Lucas Camilo

Things get more intense by the day around here. Yesterday the governor announced that all schools would be cancelled for 6 weeks, and just about everything else is shut down as well. Seattle may be a few days or a week ahead of the rest of the country but such measures are now happening everywhere, or will be soon. It’s unsettling and scary and devastating and surreal. We are fortunate to have a comfortable house, lots of food and supplies, a good internet connection, and neighbors, friends, family and community who have our back. Others in Seattle are stepping up (check out this great article in today’s Seattle Times) but many people are struggling because of their workplaces being shutdown or kids not able to get childcare and food at school, or because they are feeling anxiety and isolation.

Our family has taken a few steps to make the cancelled school and social distancing somewhat manageable. Yesterday both of our kids came up with lists of things to do and it meant that they didn’t spend the whole day staring at screens.

Indeed, we need ways to release during this time and fortunately, Ida’s list (on the right) called for us to “dress up and have a dance party”; that’s the way we started the day which you can see from the video below.

Today Krista instituted our new morning circle routine, reading a section of the Radical Women children’s book and then leading a discussion about Dolores Huerta, farm workers and unions. Then we talked about our goals for the day and jumped in. We also managed to do a Zoom hangout with my parents, a chance for us to all get together, chat and see each other’s faces despite being in various different places.

So… only 46 days left until the kids are back in school! Or maybe the school year is over. Who knows. This is going to be a very difficult stretch for our community, our city, our country, our world. But we need to keep supporting each other and keep connected. Feel free to reach out to us anytime you’re looking for some time to catch up on Zoom.

Oh, and here’s a blog post Lucas wrote in early March right before the hysteria hit Seattle. We never got around to posting. And now it seems like so long ago.

I am a huge fan of music. I saw a concert at KEXP last Friday. Our neighbor got us special close up seats and a pass down to the secret staff room. The band was called Chastity Belt. They were indie rock. I loved it.

The next day we went to the Renton library and saw an African drumming and dance group. We loved it

I also love making cover playlists. I have made 4 volumes of 10 song playlists of all covers of Enter Sandman by Metallica.