It seems like a funny thing to say about a plague that shut down the world for more than a year. But I never got to shut down. I worked while everyone else stayed home. I worked while friends streamed online concerts and poetry readings. They shared art, tried new recipes, learned instruments. And I went to work.
I'm not a nurse. What kind of pandemic needs a pastry chef?
I live in an old farmhouse. We have a creek, a mountain, a hiking trail. I have an art studio. We already had chickens and a sourdough starter. A fire pit, garden and pool. I had the perfect life for a lockdown. Except I didn't get to lock down.
After vaccinations, the world gradually reopened. We had a party, saw a movie, went to a bar to hear live music. I got on an airplane. And then it surged, but eventually, traffic returned, the masks came off, people held weddings, we planned vacations.
Saturday afternoon, I met with two friends at a country hardware store/café/music venue. Had a beer, listened to a jam. Came home, tasted one of the edible flowers in my garden, and had a coughing fit. I blamed pollen on the flower. My throat was still irritated hours later. And the next morning.
As a precaution, I took a Covid test. I stared at the pale blue line in disbelief. After all this time, after not locking down, after taking three pandemic road trips, one of which was for a funeral, after everything else, Covid had stopped being real. But there it was. I shot a picture of the test and sent it to our chef, who forwarded it to the company owner. I got a nice text back saying our policy was five days out of work, then five days masked. The first day, I was off anyway. This is day 3 of my unplanned break. Other than a cough, I'm not sick. No fever. This isn't the terrifying pre-vaccine virus that swept the world two years ago.
I did crunches this morning. Tai chi yesterday morning. I made my husband a birthday cake. I'm catching up on transferring everything from my old computer to my new one. I started querying. I've got a jigsaw puzzle going, and my garden is looking happy. I did some enameling.
There is no pressure to go anywhere to get things done, because I can't. Win.
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