Zooming Around

I know that not everyone agrees, but I love Zoom. I can attest that I have done it in every room of my home. Oh, no, wait a moment, I used to say that about sex. Oh well, what do you expect? Life changes…

I had never attended church every Sunday, but now I look forward to the sermons every week. I don’t sing along, but I listen to the Bible readings and pay attention to the people who are in the pews, being good Christians. I usually have breakfast during the service and sit at the dining room table, feeling a little bit guilty, but not enough to change my new habits.

Board meetings of my neighborhood association are definitely better on Zoom than in person. They are often long and contentious and I never liked to get involved in those argumentative discussions. So, I don’t turn the video on, just my name and the little chubby figure attends the meetings. The chair likes for us to be muted; perfect for listening to the evening news sotto voce, multi-tasking has always been one of my strengths. Another advantage of Zoom is that one can attend meetings during the summer while at the shore or on vacation. In fact, I’ll have to resign from several committees when the pandemic is over.

Reading groups are wonderful on Zoom. The people who used to dominate the discussions are easily muted, since we have to raise our little yellow hands to get a turn to speak or write our comments on the chat box. It has been so much fun to see most of the women’s hair turn to gray and we get to wear bright lipstick, something we have missed with the eternal masks on. I understand that there are self-tutorials for the best Zooming looks, but I haven’t gone that far. I’m still wearing skinny jeans and house slippers.

One of my favorite activities on Zoom is my Tai Chi and Qi Chong sessions. If it’s warm enough I go out on the balcony and I feel definitely Zen in the fresh air. Other times I stand in the living room with the shades down for an intimate feeling. Of course, I can exercise if I’m away for the weekend or on vacation, since Zoom works across time zones; it is timeless, sort of speak.

My mindfulness meditation has been one of the biggest bonuses of Zooming. I usually stay in my study and feel very smug and professional. Last week we had a day-long retreat about movement and stillness and it was so pleasurable. Part of it took place on our yoga mats; I did the body-scan meditation on the day bed and brought my lunch to my desk during the break. Isn’t amazing? All this without leaving my home office. For the hour-long meditation sessions, I prefer to be on my bed, wearing cozy pajamas. I light a candle and perchance I fall asleep.

I have kept up with my Pilates workout, attended history seminars, cooking demonstrations, book presentations, museum visits, chamber music concerts, entire operas and even a virtual trip to Morocco on Zoom. My financial advisor sent us French wines and cheeses to savor together virtually when the pandemic started. Unfortunately, that ended when Delta and Omicron overstayed their welcome.

You must admit that tele-medicine calls or sessions with the mental health therapist are much better on Zoom. Who needs to get dressed up to see the doctors to take off our clothes as soon as we get to their office? Have you noticed how less crowded the medical offices are lately? Turns out that some of the time we just needed a good chat on Zoom.

I think my family in Spain would say that I’ve become sooo American with all these activities Zooming around. And, yes, it will be wonderful when we get to see more of our friends like we used to. We have definitely missed real visits, lunches and dinners in restaurants with family and friends. But I hope that Zoom is here to stay, I can get so much more done, even if it isn’t sex!

This entry was posted on Sunday, February 27th, 2022 at 5:33 pm by conchaalborg and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.