We’re all still here. Between digging out of the snow, or feeling oddly relieved that an 80-year-old person has agreed to stay in his job another seven years, we are all still here.
Tomorrow is February 1st and for sure much more is going on than just these two peaks of interest within my own fishbowl. Collectively, we continue to doing the thing that we never had imagined likely: monitoring our bodies for traces of flu-like symptoms….as if these ailments were some kind of bewildering new affliction that arrived from somewhere beyond the Milky Way. People we love or care for continue to battle this illness even as the close of last year produced Christmas trees adorned by COVID ornaments. While a fairly dark and obviously untraditional approach, I saw it as a very human way to cope with the pandemic. IN the same light, I also took it as a light-hearted signal that we are gradually moving to a place where we can one day comedy will outweigh all of the gravity.
Like most folks lucky enough to have been vaccinated, I am tired of thinking about COVID. Of course, I feel this way while reminding myself that this simple fatigue is an absolute privilege. I still go to sleep thinking about it, then in the morning I wake up and immediately blanket myself with a battery of self-queries: “How is my throat feeling? My head? Any body aches?” Of course, getting sick is nothing new for a human body, it’s just that two years of waking up this way is a lot to absorb. But I remain upbeat—just like yesterday as I was texting a friend with her family of five who has been in quarantine for almost two weeks due to the virus (family members are falling ill like dominoes)—we all do our best to find ways through it. “It could be worse!” she texted. I am tired but cannot disagree with her at all. It feels wrong to complain.
And speaking of complaining, we are now getting into the meat and potatoes part of a New England winter. I say this because from my relatively toasty perch in Italy, I am now getting photos of snow drifts from home. In between hearing about my nieces and nephews getting COVID tested with each new at-school exposure, now they’ve had record snowfall dumped on their heads. They don’t come around too often, but these certified blizzard have come around often enough to make life feel manageable.
“RIP snowblower” was the caption in a photograph sent by sister. The picture’s composition has the machine stopped as if in the angle of its first carving, while the husband is in the background trying to finish the job it never finished. Only the walkway to the house was finished; I didn’t want to ask about what they planned to do about the driveway.
Just about everybody knows that New England is digging out after waking up on Saturday to a wild blanket of snow that really can’t be called a blanket at all. It’s more like the Carvel ice cream people mistook the New England earth for chocolate crunchies and proceeded to layer over everything and create one of their famous cakes. If you don’t know what I’m talking about, suffice to say that there is some thick and heavy snowfall that will take some time to shovel or melt away. Souvenir banks of snow could last into summer. It could be worse—but not by much.
Yesterday my brother posted a photo of the back of his car. Goalie sticks pushed to one side of his car, he’d made a run to Dunkin’ and then to fill up on fuel for the house’s generators. Much of the Cape (and beyond) was without power due to the nor’easter, and the house back home is fortunate to be prepared for such an event. As I watched from afar in my Rome apartment, I reflected again on how lucky we all are. It could be worse.
I really like January 31st so much more than January 1st. I feel bad to admit this, but today feels far less depressing than the first day of the new year. On the last day of January, we’ve at least had a few weeks of practicing this new year and, and no matter how challenging this might have been, we at least have some proof on the calendar that we’re making headway. This momentum to keep on moving makes the mountain in front of us not seem as daunting. Despite the virus, despite the snow, despite the array of other things that people are dealing with in silence. For me, this forward movement is helpful when it comes to combatting low-grade psychological stresses that keep me up at night.
Yes, COVID is still here—and everywhere around the globe, there are compounding factors that only make this menace one drop in a very large petri dish. If I say I am tired of thinking about a virus, then maybe I just need two feet of snow to get dropped on my head as a new form of guaranteed distraction. I’ll pass. Complications abound everywhere—exactly what else you are dealing with depends on what region of the world you currently find yourself in.
And so tomorrow is the start of month two of 2022 and, like the start of the new year, no great change can be expected from what we’ve got going on today. Hopefully. But there will be gradual changes, tilting us towards more good things: snowmen that become mimosa trees blooming that become warm air celebrations where all of the deep freeze stresses have lost their grip. When that time comes, I have big plans to be home, walking on the beach with sand in my toes and hearing from others about how they all managed to make it through this chapter of 2022 humanity.