On Father’s Day last week, my son cooked mom and dad a brunch, then we went hiking at the Slacker SCA trail in San Francisco. It was so beautiful to spend a few hours in nature and to give the body the much needed fitness challenge.
Who would have thought that the year would turn out this way? Who would have predicted a global pandemic? Who would have known the death of George Floyd triggering deep reflection and realization of social inequity? Who would have guessed that the United States, as the only world superpower, would be so flawed in managing public health and so flawed in its society?
New York and California are among the first states to have shelter-in-place (similar to a lockdown). Since the shelter-in-place started mid March, my family, spanning from NYC to California Bay Area, has stayed at home. On workday, I literally spend my day at home sitting in front of my computer for over ten hours with hardly any break at work. In the beginning weeks, my eyes hurt so much in the evening. It still feels unreal that we are in this world war against pandemic while my day mirrors a working day full of meetings similar to before. My coworkers and I work as hard as before, if not harder. Life is very hard with the pandemic (and even harder later with the social unrest after the death of George Floyd). In these usual times, I have stayed at home for weeks without leaving home. The weekend has become very long, the time has flown very slowly and there has not been much change of landscape between weekdays and weekends.
When I finally went out to the neighbourhood park or did some grocery shopping, it felt like the body needed adjustment to the outdoors, to the brightness of the sun and to the open. It was a great feeling though. If freedom of movement has a smell and a taste, maybe this would be it. With restaurants still close for any sitdown meals, we cook and eat most meals at home with a couple of takeouts every week. As the country opens up more, I go out for grocery or bakery shopping once every week. After the grocery, it takes time to wash hands, wipe the groceries, put them in the fridge, and then wash hands again. Some mornings I would do a 13-laps jog around the driveway, that is only a few hundreds meters in total distances, then write some journal before beginning my ten hours of work in front of the laptop and the monitor.
It was a special Father’s Day in this unusual time. The hike of moderate intensity turned out to be a stretch of body fitness to say the least. While San Francisco is a 45-minutes drive, it has been the furthest we have gone since mid March. The hike had some uphill climb and downhill moments, with over three months of shelter-in-place, it turned out to be quite exhausting. It is a scenic hike with gorgeous views of the Golden Gate Bridge, San Francisco skyline, the Angel Island and the Alcatraz. The sky was a clear blue with no cloud on the horizon, and the weather was perfect for hiking. Along the 5-mile trail, we saw quite a few fellow hikers, and every time some fellow hikers were within our eyesight, we would put on our masks; for the trail, I put on and off my mask about forty times. It felt more like a training on father’s day than celebrating father’s day! The muscle pain has lasted for a few days indeed.
In this unusual time, it is a great feeling to be out in nature, to be under the beautiful sky, to feel the warmth of the sunlight and to appreciate the magnificent Golden Gate Bridge from different angles. It has been a memorable and beautiful hike on this Father’s Day.
More time reading during the shelter-in-place. For a while, libraries have been closed, bookstores have been open. A book on AI and its commercialisation. Read more like AI for the beginners.
Written by his friend and personal assistant, the book gives a glimpse of how the very charismatic Jack Ma journeyed from being an English teacher to become the founder of Alibaba and how he cultivated a very unique company culture and group of followers.
oliviatamccue 