Immune response

I’ve been working on an essay for several days. Usually, when I get stuck with a piece of writing, I walk away, and I write about other things and I think about other things, and then when I go back to whatever it was that I was writing, the fog lifts, or the pieces all fall into place. Choose your metaphor. 

Sometimes, though, that approach doesn’t work. Sometimes, I end up finishing the essay anyway, knowing that it’s not my best work, but that it’s the best I can do at that moment. At other times, less frequently, I just give up and abandon the piece altogether, and I throw its charred remains into my graveyard of unfinished writing. This one is looking like it’s going into the fire. But we’ll see. 

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Things are opening back up again. It’s good. Of course, we still have to wear masks (and about my hatred of masks, I could write an entire book) and we still have to observe some restrictions. And my son is back in school and spring sports are underway and I have committee meetings several times a week, and when it’s a bad day, like today, it’s easy to think that I have the worst of both worlds--all of the terrible parts of the COVID lockdown, with none of the fun parts. But don’t listen to me. I’m glad that life is coming back, and I’m glad I get to be part of it. 

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But let’s talk about the committee meetings and board positions. One of the boards on which I serve is debating a thorny question, and we are deadlocked. I’ve been a member of this board for 13 years, and this is the most heated and contentious atmosphere I’ve ever seen. It might be time for me to step back and let a new person take over. Some of the newer members are gathering factions and rounding up supporters, and I find that I don’t have the stomach for bare knuckles politicking of that sort. It’s too much. 

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It’s the next day now. We seem to have reached an understanding, my fellow board members and I, and now I won’t have to mobilize my own forces and get out the vote and organize from the grassroots or whatever the fuck else. I mean, I have friends too. But I’m glad we have a solution. We have peace in our time, and I’m all for it. 

I had my second Moderna shot today, and my arm hurts. And I don’t feel sick, but I do feel as though someone injected me with a powerful sleeping serum. Thankfully, I don’t have much to do tonight except to sit on this couch and write about nothing in particular. That’ll all change tomorrow. I have stuff to do this weekend, and stuff to do pretty much every day next week. Today, right now, I’m going to rest as my immune system responds to the vaccine. Tomorrow, I’ll be back in the trenches. Maybe I’ll even finish that essay. Anything is possible.