This “sheltering in place” and no meetings of 10 people or more has changed my life … and at the moment it feels like for the better. I wake up each morning and there is no meeting to run off to or to organize. I can do whatever the heck it is I want to do … just not with someone else.
My email inbox has gone from a daunting 569 to a current 86 and on its way down.
What a delight it has been to reach back for projects, once dear to my heart, now come back to life. One of these was a discovery when I moved into my gorgeous tiny little cottage about 6 or so years ago. It is an old lab, 120 pages, note book from a course taken in the first semester of my PH.D program. It is full of drawings and diagrams and information about major plant families. All the content is in pencil and it was beginning to fade. I had started going over all the diagrams, longitudinal sections, drawings, habit sketches of the plant itself and the botanical information and classifications in ink. But it was far from finished.
I am now retracing again my own pencil handwriting and drawings in ink and the act has been filled with a true sense of familiarity that draws me to it. I do 2-3 pages more or less every day. My daughter asked me why I was doing this work and the question surprised me. I didn’t have an answer then. It came to me, out of the blue, about 3 days later and I told her, “I’m doing this work, A+ grades and all, because I want to be remembered, among other things, as a scholar.”
ElderChicks 
Jean, that is wonderful! And, it got me thinking what I want to be remembered by. For me, it’s simple, and basically family oriented. I want to be remembered
as the oldest living member of my immediate family who cared, deeply, about
protecting the welfare of every member of my family to the fullest extent possible.I have been able to make a major difference in the lives of both of my daughters, and all five of my grandchildren. I think they all know that, and I know it. It brings me great pleasure and satisfaction. They can count on me.
And, I am grateful that i have the interpersonal and business skills that I can
count on to know how to handle major life challenges for them. It’s so much easier for me: I’m retired, and there’s nothing I prioritize over ‘being there for them”.
Jean and Carol, You both remind us that this is a great opportunity to think about how we want to be remembered while we get on positively with living.