LIGHT

Are you beginning to feel like we might finally be emerging from this very long, dark, viral winter? I am beginning to have some seedlings of hope feel as if they are tentatively beginning to sprout.

After being frozen in quarantine, it is starting to seem like things might be thawing a bit, and life might begin to flow again. Through complete dumb luck, I managed to get my first dose of vaccine last week: not wanting their leftovers to go to waste, a nearby clinic was looking for people to use up their few surplus doses at the end of the day. Of the ten extra doses they had left the other day, I was assigned the final one.

I know there is still much further for the world to go before a full re-opening is possible, but beginning the vaccination process has really made the prospect of a “new normal” feel tangible. After a year of largely being in one place, living a simple routine at home, I am a bit overwhelmed at the prospect of travel, performances, dinners with friends, and being able to hug my niece and nephew. I look back at how over-filled and rich my life seemed pre-coronavirus, and it is both daunting and thrilling to think about resuming that kind of existence in the near future after 12 months of a much more spartan existence.

Then again, I also wonder how spartan it really has been? I’ve still managed to overstuff my days with things to do, music to make, and activities to engage in. I will be curious to see what pieces of my previous life I pick up again, and which I leave by the wayside. I’m perhaps even more interested in which parts of the last year I carry forward with me.

Either way, my hope is burning brighter. I think it might be shining the way to another light at the end of the tunnel.