A year ago I stared at the numbers rising on the New York Times website. Every day I found myself feeling more inept as 10,000 became 20,000 became 40,000 became 80,000. I stared at the numbers like a moth at lights. Inept and discouraged. I still feel inept. I now have a tab with the New York Times vaccine distribution map. It is weird staring at this good news. Some part of me doesn’t feel hopeful since this is just what needs to be done. We failed and are now picking up the pieces.
I put a mask on for the first time going to the store on March 16th. No one else wore a mask and I even questioned if it was a good idea. It all felt silly. More like I need to show that I was doing the right thing rather than do the right thing. Of course, now it is clear it was the right thing to do, but momentarily I feel stupid for having worried about what others would think of my wearing a mask.
The awkward embrace of Zoom right before spring break made things feel more hopeless than expected. This was my first semester back after a year being away from Reed. I severely needed that year off and enjoyed it thusly. Now, all interactions in the classroom felt stunted and, despite keeping up with my classwork, I questioned whether being at Reed was the right choice. But the semester bumbled along and as Reed goes, piles and piles upon miles and miles of things to do left little time for further introspection. And then the semester was over.
I spent the summer with my pod eating like it was the end of the world, like there was no tomorrow. Three of my roommates had just graduated, tasked with obliging the societal contract of getting a job. I can only imagine doing that in a pandemic felt like the end of the world. We would lounge all day in the sun reading or doing nothing of any particular sort, then cook through the evening and dine like queens and kings. We moved a large desk under the awning over the porch. We placed a tablecloth down and lit cheap little candles from New Seasons to dine in the open air of a warm evening Portland. Cheese and bread to excite the palate. Pasta, roasts, stews, and curries sufficed for a hearty meal, topped off with galettes and many bottles of wine as we watched the sun fall below Council Crest.
In September, I found myself staring with glazed eyes at my computer screen for most of the day. I found some solace in the lasting warmth until late October and November. The sun drooped lower and I found myself attending class nestled halfway into a sleeping bag. I have little to reflect on from last semester. I don’t know why, but it felt like a blink, more so than any other time of my life. I began to work out less. I sat more. I joined The Grail, quite nervous to meet people over Zoom, but strangely, as Ian Malcolm says, “life finds a way.” Of the many lights I stared at, this one shone warmly. The semester ended before I could ask myself what I was doing.
My parents have somehow found more solace than most. They moved to New Mexico right before the pandemic began to be closer to family. My dad has started teaching high school, bravely learning to do so online. My mom recently administered vaccine shots as she is finishing up nursing school. Over winter break, I visited them at their new home in Corrales, New Mexico, a quaint town just outside of Albuquerque. It was a pleasant time. I got to cook for them, sharing all the new skills I had learned from last summer, and we walked along the Rio Grande with the two dogs, Rex and Skittles. I almost wanted to stay and do classes at the new home, but I had two in person classes I was excited about.
“What will be normal?” I ask myself again and again. It’s not as if time stopped last March and we are soon to pick up where left off. Our relationships, human to human, have been crammed into tiny glowing boxes but inches from our faces. My concept of self has seemingly drifted. The space in which I operated for eight months was confined to four rooms. I didn’t go out and do things. What does that make me? Of course, the pandemic is the reason I am stuck here, but trying to comprehend the current socio-political-viral-environmental crisis happening right now with this brain is difficult. Telling myself this feels normal is like trying to explain gravity to a fish.
Reed College semesters don’t move or flow. They just are. You are in it with little time to think about what's happening or feel the water flow around you. Sink or swim, to continue the metaphor. The pandemic has only exacerbated this issue, but here I am. In it doing things. Trying to find a flow. Getting to move from one class to another for the first time in a year. Wondering when I will get the vaccine. Wondering when we will meet for real.