COVID, week 45 + the light
It was a nice reprieve to actually talk about running in my entry last week, as I tried to convey that — of course — my 2020 running materialized in ways I never could have imagined (no races, no big training groups, no runs beyond my ZIP code and immediate side of town, but distance PRs, elevation PRs, all that stuff). Imagine that, a running blogger actually talking about running!
That said: hold that thought about running.
Shortly after my track workout this morning with J, my kids and I watched President Biden’s and VP Harris’ inauguration ceremony live. This is one of those experiences, one of those sentiments, that I have no doubt I will carry with me for the rest of my life, one of those curious where were you when __________ conversation starters.
For me, of course — as is the case with so many others in this country — I was at home, in the throes of the earliest part of my kids’ distance learning day, forced to be here by an airborne respiratory pandemic that has, as of today, killed more Americans in less than a year than who died in all of World War II, 406,000 and counting.
But just like with the new calendar year, just because there is a marked presidential transition — one fraught with a shit-ton of issues, but a transition nonetheless — it doesn’t guarantee anything, including that life will intrinsically be fundamentally different from day one.
There is still work to do: and heaps of it, at that.
Having to navigate any one of our current problems in this country — the pandemic, political polarization and disinformation, white supremacy, structural racism, the economy, I mean, pick your poison here — would be terrible. The profound cost of life and livelihood can’t be overstated. Having all of it, and all of it compounding each other: anyone got a 25th hour in the day?
What is there to say but that I am hopeful for the light ahead.
