Three-hundred-and-sixty-five days after Dennis and I pulled Trixie the truck into my dad’s driveway, the Baron of Bryant Street (our sometime name for him—it fits and who doesn’t love alliteration) and I pulled into a parking lot filled with nurses, doctors, and needles so he could get his first COVID-19 vaccination dose. Twas a happy day, as was the one a year ago. But obviously for much different reasons. Who woulda thunk how our first year here would offer so many, er, adventures. On the overall, I knew that being an election year we were all in for some kind of rattle&shake whether upheaval or uprising. The fact that the latter happened was not unexpected, but insane and tragic nonetheless. Other than that what I envisioned was tutoring sessions, writing at the local coffee house, getting my running legs back, hanging with dad. But, as we all know, (wo)man makes plans, the gods laugh. And hence the bolt we now know as 2020.

As January got to the edge of February and we got settled, the unsettling was happening globally. Seems like a million years ago when the story of a flight landing just down the highway from our new place with Americans leaving Wuhan played on our local public radio sharing space with an impeachment trial. I worked with a student on a paper about how social media was telling the story of this new virus called COVID-19. The professor rejected many of the student’s sources because they weren’t peer reviewed. Of course they weren’t. This was happening in real time. No academic was poring over papers and checking facts. And still, Dennis and I felt so glad to be here eating guacamole, toasting my dad’s martini, and staring at the cozy fire. Going to thrift stores and finding things to decorate the place. Good thing, because by mid-March we’d all come inside. Built our Covid pod with the three of us and hunkered down only carving a trail from our place to his.

There’s a really beautiful area of flowering plants out our front door and it hasn’t been lost on us that one in particular resembles the spiky graphic of the virus we’ve seen on the Newshour every night for the last 307. That something rather lovely reminds of something decidedly deadly is a great reminder that it’s never either/or. As a friend put it not so long ago: “It’s horrible and ….” And, exactly. I think we can all refer to some moments in this last year that brought joy. At first, when I’d think about how I was glad to cancel plans. Be a homebody. Watch The Morning Show, The Crown, Babylon Berlin, Succession and a million other programs literally uninterrupted night after night, I’d feel guilty. To be able to read and read and read before bed because I had some time. When I enjoyed downshifting my day-to-day to just doing what was necessary, I felt weird about being happy around that. Rarely brought it up because I wasn’t sure if it was offensive to find comfort in the insanity. In May, one of my favorite writers Taffy Brodesser-Akner wrote an article called “The Joy of Plans Canceling Themselves” and I heartily agreed. I’ve always enjoyed her saying it like it is, even when, as in this meditation article, I go Nope, that’s not my line. If anything, this year, I’ve seen that there’s no room for the hedging. If anything, a global health pandemic, a U.S. racial epidemic, the exposure of the thin thread that keeps what we call democracy working, and the realization that all of those things are actually connected, made for a year of personal walls coming down.

As my dad and I drove into the parking lot where he’d receive his first Moderna dose, it felt surreal that this was our one-year-here anniversary. After spending the morning like a day-trader online looking to get him that vaccination appointment, then having scored one that had us hopping in the truck to get there in an hour while I felt like we might be chasing a golden unicorn under a double rainbow, once the amazing nurse administered the shot I felt pretty triumphant. My dad decided that living in New York City for three decades–plus might have made me more no-bullshit determined. And, yes, I’ll take that into consideration, but for the most part I think this instinct to do what needs to be done has always been in there, I’ve just been shy about how far I can push it. Will it rub the wrong way? Will people get angry and shut me down? Ya know, those kinds of fears. In the end, maybe because of this complicated year, maybe because I’m older, maybe because I just feel like why the fuck not, some roads roll out in front of me and I take to them. I’ll roll down the proverbial windows, smell the smells, watch the scenery, get stung by a bee that manages to get in and get me. All part of it. I’ve still got the wheel.