Butterflies

New Year’s Eve. I ferociously slam the door on 2020 and look ahead. Past ICUs overflowing with Covid patients, past the miles long lines of anxious drivers hoping there will be enough milk and cereal left for their kids.  Past shuttered restaurants and empty bodegas in my working-class neighborhood. Past a small evergreen in a neighbor’s yard decorated with masks free for the taking.

 I string a paper garland of pink and orange butterflies, a Christmas gift from my youngest daughter, above my kitchen sink. It makes me smile when I make my morning coffee.  I hang a spanking new calendar filled with nature scenes of New England- ice-filled ponds, a mountainside carpeted by red and yellow leaves, white caps lapping a rocky beach. Places to go when it is safe to travel again. There are blank pages to be filled with doctors’ appointments, due dates for bills, and zoom calls with friends.  Maybe, if I am lucky, there will be anniversaries and weddings that have not been canceled, birthday celebrations that are not marked by car horns and balloons, but real parties with candles that are blown out to cheers from loved ones.

Compared to many people who have endured great suffering during this pandemic, I have been lucky. I have not lost loved ones and  I continue to work from home at a job that is both well paid and gratifying.  As an introvert, the enforced solitude is not hard to accept, but often welcome.  ( Besides, I have my cat Pro to keep me company.)

As experts remind us- the worst of the pandemic is ahead.  A new, more transmissible Covid strain threatens us, and it will take months, maybe years, before enough of us are vaccinated to achieve herd immunity.

I remember a day not long ago when the sight of a fed ex plane loaded with vaccines filled me with hope.  The memory still does. Today even small signs- a cardinal outside my window, my tiny lemon tree spouting buds, my inside orchid ready to blossom—these are all signs of grace.  We must hang on…. At least symbolically, we have turned a page.   Let us pray that 2021 will be kinder to us all.