Nathan Bransford, TVWriter™’s favorite publishing know-it-all, shares his feelings about the COVID-19 pandemic and what it is doing to the lives of writers and other humans.
by Nathan Bransford
[10 days ago] marked my one year COVID anniversary. A year ago yesterday afternoon I started coughing a bit, checked my temperature, and went….. “Uh oh.”
What a year it’s been.
It feels a bit strange to write about it, but I’ve found it oddly comforting lately to read other accounts of how people have experienced this past year, so I thought I’d put my own journey out there in the hopes that someone else might derive similar benefit.
What’s a year?
In some respects the way humans mark time feels totally arbitrary, but nature abides by years and seasons too.
There’s a pair of red-tailed hawks who have taken up residence in a radio antenna near my apartment in Brooklyn, and they often swoop past my window, catching the updrafts.
The other day I noticed one of them clutching sticks in their talons, and it took me straight back to March and April of last year, when it sometimes felt like these hawks were the only things moving outside my window besides ambulances. To distract myself from being sick and to feel a sense of hope, I spent a lot of time last year watching these hawks build a nest through my binoculars.
I don’t think anyone who lived in New York City last year will ever forget the incessant wail of ambulances, the apocalyptic sight of mobile morgues, the evening cheers for essential workers, the cavernous silence in the spare moments when the sirens stilled. I woke up one morning hearing birds chirping outside of my window for the first time instead of the usual steady roar of the city….
Read it all at nathanbransford.com
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