I
n the Before Times, shaking the hand of a Nashville artisan or shop owner was as natural as the timber floorboards we stood on. The size of my appetite and thickness of my wallet were my only restrictions on a night out at one of Brown County’s many great places to eat and drink. Enjoying a local park or live musical event meant being among people—mingling, laughing, sweating people, lots of them. And talking with folks in the community for Our Brown County assignments meant just that: talking with them, being where they were, taking in the smells of their workshop or studio, seeing their eyes focus close on me. Ah, yes. The Before Times. The Friday before Saint Patrick’s Day, I got the news at my day job: due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the public library where I work would be closing down until further notice. Like millions of other Americans that weekend, I suddenly had some time on my compulsively-scrubbed hands. I didn’t know how long my family and I would be at home, waiting for life to return to normal, but I promised myself one thing: this was not going to be time wasted.
28 Our Brown County • May/June 2020
I’ve spent half my life lamenting that I “don’t have time” to do the things I want to do, and now I had plenty of that missing ingredient. But I knew that if I didn’t make a conscious effort otherwise, the time I now had would be wasted on napping and Netflix. (Okay, I may have done just a bit of those over the past weeks too.) Anyhow, I figured I already had two advantages when it came to enforced isolation: I’m an introvert, and I’m super nerdy. To keep my mind and my body from going to mush, I’ve carved out some time every day to exercise them both. Our new puppy has been faithful in keeping us active, making sure we get our daily walks in, and my wife has even coaxed me into joining her for a few calisthenics. Between my own books and the great free e-lending my public library offers, I’ve also focused on some blind spots in my learning (I’m shamefully ignorant of Africa’s nations and peoples, for instance, and I’m catching up on the classic literature I pretend to have already read). I’ve even managed to find a couple of free online courses that have been keeping me busy.
