Life of Wry

For some reason, I noted it as Magic Day in my calendar, so I’ll stick with that. More significant than the name, however, is the reality: Jim and I are now two weeks post our second Pfizer vaccination and are officially, responsibly, safely, ecstatically vaccinated. We are allowed to mix with others who are also two-weeks-post-final-vaccine-shot.. like, indoors! Like, any which way we want. We are good. Who’s ready for some socializing?

I have to admit to a small sense of apprehension.. not because I don’t believe fully that we are okay to mingle (or at least that the risk is as reasonable as we could hope for). I have full confidence in the medical science of vaccinations. But because the forced social distance has served as a convenient limitation on… oh… just doing things that sometimes are easier not to do. It’s always worth doing those things, of course, like planning & going on trips, having dinner parties, taking spontaneous road trips to see folks, attending concerts & games, or town halls & lectures… and …. all of those things — while worthwhile — require some degree of effort. We’ve been off the hook for an entire year. We’ve cocooned. We’ve burrowed into our selves, our homes, in our comfy clothes. No rushing out to meetings. No make up. No showing up. We’ve been blissfully anti-social, we were told to be anti-social… in a physical sense, anyway.

And now we don’t have to be.

We’ve said for an entire year: I can’t wait to be able to see people!! Or we’ve said: I can’t wait to hug my friends!! Or we’ve said: I can’t wait to travel!

And now we can.

Of course, I’m aching to see Peter and to feel like he’ll be safe when he travels. I’m desperate for him to start grad school for reals, to start meeting his people. I’m dying to fly to Chicago and rent a car and drive to Ann Arbor and stay at the Burnt Toast Inn on Williams and spend days walking around the campus and the town and eat in his favorite places. (And to see and thank Lisa and Claire for taking such good care of him!) I’m eager to get out of the house and on the road. I’m eager.. I really am.. to see people. And.. my comfy little introvert self (dare I say lazy? or maybe just procrastinate-y?) also will need nudges to make things happen, because there are no excuses now.

Well.

That is a challenge I’m happy to have. Bring it on, normal life. I’m (almost) ready for you.

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So here’s something very cool. My friend Chuck’s girlfriend Lisa’s (and she’s my friend too, since I visited them in Hawaii!) mom (Lois Barnes) is an artist. A very talented artist who paints gorgeous things (including Bluff Cove, high above and on the edge of which they used to live in Palos Verdes). During this whole pandemic year, she’s also been painting (the three of them live in Pennsylvania now) and produced this one — a reflection on this moment in history. She hits all the high points (and so many low points) in the below (a screen shot that I just grabbed off Facebook):

If you have any interest in a 16″x16″ canvas or metal print of this, let me know and I’ll send you the link to her online store.

I think it’s pretty cool. Every time I look at it, I see new stuff.