Limiting Factors.

I have been thinking a lot about traveling. As we can see the light at the end of the Covid tunnel, the very idea of traveling has come roaring back into my consciousness. I already have a trip booked with some friends NEXT WEEK! I am very excited. That trip kind of fell into my lap though because someone else organized it. By next Friday I will be sitting on the shore of a little lake outside Bellingham Washington, probably drinking a beer, soaking my feet in the cold cold water and thinking deep, deep thoughts. It is going to be great!

That will be an unusual trip because left to my own devices, I don’t usually take relaxing chill-out trips. I tend to take random wander-around-and-look-at-stuff trips. Last week I was making a list of the places I would still like to go wander around and look at stuff. I set some parameters: I focused on domestic destinations because it feels like international travel will still be sort of weird for awhile. Destinations also had to be somewhat reasonable. For instance, I can’t reasonably go hike the Pacific Crest Trail because that takes months and I have a job. However, I do want to see Great Sand Dunes National Park and that is reasonable because I have family in Colorado. For years I’ve wanted to go to Pittsburgh because I love bridges and I want to see the Cathedral of Learning. If I find cheap enough tickets, I could probably do that trip in three or four days. I’ve never seen Redwood National Park and it is a seven hour drive from where I live, so I could reasonably make that happen, but I’m not sure if I want to do that much driving. 

I want to go to The Rothko Chapel in Houston and Houston is a pretty big airline hub, so I can probably knock that out in two of three days. I want to go to Cleveland because I was supposed to go there last year on a work trip that was cancelled due to Covid and I feel now that I have a duty to make that trip. It is one of the very specific things that Covid took from me and as a personal little Fuck You to Covid, I’m going to see Cleveland, even if it is just out of spite. But anyway, I did some research on it back in the Before Times and I bet I could make a fun little weekend trip out of it.

The list goes on and go: I want to ride the Alaska ferries, I want to go to New Orleans, to Marfa Texas, I want to be on a boat on one of the Great Lakes, I want to walk the Skyways in the Twin Cities, I want to see Hawaii, I want to drink at a cool rooftop bar in Miami. I want to stand at 4-Corners (which is way in the middle of nowhere, BTW).

What limits me in all of this are the normal things that have always been limiting: time and money. What is no longer a limiting factor in these things is the dumb, deadly, airborne disease known as Covid-19. The world will likely never entirely return to whatever we mean when we say “normal” and probably that is a good thing, but we are very near to the world returning to life, and I am looking forward to that.

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Not Quite Yet, But Soon.

So yesterday I got my first shot of the Covid vaccine! I live in California and work in higher education, the vaccine tier for education in California opened up March 3rd. I felt really conflicted about it, I wish they would have prioritized elementary school teachers. Even though a medical program, I can do most of my work from home. The first week or so I was a little less intense than I might have otherwise been about trying to hunt down an appointment, on account of feeling kind of guilty about my own eligibility, but then last week I stumbled onto an appointment via the county website and I took it because Dr. Fauci says we should all get vaccinated as soon as we can.

The anxiety I was feeling yesterday morning largely dissipated as I had to go through the rigmarole of driving to the pharmacy and waiting around in my car for my appointment time. Everyone was super chill about the whole thing. The pharmacy was in the back of a kind of dumpy Safeway grocery store, which seemed odd. I think they only did one vaccination each half an hour, so there was no line or anything. It felt word to get my shot — this thing that will kind of change my life, at least in the near future — and then walk out into the bread aisle.

I felt fine afterward. On my drive back I made a pit stop at the beach (I live in the central coast) and I walked up to a bluff and looked out at the roiling windswept ocean and I cried a little bit for a minute.

Then I came back here to my little apartment and logged back into work for the rest of the day. 

I felt fine, but by quitting time I was completely exhausted. Like eyes drooping exhaustion. Right after work, when I would normally go for a run, I dumped my body onto the couch and took an impromptu nap for more than an hour, which is a thing I rarely if ever do.

I felt tired as I made dinner and then eventually went to bed a little early. And then, this morning I overslept by a damn hour and a half. 90 whole minutes, which is really a thing that almost never happens. Today I’m still tired and feeling kind of run down. I don’t feel bad or anything, just so very tired.

Apparently fatigue is a common side effect, but mostly after the second shot. Of course, this could all be due to the time change, so I’m not making a big thing out of it.

Today as I’ve been working, I’ve also been thinking about so sort of small, safe thing I can do soon. My second shot is April 12 and it’s supposed to take about two weeks for the vaccine to really kick in after that, which would mean that about the end of April/beginning of May I could maybe sneak away for a weekend to … I have no idea. I won’t do any real traveling until more people are vaccinated and I don’t intend to visit friends of family until they are also vaccinated, so no matter what it turns out to be, I’d probably still be alone. 

But maybe around the start of May I can get a pretty little AirBnB someplace with a nice view and just for a night or two be someplace that isn’t my apartment. In the last year I have only spent a single night away from here. 

What I would really like is a nice tall hotel, someplace with a bar. I don’t even need to go to the bar, but maybe I could order a drink from room service and sit on a balcony and drink it slowly.

I could also do that here in my home, but that’s not the point.

What I really want though is to be around people. I miss people so very much. I’d like a fucking hug, thank you very much. That will come in the next few months, as more vaccine tiers open up and more people can get their shots. And then after that, soon we’ll be able to travel again and I can get one a plane again with just my backpack slipped under the seat in front of me and put this whole godforsaken year behind me. 

Soon. Not quite yet, but soon.

I’m grateful to have made it through this whole pandemic thing so far. I’m grateful that so far my family has made it through and that so many of my friends have. Just a little while longer. We all just need to hang in there a little while longer.

Soon, we’ll get back to something like normal soon. 

Not quite yet, but soon.

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