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- That day, a year ago, I rode my bike home from work in a sudden blizzard, across the footbridge that had recently had its graffiti sandblasted off (how could we have imagined, just a few months later, the footbridge would be covered with more graffiti than ever - a hundred times more than it had ever had - racist, anti-racist, political, perverted, stupid, and everything in between). I had to drive my car back to work to pick up the giant box holding the monitor that the boss had given me, just in case we needed to start working from home. I'd gone to Costco earlier that week to get dog food, and there wasn't any dog food. That was really the first hint that something was awry here. In the windstorm that night, the big Rocky Mountain juniper at the front of the house fell. It was Friday, March 13. On Sunday, we got an email saying the office would close for a couple weeks after Monday. Monday morning, they told us to pack up and be gone by noon. On our way out the door, we were making jokes like "See you in July!" One of our coworkers, who was pregnant and due in June, said, "I hope not - that means I won't see you guys again until September." I haven't seen her since. So we went home for two weeks. I was still getting up and putting on my work clothes. My life really didn't change all that much, as far as I could tell. Things were weird, but still kind of normal. I didn't know that the race I'd done a few weeks prior would be the last in-person race I'd do all year. I couldn't imagine anyone here wearing a mask, but suddenly, one day, everyone was. I haven't had a cold in a year, but at some point every week for the last 52 weeks I've thought, there it is, it's covid - my throat hurts, or my nose is running, or I'm sneezing a lot - it's covid - but it hasn't ever been. It's been a weirder year than I'm able to comprehend, really, and who knows what kind of normal we'll get back to. I don't know. I'm grateful that my friends and my family have all made it through this relatively unscathed.
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