Fine powder snow is falling, and that is always enough to make me feel very jolly. Usually it is not enough to make me shout “Woo hoo” to the cats or to feel positively giddy with joy. Apparently, this reaction is typical of what you feel when you were finally able to book an appointment for your coronavirus vaccine jab. I thought it was a bit daft to feel this way, but when I called a friend who had just succeeded in booking her appointment, she admitted that she felt the same way.
We spent a bit of time on the phone talkibg about things that we will now be able to do once we have our two jabs and wait the requisite time afterward. I spoke of simple things like feeling safe to hike on a busy trail, to eat at Elmer’s Restaurant in Ashfield, and to buy fabric in person. We talked of the sheep and wool festival at Rhinebeck and the NYC holiday bazaars and all the little things that we once took for granted. The possibility of doing these things fills me with unbridled joy. I don’t care if I still have to wear a mask for the few people who cannot get the vaccine (yet or ever) or even for the others who refuse to take it.
I have always been a problem solver and a doer. The thing is, the pandemic required the whole nation to be doers against it. That ex-president did nothing, and sadly many followed him. With the advent of the vaccine, I can finally do something more to stop the pandemic. And that makes me positively giddy.
I was but a little girl when we lined up to take the red liquid on a sugar cube (polio vaccine). I was old enough to remember it but not old enough to understand it completely, although my father tried to explain it. He said it was something you did to make the whole community safe and well, and that I should feel proud to do my part.
Dad, that is still good advice for today.
Tales from the jolly bungalow 