COVID life #1

 As I sit at my office desk, listening to a light rain fall and watching the haze developing around the obnoxiously bright alley light directly in my line of vision, I am mentally preparing myself for what promises to be a long, uneventful winter. With the numbers in our state tracking precipitously upwards and stronger restrictions once again looming, the reality of a COVID winter is ever so slowly beginning to set in. It could be worse, as always. We both remain gainfully employed and as difficult as balancing a full-time job with parenting and assisting with remote leaning can be, endless grateful for the unexpected time to watch our son grow every single day. That said, it's worth acknowledging the ways in which the immediate future feels gloomy. One of the balms has been weekend treks through various local nature preserves and walking trails, obviously to be a distant memory when the Chicago winter kicks in with full force. It's a good reminder of the necessity of taking stock of that which one has already to hand and finding ways to appreciate it all anew. What that means and how that looks is ever evolving. We'd all love to pretend that the extra time at home has allowed us all to indulge those long dormant hobbies and develop, no, master, those previously latent talents. But no, making it through the day with psyches intact and sanity still clutched, no matter how tenuously, is the highest we can hope for on the best of them. While I can sit here and wish for a vaccine, or more robust testing, or better yet, a nudge towards normalcy, whatever that may mean, it feels all too futile, as far out of my hands as all of these things are. For now, I'll listen to the rain growing more steady, watch the distant lightning flash and remember those things today that would have been unimaginable on an average Wednesday workday a year ago - the smell of a fresh pot of French press, my son leaning into me for a half-hearted hug during one of the breaks between his Zoom lessons and the commute home consisting of a walk from the dining room where my work laptop is set up to the chair in our sunroom where a book awaits. May we all find and savor these moments of peace in the months to come.