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 Twenty Eight

Was it only a week ago that snow covered over everything and it seemed we had settled in to an early winter? The cold was bitter, not as harsh as the deeps of winter, but startling coming on the heels of the warm days of early October.

It is warm again, though the character of that warmth has changed. It feels more autumnal now, there is nothing of the summer left in it. The mornings and evenings are crisp and you need to be out in the middle of the day to actually feel any of the warmth, where before it would stretch through the afternoon until darkness fell.

The sun is back, after so many uncharacteristically gloomy days, which improves my mood immeasurably. With the coming long nights of winter having sunny days seems more important than ever. If we are only going to have eight hours of daylight, as will soon be the case, let them be bright. Let them feel like actual days and not some purgatory stranded halfway between those opposing poles.

That purgatory and the darkness makes it seem to easy to just stay at home indoors and go into a kind of hibernation. But that comfort can so easily come to seem a prison without some sense of contact with greater world.

I think of all the people in these parts who journey south to warmer climes for the winter. Some do so for just a week or two, while others are gone for the greater part of it. Now that is denied them, as so much travel is denied to all of us. Our worlds have shrunk and dwindled, withered on the vine. Who knows if anything like what we had before will be restored.