Our governor, Michelle Lujan Grisham, announced yesterday that retail will start to open tomorrow (Saturday May 16) but under strict guidelines. Everyone must wear a mask in public or private spaces and capacity will be at 25%. Many gallery and shop owners up here in Madrid seem to be of the mind to wait two more weeks before they open just to see what happens, to see if there is a significant uptick in the infection rate. My bosses at the gallery are okay with this plan to stay closed two more weeks.
My significant other is very leery of me going back to work at all because he is afraid (as a 35 year long Type I diabetic) that I will bring the virus home. I am too, but I miss working and I want to be working for my income! My bosses have been kind enough to pay me for the last two months; I do still caretake the gallery and have my studio in the back, but they cannot keep paying me for much longer without the gallery bringing in income. I guess we all need to wait these two weeks before we make any sort of decision about being open. The gallery feels crowded when there are 10 people in it, so I guess 25% capacity means no more than three people in at a time, but as the sole person running it, it might be hard to "crowd" control and keep the door handles clean and ask people not to pick up bunches of stuff if they have no intention of purchasing, all the while hopefully ringing up sales...
Here's what I think will happen starting on Saturday: a bunch of people will come up from Albuquerque, chomping at the bits for something new to do, going in and out of places that have opened up. Hopefully they will have masks on but there are always those people who think they are an exception to the rule. Since so many people have lost their jobs there may not be that many sales of non-essential items, but rather people just looking for entertainment for the day. We call them lookie-loos. I really don't want to risk getting the virus due to people just looking and not buying!
I do commend our governor for the excellent job she has done right from the get-go; the last thing New Mexico could possibly handle is the health system getting overrun with very sick people. The Navajo Nation is having a really terrible time of it. Decent, consistent health care can be such a difficult thing to get already in this state during normal times.
So, two more weeks. I can sign up for unemployment if the owners need to lay me off. The hard thing is my jewelry sales will be WAaaaay down for a long time, I bet. I don't need to produce anymore for the galleries right now so I am just kicking back and making stuff just for the fun of it while my supply of silver lasts and trying to heal my wrists. I am not going to be investing in any tools or equipment for quite a while.