What will our evenings look like post-pandemic? Since October, my partner and I have ritualistically taken walks around the neighborhood together after dinner. We see lots of other people out, including regulars we nickname. There is a determined runner with extreme posture who I call Paul Revere due to his serious brown ponytail and apparent urgency. He ran right at a coyote once! But what happens once we are both vaccinated? Will I attend figure drawing while he is at a show? Should we wander into random venues together? We’ve taken quarantine quite seriously. It has been over a year since any gathering was not online or socially distanced outdoors (and the latter was rare). While the consistency of nightly walks is grounding, most days are too similar for comfort. Radical change may be the fresh air we’ll need. Will you wade cautiously out of quarantine or dive straight in?

Photo by Vladimir Kudinov on Unsplash