Thank you, COVID
2020 was a year of stupendous loss. Lost lives. Lost livelihoods. Lost opportunities.
And yet.
For me, the pandemic has also been a gift. It has pushed me to do things I know to be priorities but which I have consistently failed, year in and year out, to actually prioritize.
I have visited, virtually, nearly everybody I care about. I have Zoomed weekly with out-of-state friends, checked in and caught up with distant relatives, and reconnected with folks who’d meant a lot to me but had somehow drifted out of touch. I remembered people’s birthdays I typically forget. These get-togethers are not the same as being together. But since I didn’t need to clean my house or prepare a meal or shop for a hostess gift, we actually got together.
I have driven less and walked more. A lot more: I logged nearly 800 miles this past year, according to my phone, mostly within ten miles of my house. A neighbor accompanied me on hikes in our Preserve and took me on bike rides that revealed places I’d somehow never visited in the 20+ years I’ve lived here, deepening our friendship while relieving my claustrophobia. Thomas Cromwell kept me company for 78 hours straight—a testament to Hilary Mantel’s conjuring powers and the performers’ voice talents. It’s amazing how far you will go, in time and space, when you’re not allowed to go anywhere.
And I ventured into true wilderness. Much of it was in Wyoming, where my husband and I along with Cody, our favorite co-conspirator, spent weeks hiking the Tetons. Central to this adventure was a five-day trek with my backpacking buddy Karen through the spectacular canyons and high-altitude lakes of the Wind River Range—a bucket-list trip that COVID nearly canceled and a blizzard (on Labor Day!) nearly severely complicated. But these setbacks allowed us to revel in all that didn’t go wrong: we didn’t get lost, didn’t get hurt, didn’t lose our food to a bear. We rejoiced in sun-drenched days, star-filled nights, cozy sleeping bags, and dry boots. All that went before—the treacherous wet slog, in June, through the Catskills’ Slide Mountain wilderness; the sleepless April night on a wind-hammered knoll in Harriman; the hours spent learning and practicing wilderness first aid—all of that, like the pandemic, set us up to cherish what we had, rather than bemoan what we lacked.
The question is whether I can hang on to these gifts. The morning is coming when we will wake up and find it is no longer Groundhog Day. We will run errands, host dinner parties, gather for weddings and funerals, birthdays and graduations. As our commitments mount, there won’t be time to visit an elderly aunt or walk with a good neighbor, let alone go deep into the wild for days at a stretch. I see this. I fear it.
Time’s passage isn’t in my control. But COVID has forced me to see that how I spend it—carefully or heedlessly, mindlessly or memorably—is utterly my choice, no matter the constraints. When COVID’s constraints lift, let that lesson not be lost on me.
