A new season of possibilities

Ten years ago today I was sitting on a beach near Carmel, California, eating a picnic lunch with my students while watching the waves for signs of an echo of the Fukushima tsunami. My colleague who was co-chaperoning the trip waited for word about the safety of his family members living in Japan. My California Literature class had enjoyed a week of travel and learning over Spring Break, but it was disconcerting to think that a natural disaster on the other side of the Pacific could have a direct impact on our lives.

One year ago my classes were affected by a different kind of disaster as I scrambled all through Spring Break to move my classes online. The virus that had seemed like a distant threat had suddenly become an ever-present concern affecting every choice in our private and public lives: how to meet with classes, where to get groceries, what to do about travel plans. 

Now here we are a year later and I can't imagine what it would be like to travel with students or share a meal with a large group or crowd together into a tight space to see where a prominent author did his best work. I'd love to think that everything will go back to normal one day (and I definitely look forward to a celebratory mask-burning bonfire!) but a year under constant constraint has narrowed my focus so severely that it's hard to even think about what happens when everything opens up.

And what an interesting metaphor that is: we've been closed down, cut off from each other behind closed doors, closed to new possibilities, but at some point someone will just flip a switch and we will all open up again like crocuses in spring. When will we know that this is all behind us? 

I look at pictures of the area devastated by the Fukushima tsunami and see debris still awaiting collection, radioactive waste still making its presence known, a whole landscape that will never fully recover from the devastation it endured, and I wonder at what point we can call a disaster truly over if its affects will continue to be felt, perhaps invisibly, for centuries to come. 

But we're definitely entering a new season of possibilities. My brother got to visit face-to-face with my dad for the first time since last March, and the College's Covid dashboard currently lists only three active cases. Best of all, Ohio changed its criteria so I'm now eligible for the vaccine, and I even found an appointment for tomorrow afternoon. I'll have to cancel a class to get the shot, but I doubt my students will complain. We're all in this together, and anything that can move us one step closer to the time when we can all take a field trip and eat a meal together has got to be a good thing. 

Crocuses are blooming in my front garden! What changes will this new season bring?