What I Did Today: Pandemic life in 50 words or less.

One day, YourLifeIsATrip.com executive editor Judith Fein wrote to a few friends and asked what their day was like. The answers were unexpected, quirky, deep, funny, sad, anxious, bored, depressed, confused, and moving. 

So, we put out the question to our contributors: What did YOU do today? Then we asked them to spin it into a story in 50 words or less. 

Here’s what they had to say:

• Drove to wetlands refuge. Wind was furious, pummeling, and our picnic languished in the cooler. Rode to a lake, and parked on road behind barbed wire fence speckled with tumbleweed. Laid out picnic on the dashboard and watched birds calculating wind direction and velocity before taking off. Drive-through Dairy Queen vanilla for dessert.—Judith Fein, executive editor and co-founder of YourLifeIsATrip.com

• Staring into our forest garden, five hours from finishing quarantine on returning to Vancouver Island.  Remembering hard lockdown in the South of France, scrambling to leave early, almost empty airports and planes, temperature checks. Chill rain teems down onto tall pines…  big change from sunny twenty-four degrees. Home. Feeling relieved.—Keith Digby

• Blasting off with optimism as I spoke with my 87-year old neighbor whose grandson-in-law works on the team that sent four astronauts to the international space station.  Though we voted differently and we cannot ignore earthbound worries, we both believe everyone rises watching Resilient's bright liftoff.—Barbara Wysocki

• Six am, too late to exercise before dental appointment. Dr’s assistant tested positive for COVID. He cancelled me. I exercised, then zoomed students to help with their projects. I thanked them, but some didn’t thank me which was upsetting, so I ate some cake. It worked, but nauseous now. Dammit.—Cliff Simon

• Today old friends returned to my closet. Heavy winter sweaters came out of their vacuum-sealed bags and were put on wooden hangers to await a really cold day and a special time, perhaps a zoom meeting, when I might care if anyone sees me in something other than a fleece.—Laurie Vander Velde

• Today? Enjoyed coffee in a café with daughter and friend. Hugged both. Sat close. No masks. Crazy? Trumpist? Reality denier? Nope. We moved to covid-free New Zealand. —Jules Older

• Waking in the dark to meditate. Brush my teeth, put on a mask and head out to meet friends at 7 sharp every morning to hike the hills behind us. One hour of cardio, conversation, communing before we retreat to the safety of our homes. We’ve named ourselves ‘Thrive Tribe’.—Sylvia Fox

• “I felt the earth move under my feet. I felt the sky tumblin' down.” Just another day in Lalaland, where Chaos Magic reins and nothing is certain, where the prism of reality lies shattered on the ground, which trembles like quicksand.—Elyn Aviva

• Wisdom of the desert quail in my backyard. Hide under a bush until the coast is clear—then scurry to another bush to hide. Make as little noise as possible and be ever-vigilant for danger. Discretion is the better part of valor. That way we live to fight another day.—Gary White

• I hiked down a steep trail to a prayer circle made by hikers passing by. I placed my talisman heart stone on the center stones and then walked around the circle. At each quarter I stopped and sent compassion, lovingkindness, and the wish for peace and justice into the world.—Nancy King

• I need change and wish to write something different. Perhaps Haiku!  I Google the guidelines. Formats are forbidding. Another time. Maybe song lyrics? Is musicality required? My music knowledge is zero. I listen to Dylan, Cohen, Mitchell; their meanings often obscure to me.  Is understanding necessary? Where has the day gone…?—Maureen Magee

• I opened every window and door. I blasted Creedence Clearwater Revival, danced around the kitchen, banged on my drum pads, did yoga and pumped an hour on my air walker exercise machine. Finally back on two feet after a broken foot. So grateful to be up and moving again. Hallelujah!—Marla Finn

• Huddled together in churchyard sneakers nearby. He shelters her long dark locks from wind. She desperately inhales blue ice, meth.  “ Don’t hurt yourselves, you’re loved, we need you, I beg offering apples. “We’ll be okay. We’ll go to rehab,“ he responds. I phone crisis hotline, heartbroken. No funding for transport. They evaporate and only lone sneakers remain.—Andrea Campbell

• I did very little today. Usual depression. No energy to do more. The big trip of the day will be to the library. Whoopie!  I get to pick up more books to read.—Irene Sardanis

• Today I checked to see if I'd gotten my Covid test results.  I also checked my hair roots. An inch of silver. I put aside the brown hair dye and make a deal. If test is negative I will go grey. I feel optimistic. I research silver dye products —Consuelo Luz Aróstegui

• First sunny day in the Philippines after five typhoons: Quinta, Rolly, Siony, Tonyo, and Ulysses, and three weeks of overcast.  Outside, in the mud, on my knees, planting pineapples in November, and soaking up vitamin D.  Delighted to be alive with other living things. Even in autumn, planting something.—B.J. Stolbov

• Fed me. Fed cat. Posted poem on Facebook. Grocery shopped. Waited for someone to arrive to pick up their gift. They never came. Worked 2 hours on this YLIAT piece about my day today. It was 450 words too long. Fed me. Fed cat. Rewrote it. —Marlan Warren

• Daily I walk ruts into the browning hills of the ciénaga and talk to my dead dad about my dreams, our family, bad decisions, missed opportunities. When lockdowns began I comforted my husband with, “Many people need some time to think right now,” but didn’t realize I was among them.—Austin Eichelberger

• This morning I streamed a Zoom webinar and cancelled an online dating subscription after deciding to enter a monastery for Jews addicted to Zoom. This afternoon I attended two more Zooms and confirmed that the monastery has internet suitable for Zoom. This evening I realized I had gone Covid crazy.—Andrew Aldeman

• After four blissful days in a remote cabin on the New River – our first real outing since we abandoned the cross-country road trip in March – we drove the interstate home. Trucks and tension, masks and missing “normal.” Even mini-vacations are tough now.—Cindy Carlson

• I woke up. Was that a dream!? Then … I woke up again. THAT was the dream. Now, I’m awake ..wearing flippers in the desert .. taking dictation in tongues .. making soup from lumber .. shopping for a formal hazmat suit .. training eels .. dancing for the Queen Mother-in-Law .. That was some dream. OR— ? —Paul Ross

• Woke up. Glad to wake up. Glad to do my exercises and take a walk in my neighborhood. Glad for my home. Glad for my meals. Glad for phone catch-ups with friends and family. Glad for time to go through old letters and files. Thankful, waiting for better times.—Jean Kepler Ross

• Walking around new seaside town with new poodle puppy Jupiter yields surprising encounters with locals as retired Teresina helps at laundromat, city worker Isabel invites for coffee, bench-sitting Antonia reminisces, store worker Ana delights at Jupiter’s hug, and customer rep Josh enthusiastically orders my free eBook on travel. Gratitude reigns.—Aysha Griffin

• Early rise. Reading to ground myself. I didn’t even shower. Before work. Work work. Another busy day. Essential worker but rarely an essential purchase. Deliveries for those in need. Substantial breakfast for others who find home claustrophobic. Lock the doors, set the alarm. Ready to repeat. Until times change.—Harriett Mills

• I made my daily covidarts painting while watching a weak sun push light through the bare limbs of the walnut tree. My mind tries to interpret light and shadow in the stilllife before me. I paint at my dining room table without wearing the mask tucked in my pocket.—Rachel Dickinson

• I crossed centuries and continents today. I tinkered with Freud’s Butcher, my Vienna-based family history; let my dog walk me through my Tucson neighborhood; attended a Zoom meeting featuring storytellers from as far away as Tokyo; and fell asleep listening to the audiobook tale of Winston Churchill saving England during the Blitz.—Edie Jarolim

• Sitting on the loo in bright morning sunshine, I saw a shaft of light illuminating my bathroom’s cruddy baseboards. I flushed and got down on my knees to scrub the stained wood with an old toothbrush where it meets the delicate paintwork. My Sonicare might have done the job quicker.—Carly Newfeld

• Walked the dog, read emails, edited a travel story about climbing in the Andes, met a friend and walked with her and her dog, looked up symptoms for covid, colored a mandala, read more emails, brought in mail, stared out my window at San Francisco and the Golden Gate Bridge.—Pamela Blair

• “I’m dreaming, I can’t believe you are all here,” says my octogenarian mother. We sit around the table, a mother and her adult children; no spouses, no grandkids, in the Covid era. We feast on pepper steak and a good bottle of wine. She lives for these precious fleeting moments.—Ingrid Littmann-Tai

• Sun Shining, peeking, Whisper wakie-wakie!/ Warm water adventure hiking best friends./ Diverse as Pinecones and Peacocks./ Mixed cultures, chance meeting and wishing upon a star “soulmates”.  Majestic Torrey Pines State Beach in La Jolla, California. Pine Cones, Various Herbs and Exotic beach and Mountain Trails.—Tammy Kosco

• There have been moments, glorious moments, during this grim time when I’ve experienced my spirit at full wattage. Stevie Wonder blasting in my ears. Chatting on WhatsApp with far flung friends. Wrapped in a creative cocoon. But today, my light is half-dim. I feel rattled and restless. And it’s all right. —Ellen Barone, Co-founder and publisher, YourLifeIsATrip.com