Today is the one-year anniversary of our county issuing its shelter-in-place order due to the Coronavirus crisis. My closest friends and family have stayed well, except one who tested positive and felt some relatively slight symptoms.

Sometimes we’re numbed by the number of dead. At others our hearts hang heavy and our heads are hot at the avoidable loss of life in this country, which despite its might, has fallen from height.

Not quite two weeks ago, on the way to my daily slog up and down a running hill for the sake of sanity, the phone rang. The news was good. My work in schools qualified me for the vaccine.

On that run, I felt about twenty pounds lighter. Back at my desk, I almost enjoyed the bureaucratic hold time and online dead-ends that it took to make an appointment at a place an hour away, in Emeryville, on the other side of the Bay.

Last Friday, the clinic staff moved me efficiently through their system and painlessly pricked my arm. They were friendly, knowledgeable, and helpful. They sent me on my way after about twenty minutes.

Driving back along the Bay, the sky faded purple orange over the San Francisco skyline to the right and gleamed and glowed off the glass towers of Oakland to the left. It was the falling of a night made beautiful by the sight of light at the end of the tunnel.

Next in Series–Coronavirus Diary: Closure

Series starts at Coronavirus Diary: Introduction