One More Thing...

I blogged from March 18, 2020 to March 20, 2021 with a single purpose: to record life in a pandemic. The project gave me an excuse to massage small moments with consideration usually reserved for Big Days. It reminded me that writing is, yes, for the readers, but it is also for the writer: a space to think, to reconsider. 

I needed to draw that project to a close. I had been diligent through COVID lockdowns and precautions. And I do understand that reaching my breaking point doesn't stop the virus. 

But I did reach a (breaking) point at which I needed to view life through a wider-than-COVID lens.
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So here I am. 

It's been a week since my final COVID post, and I have already experienced many want-to-write-about-it moments, but without the permission my pandemic journal gave me.

I wanted to write about my first post-vaccine trip to visit my sons at Sundance in Utah, skiing again for the first time in almost 15 years. When they were little, learning to ski, I patiently inched my boys down the mountain. This year our roles were reversed: they inched me down with encouragement and praise as I relearned the basics.

On the plane, the flight attendants used no-nonsense "teacher voices" to direct people to position their masks over their noses. I saw only one guy in the Denver airport swaggering by un-masked--but wearing a Stetson and high-heeled boots (which looked more troublesome than wearing a mask). 

The strangest moment of my trip was when my school bag was searched at the Des Moines airport. "Is there anything in here that will cut me or poke me?" the TSA officer asked before digging in. 

Her question seemed ludicrous. A Sharpie marker? A chapstick? But nestled deep in a front pocket, she found a serrated steak knife. My frazzled excuse (Had I brought it to school with my porkchop lunch and stowed it in my bag, then forgot about it?) was unneeded, as the official had quickly dismissed my weapon as an innocent oddity. 

How much did my whiteness, my age, and my generally privileged persona factor into the ease with which I moved through an airport with a steak knife?
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Finally, I wanted to write about my first cousin Craig--my mom's brother's son--who at age 59, has been on life support in Michigan the past week. COVID caused blood clots in his brain and lungs. After his parents visited him yesterday, they shut off the machines. 
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This isn't a project yet. I don't have a focus or a purpose. 

But I do have a year-long habit of coming to the keyboard and thinking in this space, and habits are hard to break. 

Allison

Sundance, Utah