Last week, a coworker looked at me, put his head down and said, “I just want this to be over.”
Sometimes simple statements just hit you. All of a sudden, I realized how intensely I felt the same way, and as I listen to people around me, it’s clear I’m not the only one feeling the burden of uncertainty. I stopped to talk to a mom for a quick second because I wanted to take a picture of her kids. Within minutes, we were talking about how hard the isolation is, how guilty she feels and how much she worries about whether she’s parenting right during a pandemic.
I took a photo of a teacher who had stopped to drop off homework for a student of hers who lives in Florence Heights. She’s concerned about the impact of the shutdown on her students’ education, yes, but she worries deeply about about their emotional health, she said. Driving through Amherst on Monday, two days after UMass had its virtual graduation, I could see telltale signs of celebration and thought how different this season will be. No caps in the air, no fist bumps or crazy dances as they walk across the stage.
On Monday, I went to Galaxy in Easthampton to take a picture of the owner-chef, Casey Douglass, for a story about restaurants preparing to reopen in the coming … well, we don’t know when, exactly. Douglass was hesitant, explaining the place was a mess as they had moved everything around to accommodate their takeout business. As we talked, he told me about the tally he is keeping on the side of his house. He explained that he adds a mark every day, and on that day, he was up to 59. “Since you shut down the business?” I asked. “It’s not about the business,” he said. “It’s about the isolation.”
We are all getting tired, I thought, and the days are adding up. So many unknowns are ahead, and so many questions have not yet been asked. But a common theme I’m hearing: “If it were just a little warmer, things would be better.”
Well, the landscape is now greener, and it’s getting warmer every day. The changing of seasons — at least that we can rely on.