I’ve gone back to school, the why’s behind that is for another post, and in the wake of the pandemic, at the top of every semester so far (Summer session I and Summer Session II) all the Professors ask a version of the same question: how are you doing? The answer for me has been consistent: I hate the pandemic. The answer is layered, because of course one has a disdain for a plague but there is also the unsaid in that answer, of the stop in time this has caused, a pause on motion—within yourself and outside yourself—that can result in an atrophy. It’s not weight gain I fear it’s the weight of this that burdens me, that fills me with a capital H. The death count. The rampant unemployment. The looming sense of homelessness. The hubris of the invincible. The world in a grip. Not seeing my mother except for a video call. Not seeing my friends, so many of them burnt out from Their professionally based Zooming. Not being able to walk through the streets of this city of mine, without seeing the space left of the people who have fled, of the people left behind, the eyebrows, always the eyebrows above the mask, the tell tale heart of fear below.

For a moment though, I find a peace. Today I found a still. A place within where I found joy and I saw hope and I heard my own laughter. Chase that feeling if you can, what a wonderful reminder that you are alive.