We’re half way through June now and I would normally call this “summer time” (solstice notwithstanding). This, of course, is like no other summer we’ve experienced. There are very little travel plans. I was supposed to be back from Los Angeles on Saturday. There are no concerts. There are no food truck festivals. There are no large summer weddings. There are no large gatherings of any kind.
The weather isn’t even co-operating as its been very cold and rainy recently. Though, one could argue that is very typical of a Vancouver summer. This pandemic has lasted long enough that I perceive it through a lens of different phases now and not the phases that public health institutions have been using. For me, the first phase was in March, when all of this was very new, many things were unknown and uncertain, and there was a slight sense of fear and apprehension. As the months have fallen away on the calendar though, I feel like I’m in a second phase. This one has less unknowns and less apprehensive and fear. There’s a strange familiarity to everything that would have been deemed strange before. All the masks, sanitizers, distance between people, not seeing friends, not going to malls, and so forth, it’s just the way life is now. Under all of this is a sense of not being complacent. It’s natural to let your guard down a bit when nothing seems to be going wrong but that would be a mistake. I’m trying hard to continue to be safe and smart. I’m looking forward to the next phase but I’m not sure when that will be. For now, this is what summer looks like.