How is it getting used to society again? Is it weird that we are actually really getting used to it? Everywhere we go we must be wrapped up and sanitized and masked, even though a huge number of us are double vaxxed. We are still being protected from others, and the steps we’re taking toward human contact are small ones. I believe this is a good thing; nothing positive usually comes from taking risks as far as health is concerned, but doing a Zoom class in the campus library while wearing a mask and wondering if they can even hear me if I ask a question is tiresome and surreal.
Still, we are here to forge mightily ahead, and to keep asking questions, muffled as they are. I find it interesting to look at people and to see for myself how frightened they may be. There are those who, after exiting a store of any kind, immediately (and a bit triumphantly) rip those masks off their faces and take a deep breath of our (questionably) wholesome air. Then there are those who wear masks all the time outside and still jump off the sidewalk if you approach them. I’m expecting pet masks, kind of like dog sweaters, to make their appearance soon. Our furry friends will be donning matching masks with their owners, along with matching shoes and purses, no doubt.
Still, here at school, things are moving along at a dicey but what seems to be reasonably comfortable pace. If students are first year, then maybe this isn’t so strange. For those of us who have been students here for a while, coming back to campus is like greeting a relative who has been away for a long time; finally, we are reunited. We find out that things have changed, not just with ourselves but with the dynamic that was shared between us, because it’s been so long, and we may have to work hard to get back that love and trust that we once had. We have to get to know each other again, and we have to do it in a new and rather weird setting.
But the campus staples still exist. What a great feeling to go into By the Books and order a hot drink again, or to sit and study at the outside tables under the trees. What a great feeling to grab a copy of Nexus in print again.
I’m a sucker for sentimentality, and I’m actually really getting used to that.