



When i turned in my letter of resignation i realized i was no longer going to be exposed to covid-19 on the daily. So, i needed to convert my “treatment center” back into a house. I had been through 3 separate bouts of symptoms and after the first time i had moved a great many things from the shed into the house because i knew i wouldn’t have the energy, lung power, or stamina to find them in the throes of active symptoms. The counters were littered with jars from my herbal medicine cabinet. Towels cluttered the surfaces that could hold them. Dishes that usually had their home in the shed had migrated into the house because i would not be able to go to the shed and get them on a daily basis when struggling to breathe and keep my energy up. I had at one point moved the entire drinking water supply into the house because i couldn’t lift or carry the 3 gallon containers of water to fetch them from the shed when at my weakest. Besides all the clutter that had migrated from the shed to the house, the bathroom was caked in a dust of chicken gunk from when the chicks were housed in there with a wire-top cage, there was toothpaste all over the mirror and make-up residue in the sink basin. There was flour and oil all over the stove top from previous cooking sessions and every single item and surface in the tiny house was covered in brown dust. Just a ways down the road from our town was a quarry and the further they dug into the earth the more dust seemed to settle on all of our furniture. The wall unit that handled a/c and heat seemed to suck all the dust in the outside air right into the house and spray it evenly on the floors, the furniture, and the counter tops. If one wanted to keep the dust away all surfaces had to be wiped down daily. I hadn’t wiped anything down since January. I swept up an entire HEB bag of dog hair and dust from the floor. I cleaned all the surfaces. I carried items back to the shed. I took the house out of “emergency mode” and put it back to normal. The jars went back in the medicine cabinet. The towels got washed and put away in the shed. No more drenching night sweats expected. Finally, i could stand to look at my living space again.