Shelter in Place, San Francisco, January 27, 2021
We are getting to the full-circle point where nearly every day will remind us of something we were doing just before the pandemic landed in our laps - “normal life,” the eventful and uneventful things that happened before we knew that everything was about to change. I am reminded of this irony as I pick Meyer lemons this morning to make a cake. There were ripe ones (not quite so many) a year ago, hidden far beneath the branches and waiting for a chance to share a cake with friends.
A year ago today John and I got word that our China trip had been delayed, a full cross-country celebration of the TransAntarctica expedition’s 30th anniversary, postponed until September because there was a virus spreading in a place called Wuhan - not on our itinerary, but close enough to warrant caution and a pause in planning such a whirlwind of events (of course, September came and went without renewing all those plans).
This week is the anniversary, too, of my last trip to casually meet up with friends in Seattle where, unbeknownst to us, the virus had also just arrived. How little we suspected what was to come. How ‘normal’ it felt to be together for a weekend, laughing in the kitchen, toasting each other by firelight, and planning more visits in the year to come.
It’s hard to anticipate such freedom and adventure anymore and dangerous to hope too much that ‘normal’ will return anytime soon. Living in the moment is safer now. So as the calendar moves round full circle, we will celebrate the little things - like baking a lemon cake to cheer us on a cold, wet California morning, and remembering again how lucky we are to have each other and a place called home.
Day 304: Just Wear the Damn Mask
Shelter in Place, San Francisco, January 21, 2021
It felt a perfect day yesterday, full of promise, kindness, generosity and hope. Statesmen behaved like statesmen, Republicans and Democrats alike. There was poetry and people cried. I cried a lot. I could feel the relief in my chest last night when the new First Family made it safely onto White House grounds. “It’s like we have all been hostages,” somebody wrote, “and we didn’t even know it.”
Yet no one - certainly not our new president - minimized the challenges ahead. He exhorted us to join him: “Now we’re going to be tested,” he said. “Are we going to step up, all of us? It’s time for boldness for there is so much to do. And this is certain. I promise you we will be judged, you and I, by how we resolve these cascading crises of our era.” Yes! My friends and I texted each other, we have to stay involved. How can we help? What can we do?
But then last night as the President signed his first executive order mandating masks on federal land, and the television cameras settled on the glowing pool-side lights that represent the COVID casualties so far, I received word that in the midst of all this rising hope and light, I lost a cousin to the disease. And suddenly, this morning, things look simpler. Whatever you think of our new president, whatever you hope to see (or not) in the next four years, I say this: Please stop this political theater and do the simplest thing to save yourself and me. Please. Just wear the damn mask!
Day 302: It’s Time
Shelter in Place, San Francisco, January 19, 2021
Since this pandemic began, there has been a blank space where mourning should have been. National mourning, respect for the dead, solidarity in grief. Today is the first time that we have been asked by the leader of our country to stop for a minute and think about the 400,000 lives that have been lost, and to honor their memory. This is hope. This is healing. Nothing could be more important today than to join President-elect Biden in mourning such an unfathomable loss and to dedicate ourselves, as a nation, to do better for each other going forward.