Thaw
The thaw begins.
Every spring feels hard earned out here. Especially after a long, cold winter. Especially after (in the middle of?) a pandemic.
It’s a naturally hopeful time of year. The snow is melting, the ducks have returned to the pond for their first exploratory visits, the sun feels so f*cking glorious on our faces as it slants across the meadow in the afternoons all golden and warm. I got my first round of the vaccine, I was sworn in to the Town Planning Board, I’m making plans for reopening the Inn (!!).
It’s strange to say, but the glimpses of a post-pandemic future have brought on a completely unexpected bout of anxiety for me. I should be excited right?? But there’s still so much that’s unknown, that’s in development, that’s incomplete.
It feels risky to feel hopeful.
In some ways, a full quarantine was “easier”. (It’s in air quotes because so many people have had it SO MUCH HARDER than us, but none of this has been particularly easy for anyone.) And if not “easier,” it was at the very least more straight-forward to simply shut off that part of my brain. To never even remotely entertain desires for travel or seeing friends and family up close. To just live here, only in the now, just us.
In opening myself up for the hope for the future, I also inadvertently opened myself up to feel the grief and rage and bewilderment I’d been holding at bay all year.
The silver lining for us— because we’ve been lucky enough that there has undoubtably been a silver lining for us— has been several fold. To realize that there aren’t that many things we miss (aka we really do love living way out here). To get off the treadmill of having a business open 24/7 365 days a year and slowly, calmly reevaluate and re-align our business practices with our desired lifestyle and our values— especially the fight against systems that support the myth of white supremacy. To spend all this time with our children.
I guess what I’m saying is I want the thaw. I want the hope. That’s a risk I’m willing to take.