A fresh pot of coffee. Stretchy yoga pants. Consistent WiFi. A dog leash hung next to the door. A clean supply of masks. That’s pretty much all I need, here on the 373rd day of the pandemic.
A year ago this week, I remember being among the last to leave my office, turning off the lights for what was supposed to be three weeks to “flatten the curve.” I couldn’t shake the feeling though, that it was going to be months before I saw some of my colleagues. One year later, and our daily interactions are still through Zoom. I’ve long given up worrying about my background screen.
In the poem “A Servant to Servants,” Robert Frost wrote, “The best way out is always through,” one of those lines that hits you like a lightning bolt as a young college student, but you haven’t lived enough yet to know why. And so the through line of the COVID-19 pandemic now spans 12 months and includes so much heartbreak.
Lives lost, relationships strained. And the loss of so many things we took for granted, like shaking hands in church — or even going to church. A proper burial for our dead. Baby showers and baseball games. Eating at a restaurant.
“Flatten the curve” seems quaint now, as does the idea we would all band together to defeat a tiny microbe that turned our lives upside down. History is hard to put into perspective while it’s still happening …
Read the rest of the column in the March 19, 2021 issue of the Webster-Kirkwood Times.
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