Monday Memories: March, 2020

As we move through anniversaries of those early days of the COVID-19 shutdown I’ve been seeing quite a bit of online reminiscing about events from three years ago There’s something so human about going over and over “where we were when” a major event changed our lives forever. It reminds me of how I used to unconsciously feel the place on my finger where my wedding ring wasn’t anymore after the dissolution of my first marriage.

Oh, that’s right. It’s gone.

I was looking over old blog posts from that time period and came across the one that talks about my last restaurant meal in The Before Times. It was at Cured.

Tuesday Night Treat, Village Green/Town², 3/11/2020

What strikes me about it is it’s ordinariness. Although we knew at the time that COVID was spreading around the world and would soon impact us, that fact doesn’t make it into my write-up at all. We knew cognitively, but we couldn’t have known how deeply it was going to change our lives.

It took a long time for that to sink in.

As it turned out, I wouldn’t eat inside a restaurant again for over a year and a half. I made sure that first meal was at Cured, too.

Full Circle, Village Green/Town², 12/8/2021

I don’t think I’ve eaten inside a restaurant more than five times since March of 2020. Being in a high-risk category has made me choose my risks carefully, even strategically. I’m not asking for sympathy. It has simply become a part of my life.

As I look back on the sweet, unfettered ordinariness of that meal in 2020 I almost get a stab of that Emily from Our Town feeling:

Oh, earth, you're too wonderful for anybody to realize you. Do any human beings ever realize life while they live it -- every, every minute? - - Thornton Wilder, Our Town

This Thursday my family will gather to celebrate my birthday at one of our favorite local places, Flavors of India, in Gateway. It will be my first birthday meal inside a restaurant since 2019. There are so many factors that go into this: the low transmission rate in Howard County, the fact that everyone in my family is vaccinated and boosted, the great blessing that medication and treatment have stabilized my asthma.

It is all worth celebrating.

Are there any memories of these days in 2020 that have been on your mind?

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