Being an accounting of the recent and continuing pandemic and its various circumstances, from the perspective of an inhabitant of the regions lately called the Lost Quarter. Dates unknown.

Day Two Hundred and Seven

It is Thanksgiving in the Lost Quarter, for the harvest festival is celebrated earlier here in these northern climes than it is in other regions. The harvest is long finished in these parts and we have journeyed south to have dinner with my parents and sister. A small gathering, this year as all years, for we are not the sort to bring cousins and uncles, all the flotsam and jetsam of families together.

This seems an apt time to cast my eyes back on the last two hundred odd days since the grippe reborn came to these parts. So often now we are driven to look ahead, squinting against the sun on the horizon, looking for signs of coming storms and seeing only the vast, seemingly unchanging, plains of our future under the quarantine protocols. It is easy to focus on the negative in such circumstances, but today I shall consider the positives, such as they are, to this strange moment we are trapped in.

First, to this point, I and those I love have remained untouched by the dread lord. The future offers no guarantees, but I will take what has been given and count myself among the fortunate. My love and I have also avoided the economic devastation that has followed in his wake. Both of us have jobs that are as secure as one can hope for at this time.

Working from home, while occasionally leaving me feeling claustrophobic in this house has allowed me a freedom I would never have been granted (or granted myself). There are fewer distractions and annoyances here and I have had time to dedicate to my garden and other projects that I wouldn’t have otherwise.

While our plans for travels overseas were thwarted, we have managed to journey about the Western Dominion, from the Lost Quarter in the south east, to the mountains in the west.

The shift in the perception of time, the slowing down of everything, so that a month ago seems as though it might be a year, which everyone speaks of in relation to the grippe reborn, has had one benefit. I am more attentive to the passing of the hours and the days and the seasons than I ever was before. My awareness has grown in other ways too. I find myself paying more attention to everything when we venture out, in ways I never did before. I am present, not distracted by a fog of distracting thoughts.

I would say I have become more patient, but my love would rightfully laugh and call me a liar.

Speaking of her, that has been the thing I am most thankful for about these last long months. That we have had more time to spend together, and that we have been able to do things we wouldn’t have otherwise. I treasure our morning walks to her tower for work, and our wanderings on the weekend as we slip out of habits we had become entrenched in and look for things to do.

We have all lost something with the coming of the dread lord, so it is nice to be reminded that it hasn’t all been loss and defeat. Hopefully the coming months offer more to be thankful for as well.