Did you miss any of the earlier posts in this series? Find them here:
Today was a good day! One of the first things I did was chat online with a colleague of mine who just started her quarantine on a different floor of the HiOne Hotel. Her wonderful attitude encouraged me, and so did the song she sent me a link to. "As the Deer" instantly became my quarantine theme song. I've heard it dozens, if not hundreds of times before, but it had never brought me to tears before. Of course, I'd never before listened to it when locked in a room alone for two weeks ... and yet not alone. The phrase "you alone" takes on a whole new meaning when the Lord is all you have - and you realize he is really all you need after all. I can't remember the last time a song touched me that deeply.
The picture above is what I saw when I opened my curtains. Typhoon In-Fa is hanging out off the east coast at the moment. Rain splattered my window, "falling" almost horizontally at the time. All day, there have been intermittent heavy winds, sometimes making my windowpanes rattle, and it's rained on and off.
This morning when I opened my door to pick up my breakfast, I stuck my phone out and took a couple of quick pictures. Below is the view from my doorway. For some reason I always feel a little sad when I see all those other chairs with meals on them. I've never glimpsed any of the other guests/inmates here (though this afternoon I heard someone sneeze on the other side of the wall), but every chair represents a person sitting in a room by themselves. There are at least eight of us spending our two weeks in solitary confinement in this hallway, so close together and yet each completely alone. I hope the others have found meaningful ways to fill their time and connect with friends and family in the outside world, as I've been able to.
A highlight of my day was receiving a delivery in the late afternoon!
Part of it involved items from my apartment (like extra clothes, so I won't have to do as much laundry in the sink) that a friend who has the key had been willing to get for me. She also bought me some fresh fruit, yogurt, and a few other goodies. The rest of it was the delicious dinner that you see below, a gift from another friend. Yum! It was definitely the best meal (and the healthiest - nothing was deep fried!!) that I've had since I've been here.
Meanwhile, here are the meals the hotel served today:
One last picture before I close for the night. I didn't actually see the sunset this evening because of all the clouds over the horizon, but it did make its presence known very briefly in this gorgeous display. Just a few seconds after I took this picture, the clouds shifted and the colors vanished.
See later posts in the series here (once they're live):