A psalm of waiting as the pandemic continues
All plans feel like grass withering in the sun these days.
I’m sitting in my home office after what was going to be my first in-person work trip became yet another virtual gathering. There is a tangle of feelings I can’t quite sort out—disappointment, relief, uncertainty, rest.
Disappointment because even as an introvert I can feel the fraying of so much time in the same room and the same routine. Even the bike rides, those lifesaving flights into the world, become well-trod paths. There is the vacuous space I have to offer when my spouse comes home from work and asks about my day. What has my day been? I wonder.
“I caught a rat,” I say. A hole had appeared under our doorstep, and then there was a week of setting traps and waiting. It was the most interesting thing that had happened in a month. For days there was just walking the dog, sending emails, cleaning the house, talking to some faces on a screen. So I was disappointed that I wouldn’t be somewhere else meeting people, learning something new about someone, being surprised by an unexpected conversation in the hall. I was disappointed that I wouldn’t have a few days away from the familial duties that fill each day. The monotony would remain a little longer.
