently asked if he could marry me and I said yes. I couldn’t help it.

When my son was two or younger, we used to take naps together. We spent part of one summer in Germany with my parents and every afternoon we would snuggle together as the breeze blew in. I was holding my baby and count those naps as some of the happiest times in my life. I imagined a peaceful and quiet life with my son. I pictured kissing his head as he obediently put himself to bed, as in a John Irving novel. I was so stupid. Everything is loud now. He wants to wrestle and bump and yank. He wants to play lion cub, rolling around and destroying the furniture. He jumps off couches and buzzes around with his scooter. He swings sticks and tells people “food goes into your stomach and turns into poop.” He loves dinosaurs and superheroes and thinks that I am Wonder Woman. Everything is physical and visual and some things are expressed by Patrick Swayze’s “roadhouse” kicks.

I love my son so much I fear my heart will explode. I wonder if this love will crack open my chest and split me in half. It is scary, this love. When my son arrived, he broke open everything about me. My mind flooded with oxygen. My heart became a room with wide-open windows. I laughed hard and I cried hard. I thought more about the future and read about global warming. I realized how nice it feels to care about someone else more than myself. And gradually, through this heart-heavy openness and the fresh brown eyes, I started to see the world a little more. I started to care a teeny tiny bit more about what happens to everyone in it. My son needs so much holding. Kisses and hugs and food and clothes and touch. He needs everything. Sometimes the enormity of what he needs is intense but I give it to him unconditionally. Because I love him and I am here for him.

Single parenting is not easy but I am pretty good at it these days. Also because I was lucky to have met someone who gently gestures for me to follow him down a path that allows me to feel a little less stressed out and to see all the advantages I have in life. I am a lucky woman indeed.

When relationships or marriages end, it is hard at first to stay in a setting you used to share. No one wants to be the cat scratching at the door that won’t open. Sometimes, people are very bad. Sometimes they are very good. A little love goes a long way. My partner and I are riding the same wave of awesomeness. He used to make the same mistakes that I made, which is to close the eyes and hope the storm and crashing waves will go away, miss me, or hit something or someone else. Whenever I feel I am drowning, he dives in, headfirst, to get me out. When I look at him I hide nothing.

The other day I read something that stuck with me. It went something like this: There are small promises. Look deeply at joy and sorrow, at laughing and crying, at hoping and fearing, at all that lives and dies. What truly heals is gratitude and tenderness, and love.

I realize how lucky I am and how awesome my life is. Nothing is missing. I lay in bed and thought about time and the past, and how many different people live under the same big, beautiful moon. And if we are really lucky, we are able to meet the One who adds a tiny link to unconditional happiness.

What’s grinding your gears these days? Is it that you feel you look like Bruce Vilanch and don’t feel hot anymore? For those of you who don’t know who he is and are too lazy to google it, just picture an owl wearing a blond wig. Is it the lady impressing her fingerprints on every apple at the grocery store? Or the mask that conceals your deeply felt facial reactions?

For this post, I added some most pressing reader’s questions that popped up in my email account. Imposing my own etiquette framework on any stranger these days is a gamble and not necessarily one I would encourage. My first suggestion is to find a way to maintain a well of patience during this time. A virtue, sure, but I think patience is actually a skill which can (eventually) bear fruit in all compartments of life, and what better time to refine it than now? Wait, do I write an etiquette column or a horoscope?

If you live in a place where interacting with strangers is commonplace, the most polite solutions seem to be reframing this as an educational opportunity. Rather than asking someone to pick up the pace, I can teach them my tricks for selecting ripe produce and those apples from six feet away. Can you assume the role of a kind stranger, even if your motive may be ulterior? Either the slow-shopper will be appreciative of my generosity of spirit, or they will look for the quickest way to exit this social interaction and take those f***ing apples and get out of my way.

Question: When it comes to shaking peoples’ hands and greetings in work environments, what will we be expected to do? – Handshakeaddict

Dear Handshakeaddict,

The handshake has gone into retirement for the foreseeable future, and I cannot envision an elbow bump performed in a professional setting. Is this an unpopular opinion? Hey, I am Team “Firm-Handshake”. It is my opinion that a succinct, friendly wave will have to sub in for the meantime. Instinctively, most people will follow this with a self-conscious shrug that says, “I am sorry I have to wave at you from six feet away or six feet under.”

Question: Can I have my breakfast at Microsoft Teams or Zoom meetings? – Wearingashirtbutnakedotherwise

Dear Wearingashirtbutnakedotherwise,

Sadly, no. Not cool. Coffee, yes! Nothing has proven the truth in the saying “too much of a good thing” like video get-togethers or mandatory online meetings. While face-to-face time is just awesome, there should never be more than four screens allowed in one conversation. Or no screen and mic on mute. Sadly, not everyone abides by this rule I have unofficially set, so here we are. Maybe, just mute your mic just in time before your kids scream in the back or you say out loud to your partner what you really think about this meeting. And put on pants because you just never know.

Question: As a smiler, I am feeling anxious about how to convey politeness (or any emotion actually) through a mask. Especially when interacting with cashiers, I want to know the best way to let them know I am appreciative, without removing my mask. – Annoyed

Dear Annoyed,

my inclination is that we now have to use language and tone of voice to compensate for what is concealed when wearing a mask. This means being more vocal than usual, for some people, and practicing over-communicating until the correction feels like second nature. In the recent instances when I found wearing a mask to be a social roadblock, I found myself articulating things like, “I just smiled, sorry, I forgot you cannot see it, ” when I realized I might be coming off as cold, arrogant or angry. Adjusting your overall posture and body language are certainly valid ways to communicate friendliness, but I find them more difficult to control than speech.

Question: I find I am more extroverted than I ever realised and craving whatever social time I can get, but I worry about putting something extra on friends who aren’t feeling the same way and are finding it difficult to socialize right now. What do I do? – Constantworrier

Dear Constantworrier,

What a conscientious question. In this scenario, I recommend taking cues from a tennis pro, and feeding the ball into your friends’ courts (30-15). You can send them an open-ended invitation to talk for example. I feel pretty confident that they will take you up on that offer, now or in three weeks. If you have enough of these tennis balls thrown up in the air at once, your social calendar will fill up in no time.

Question: How do you maintain relationships with some “special” people you work with? – SpontaneousInteractions

Dear SpontaneousInteractions,

just send this:

Question: How do I last-minute cancel virtual plans when everyone knows I have nowhere to be and nothing to do? – FlakyFranklin

Dear FlakyFranklin,

I think we should avoid last-minute cancellations to the best of our abilities. I feel that I cannot suggest ways to politely cancel fast-approaching plans. Last-minute-cancellation should be reserved for only the most necessary situations like your child is sick, something at home went unexpectedly haywire and you are in tears because the sauce for your pasta did not turn out the way you wanted it. Consider your plans before you set them in stone, judging them against the criteria of how you anticipate you will feel when you hear the ping of the calendar notification 15 minutes before the start time.

Question: I have been baking bread for the last couple of weeks. Do you have a sourdough recipe that is bulletproof? – BreadforPresident

Dear BreadforPresident,

It seems that baking bread is a consistent activity in this Corona-madness. In Vienna, there was no yeast available in stores for days. But who cares? Who needs bread? Who needs to bake bread? Okay, baking bread opens you to a world of opportunities like fancy-ass toasts or sandwiches. But what is this obsession with baking bread? Check out this recipe.

Okay? Because Okay is Eh’ Okay.

Yeah, yeah, yeah… there might be a second Corona-wave crashing over us like a Tsunami. But for me, things are somewhat back to the “new normal”. I want to put a mental end to this pandemic and wrap up my Quarantine-Diary. At some point, enough is enough, I think. I have marveled at keeping a digital chronicle of things I have noticed during Corona. Logging what I see and feel is, I think, its own form of meditation. Dare I call it healing or staying sane.

What I Miss

Simply going to work every day and talking to my colleagues in person.

The gorgeously paradoxical quiet of an early morning at Naschmarkt/Vienna and the preparational buzz I can feel vibrating off the sidewalk as it gears up for opening hour.

Chattering strangers and having tea and conversations with my neighbour.

Chance encounters.

Hugging.

Going to a restaurant and having a normal dinner date.

Asking my son how his day was and genuinely not knowing the answer.

Shopping without a face-mask.

Feeling real distance between me and my bed and longing to get in at the end of the day.

Running home to change, then going right back out with friends.

What I Do Not Miss

Whenever my phone buzzes with the tell-tale vibration of an incoming text message, I experience what can only be described as a Pavlovian response–a mixture of thrill, curiosity, and urgency–to pick it up and read what it says immediately.

That some people still run to the other side of the street when I walk somewhere.

This couple who sleeps in that little park in front of my apartment for weeks now.

My son asking them to come upstairs and live with us.

That in Vienna, the social-distance you have to maintain to others is compared to a “baby elephant”. “Define a baby elephant, ” I ask my partner and we would have something to talk about for hours.

The guy dressed only in underwear ringing my doorbell at 9.30 p.m. to ask if he lives here.

Not “having time” for people who matter. I miss my family so much.

Getting caught on the anxiety hamster wheel because it is easier to speed up than to slow down.

Stop looking at people and feeling weird when they sneeze or cough. And vice versa.

The new “Corona-Rules” and to wear face-masks, especially when wearing glasses!

Depending on my phone for human connection.

Charging my phone at least twice a day.

Cooking daily.

Live newsfeeds of coronavirus updates anywhere on social media.

Waking up to uncertainty even though I am doing fine.

Feeling irresponsible every time the constant, nagging reminder of our collective mortality lifts from my mind.

The frequency with which I wonder if I am okay with all this madness.

What I Won’t Forget

How much closer my partner and I became.

How awesome it felt when I took my son for a walk through the neighborhood and a man was power washing a row of umbrellas in front of a café/restaurant. My son shouted, “What are you doing?” And graciously, he replied, “Getting our umbrellas ready for the summer.” I could see a small pathway toward normal. A pathway toward but not back to normal. There is a distinct difference because no matter what happens next, we are changed.

That it is possible to listen to the song “Golden Brown” by The Stranglers way too often while dancing through the living room.

That my manuscript for my third book is 99% done and ready to be published.

How much I wrote and read in the last couple of weeks.

That even though I won’t miss not knowing, we never really know (anything anyway).

The police officer on the subway train who told my son and I to put the mask over our nose because otherwise we will be fined. Welcome to Vienna. Here, they take things seriously and to another level but it somehow works.

Grocery store “security-guard-police” everywhere who tell you what to do.

How awesome it is to be able to order food online and how we discovered Honu Tiki Bowls. They are insanely good. If you are in Austria: Check out their website.

How much having a sense of humour helps and to laugh until you cry.

How I managed to stay at home with my son 24/7 and, in hindsight, it was okay.

We all have been put to some sort of test throughout this pandemic. It is these difficult times when people lose their temper and hope. Many either put their head down, fade out the noise and do whatever it takes or they simply raise a flag and break apart. Because we are our harshest critics and think we have figured life out while giving away so much power to doubt and fear. We try to convince ourselves that once we have overcome this immediate obstacle in front of us, our life will get infinitely better. Will it get better? We don’t know what will happen next. We are exposed to an unknown journey called life. There is only the self and the consequences of our choices.