This 2021 year started with hope and expectation. As we wrapped up 2020, the promise of a COVID vaccine provided a tantalizing vision of an end to the masks and social isolation. A new government promised a return to fact-based decision making and long-awaited investments in our crumbling infrastructure.  Sure there were some rumblings of trouble on the fringes….the former white house occupant who refused to concede, his throng of followers insisting on a reality that seemed farcical and arbitrary… cautions from epidemiologists who warned of COVID variants evolving from unvaccinated hosts…weird weather that continued to get more extreme… we should have seen the signs that 2021 was going to be a lot like 2020… just less novel or perhaps more like a novel that doesn’t know when to stop with the repetitive plot lines. 

This past year has gone for us similarly to how it has probably gone for you. 

We were excited to get vaccinated in April and May, celebrating the jab with selfies and high fives. Then in June and July as more friends and family members in our circle joined the vaccinated club we began to gather, tentatively at first, but with an increasing schedule that left us breathless… dinner dates, coffee dates, shopping excursions, a trip to Glacier Park with the hordes of humanity teaming to breathe free mountain air without a mask. We had dinner in restaurants…gasp! We hugged people. 

In August, the pace of socialization picked up. We went wine tasting, we rode in cars with other people…we had people over to our house…the number of engagements was high enough that Elsa and I started secretly longing for a do-over. Our social stamina was weak and we needed a break. A knock at the door.  “Hello Delta Variant, what are you doing here?  No, you can’t come in to get a cup of sugar.”  The first indication that Delta might be a problem came when I heard my cousin had picked up COVID at a music festival after having been fully vaccinated. Then more reports came in that the virus was marching rambunctiously across the country. In Oregon, where the first year of COVID produced a relatively low number of cases, suddenly we were seeing daily caseloads that were double or triple anything we had seen before. We went back into lockdown. The masks went back on. We canceled events and slowed down on gathering with other people.  The wave grew, peaked, we began to anticipate that by December the virus would burn itself out. Enough people would either have been vaccinated or have been infected that there would be no more hosts…. We began making plans, even optimistically booking a trip to Hawaii in January. Silly us. November introduced the Omicron variant and the surge began again. We’ve all been on this ride. 

Unlike past years, which seemed to take on a theme, this year seemed poised to launch and then sputtered and spat like a cranky lawn mower. 

The on again, off again nature of this pandemic has left me weary and strangely comfortable all at the same time. My introverted self is perfectly content to have all meetings by zoom, avoiding commutes and coffee shops. But I have trouble distinguishing day from day, month from month. It’s strange to me that already it’s the end of the year. I’ll admit to feeling a bit down at times with the notion that this pandemic is going to last indefinitely. 

To pass the time, Elsa and I have a daily routine with our jobs that gives us time for a daily walk with our new puppy, Mila. Having joined our household in February and reaching her first birthday in December, she has brought laughter and a daily schedule to our lives. She’s a mutt, rescued from streets of Tijuana. Her breed is terrier-esque, and she is a remarkable mellow pooch. I’ve never had a dog that fetches or listens… she does both. She likes other people, other dogs, she learns quickly…she snuggles next to us when we take naps. We like her! 

Having abandoned our travel plans in the face of uncertain travel restrictions, we purchased a hot tub, landscaped a section of the yard, bought new kitchen appliances, and a new copper bathtub for the upstairs bath. Elsa got a new rowing machine, Eric a new laptop. Mila too has benefited from the largess of us both being fully employed and travel restrained; her collection of dog toys is impressive and she thinks it’s normal that we are around all day long. When we can travel again, she faces a harsh reality of separation.  I’ve heard dog therapists are booked six months out. 

But while COVID, crazy politics, and extreme weather swirled like a category 2 hurricane, raging above our house, the year itself was marked by more personal, pedestrian markers and a relative calm within the bounds of our house itself.

Elsa has learned to love working at home, something she swore she would never do. Her adventures as the President of Webware Solutions, a software company, are well documented in the Netflix documentary, Elsa Lasso. She’s been refining systems, upgrading clients, and setting the organization up for future growth. One year in, she still finds challenges and satisfaction in the multi-faceted work. Eric’s work with Page Two Partners continues to expand with an interim Executive Director role at a nearby botanical garden plus a dozen other consulting clients taking the bulk of his time. He also runs a tea emporium called Cobra Chai that only sells tea to former karate instructors (it helps them mello).  We are both busy, but not too busy. 

Abruptly, this year, absurdly short and insanely long, comes to an end. I know better than to expect next year to be an improvement. Next year will just be what it is. Full of weirdly unprecedented engaging pedestrian dynamic mundane contradictory bland outrageous events that make us wonder why we didn’t join Betty White in shuffling off this mortal coil when we had the chance, and simultaneously grateful that we got to experience all the crazy-making, wacky, heartbreaking, joyful exasperations that defines human existence.  We are glad to be on the journey with you. Please stay in touch (at a distance). We’ll see you on the other side…. of the street… wearing our masks…there’s still a pandemic going on people!