Writing through COVID-19: Day 504

I took a few months off. 

After blogging through a year of COVID, by March 2021 I had returned my parents to their care center, my students and I had clawed our way through the school year, my dear ones were vaccinated, and the virus was receding in the rearview. It felt like time to wind up the blogging-through-COVID experiment.

Ahhhh. I stopped wearing a mask. I almost threw my (dozens of) masks away.

Harrison's fiance Maria's
bridal shower 

I ate in restaurants. I attended a bridal shower and a family reunion. I invited friends into my home and returned to theirs. 

I began planning for the coming school year, and how I would hold onto the positive things I'd learned about myself and my students during the COVID challenge while welcoming back the group and partner work that was out-of-bounds last year. 

I visited my children in Utah and Montana. We began counting down the months to 2022 when we hoped New Zealand would be vaccinated and let us come see Wolf (now one, walking, giving kisses, and making lots of word-like bossy sounds). 

Wolf is walking!

Life was easing back to life.

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And then Delta.

You'd think by the third wave we'd be ready; we'd know what to do to stop the virus in its tracks. But as cautious as I was through the first year of COVID, it took me several days to reluctantly heed the CDC's July 27 advice and return to masking indoors.

I'd say I'm angry. We would not be HERE again if eligible people had been vaccinated. And many of those refusing the vaccine are the same people who last year let the rest of us carry the brunt of slowing the spread through layers of caution and sacrifice. 

But I'm too tired to be angry. 

I'm mostly sad.

Last year it had to be like this.
This year it doesn't have to be like this.
And yet it is.
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Today I went into the high school to work with students on the yearbook and attend a meeting with two colleagues and a person from the community. As luck would have it, the Southwest Iowa Marching Band was also in the building, preparing to march in the parade that kicks off the Iowa State Fair on Aug. 11. 

This meant 100? 200? (a lot) of unmasked kids (and adults) were in AHS today, blaring on trumpets, laughing and learning, while inhaling clouds of each other's breath. At one point, I turned a corner to face a gauntlet of musicians, lining both sides of the hallway, blasting away. I simply could not walk down that phalanx, even masked. I ducked away and found another route to my room.
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My room. 

While I only worked with three students today, not all were vaccinated. 

So I wore my mask. 

I do not know which of the people in my colleague/community meeting today were vaccinated, so I wore my mask there as well. 

I might call myself the Lone Masker.
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My reputation precedes me: my school knows I took COVID precautions seriously last year, so no one raised an eyebrow to see me masked again today. If they grumbled about my Chicken Little behavior behind my back, I didn't hear it. 

And I'm thankful for that. 
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I have more to tell you. 
I'll write again soon. 

But for now

Enough.
Be well.
Write.

Allison