On March 9th, 2020, my husband and I decided to start self-isolating. We were on a flight from Los Angeles back to Seattle the day prior. The man in the window seat was coughing as he talked to my husband about the cruise he was on. The news recently told the story of a security worker at the L.A. airport who was diagnosed with the virus. Between the coughing cruise man and the news, we thought we should stay home for a few weeks to make sure we were healthy. My fortieth birthday fell in this time frame. Not having any sort of get together with friends was the last thing I expected to happen on my milestone day. While weeding the yard in front of the house in those first weeks, a young blond woman walked towards me slowly and started talking to me from the middle of the street to keep her distance. “Hey! Do you live here?” she said. “Yes. Where do you live?” “I just moved into that unit across the street." She pointed. "I'm single and I don't know anyone here, so I wanted to say hello.” “Welcome to the neighborhood! What's your name?” “Mari with an ‘I'. What's yours?” We exchanged small talk that morphed into big talk. I found out we had both moved from the same neighborhood in Brooklyn, about ten years apart. I also discovered she was semi-disabled by multiple auto-immune diseases and Lyme disease. She asked if it was alright to have my phone number in case of any emergencies, so I gave it to her. I turned to finish weeding, the flowery part of the yard looking better than it ever had before. Mari did not reach out again for a while. She texted me one day to ask if I had something to sleep on. Her air mattress had popped in the middle of the night. I offered her our camping roll, which was a few inches thick. She thanked me profusely and I left it on her porch in the evening. I was not sure how sleeping on it for an extended period would feel, especially with body aches. Hopefully, it would be better than a bare wood floor. The following day, another neighbor surprised me and mowed the city strip in front of our house. (It is a three-foot-wide strip of grass between the sidewalk and the street curb.) We only had a weed wacker, so it was a lot of effort to cut all the grass. I watched from the window as this amazing human walked across and back in about two minutes, saving us at least a half hour. She lived two houses away and I had never met her before. Seeing that she had lots of plants in her windows, I brought her a houseplant she did not have and a thank you note. She now mows the little plot of grass regularly and I leave her little gifts. Neighbors began helping each other more, many of us with newfound free time. I saw a man bringing a jug of either hand sanitizer or booze to a house bound couple nearby. The folks diagonally across the street put up a simple sign that reads “Thank you delivery heroes” with a box of treats next to it. I gave some fabric face masks I sewed to a different neighbor who mentioned she needed some. She later brought me homemade muffins and told me to help myself to her herb garden. I continued to help Mari when she was in need. She never asked for anything major, only to borrow home goods on occasion or to ask me to bring a package to the post office. After a few months, she moved into a special care facility. My house always felt like home, but my neighborhood never felt like a community the way it does now. All of us used to constantly rush from place to place, live our own unique lives, and wave hello in passing. My neighbors and I now spend socially distant time outside together, getting to know each other better. In disconnecting from ‘normal' life, I feel more connected today than before. Today, I am grateful for my neighbors.

After about a month of walking laps around my dining room table trying to work off the energy that had been built up my parents finally banished me, a water bottle, and a mask to the outside world until I had worked off enough energy to sit still. It started by going up a path that I used to take with my brothers when none of us could stand being trapped inside for a second longer, the memories around the path seemed to fit the way I felt so it didn't feel like a jump. But then there was an open gate to another path, one I had been warned to not go down since you could never be quite sure what people were down there. But I felt confident that I would be the only person on this walking path at one o'clock on a tuesday afternoon in 95 degree heat so I turned toward it. My guess toward who'd be there or lack thereof was correct as the only other living creatures I saw on my three hour long walk were the birds flying overhead and the ducks floating in the runoff of the rain storms we'd been having. It was the first sense of peace that had come over my body since the term Coronavirus had come over the news as a new flu going around in China. So I kept walking for as long as I could doing my best to hold onto the peace that I had been so desperately searching for for the last months. Movement became my escape in a way that it hadn't been since I was a small child who had been told to run laps around the field so I could sit still in class. So everyday after that I laced up my beaten down boots and no matter how unbearably hot it was I forced myself to walk. Forced myself into the one thing that would calm my racing heart.

Writing has always come easily to me. That isn't to say that my writing is anything special, only that when it comes to sitting down and putting a bunch of words together I think I'm pretty dang alright at it. I've met people that say they have such a hard time writing but it's difficult for me to understand that. Those same people always try to attribute my lack of understanding on the matter to my education (I have a degree in English) but the truth to that is I wouldn't have pursued a degree in this subject if I wasn't already good at it. I'm being 100% honest – being pro-active is not my strong suit. If it comes between making a decision of taking the “easy” route or the “hard (but, in the long run, more beneficial because it teaches you about hard work, perseverance and blah blah blah)” route I'm not going to think too long on which one I'd prefer to take. Essays in college were a breeze, although I'm still sometimes shocked at the quality of work I was able to produce under the circumstances I put myself in. Example: its 8pm the night before my 16 page essay on [insert some literary debate here] is due. I have yet to open a word document. Sure, I've put some thought into what I want to write. That's the hardest part, right? Sitting down and putting all my thoughts into words in one cohesive structure just came so easily to me. I think it has something to do with the amount of privacy you have while writing. No one is listening to you stumble through your words or hearing your attempts at constructing a well worded sentence. You have complete privacy to say what you're thinking. You have the ability to rewrite and reorganize your words. You can take a minute to think on exactly which word best articulates the thought you are trying to express and, if you don't like it, can decide to change it later. You can't do that when you're talking. Well, I suppose you could but it would be weird. This brings me to my road bump when it comes to writing – who will be reading my words? Because, like I said, I consider writing very private. Concern of who will read my writing once I'm finished is a huge deal to me. With college essays it didn't matter much because I knew the person reading my essay would be someone educated on the subject I had written about and would be judging my words based on my display of knowledge on the subject. That isn't too intimidating because it's not creative writing. It's not something that would unveil ideas and thoughts that completely originated in my mind. I once took a Science Fiction class in college and for the final we had to write a creative sci-fi short story. That terrified me. Completely and utterly terrified me. I couldn't hide behind facts and information that were accessible to everyone on a subject that has been widely discussed for years. These would be words and thoughts that were 100% my own. Had this not been an assignment and I was writing something for myself that I could decide who, if anyone, could read it I think I would have enjoyed writing it much more. Once the story was done I began second guessing all of my ideas. Is that really original or am I completely ripping something off? Is this plot even believable? Does it make sense at all? Those were my road bumps. The actual process of writing the story came effortlessly – thoughts into words. Easy. Having to deal with my thoughts on them afterwards – yikes. Turns out my instructor thought it was great and so did the select few I shared it with. They all told me I had a “gift” and should be very proud. This made me feel uncomfortable. Receiving praise for something that came so easily to me didn't seem merited or earned. I truly felt as though I made no effort. I've always sort of blushed when people make comments like these and brush them off faster than they can be laid on me. Only recently have I decided to try to embrace this “talent” I have and attempt to open myself up to the possibilities it may grant me. The catalyst for this change of thought occurred yesterday when someone told me how talented and gifted I was after reading a cover letter I wrote for a job. A cover letter. A simple, short, nothing-special piece of writing that I was trying to use to convince someone to hire me. I finally decided that I should try to start sharing my writing with people. So here I was with this brave (ha) new confidence. I went online to see where I could put this bravery to the test. The first think I came across was Biopage, and they were asking for people to submit writing on the subject of… anything they wanted. Well shoot, if there's anything else further from a prompt I don't know what it is. This project called for me to come up with something 100% on my own for others to read and it was perfect. So here I am. I sat down and just started writing. I figured talking about why I was here was as good as anything else I could come up with. So now I'm ready to get my ideas out there, terrified as I may be.