There’s lightness in the air these days. Thanks be to God. There’s the feeling of optimism that comes with progress in the long and tiring fight against COVID-19
We are winning a remarkable victory and credit is due. Newfoundland is a great place. Last week I was at a vaccination clinic in St. John’s. It was a happy and busy place. The lineups were organized and pleasant and filled with all kinds of figures. There were lots of smiles. This wasn’t a lineup of sick people in a hospital clinic. This was a lineup of well people hoping to stay that way.
SMILES ALL AROUND
Everybody was masked, but I sensed smiles all round. It was the most people I had seen at one time in a year because I have been locked in my home except for sneaking off to the supermarket. In the darkest days of the pandemic we were doing crazy things like loading up on toilet paper and paper towels.
My personal weakness in that particular theatre of the COVID war was instant noodles. There’s a small closet home filled with them. If I ate two packs of noodles a week (chicken or beef); I’d be laid out up to the funeral home before we ran short.
You look back now and it seems insane. You almost blush at some behaviours. In the early days of the pandemic all sorts of things run through your mind. We bought masks from a hardware store. They weren’t medical masks, but if an epidemic of drywall dust was visited upon us; we were ready.
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DARK DAYS
Now masks have become litter. They were dark days. They were dark in the sense that we couldn’t see where we were going or what the need would be. That is dark. There was even a brief discussion about “security” when the future was unclear. Our sons became as strangers. Everybody was masked and we were talking only across open decks and backyards.
LESSONS LEARNED
What are the lessons learned as we come ‘round that last curve? Well, perhaps we have learned that our hold on an ordered structured world is not nearly as strong as we thought. This morning I was out on the pond for a row and a look round. Then I was down to the supermarket. A year and a half ago I was hoarding toilet paper.
Another thing for your consideration. Things are rapidly getting better. Tourists will come eventually. The price of wood will go down. You will even be able to go places WITHOUT a mask.
Make no mistake though. The world will never be the same again and the fight against variants may go on for a very long time. The world has changed and it has changed us.
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