What’s left of the apple tree behind Patrick’s woodturning studio resembles a hesitant bride unsure of her decision, her blossoms scattered among the remaining branches that survived a winter’s worth of windstorms and heavy wet snow piled on like sandbags for weeks. I was lucky enough yesterday to catch the scent on the tail end of a southern breeze, closing my eyes and inhaling deeply as the delicate aroma became part of my very cells. What she lacks in blossom volume she more than makes up for in olfactory impact. Once again, the power of trees within reach of my hungry senses.

I’m fully vaccinated now, and a few days past the two-week period to let all the immune system fortifying dust settle, which means I’ve moved out of the home office and back into the official brick and mortar that is headquarters for my paid work. I also went into the local grocery store for the first time in over a year, Patrick by my side, feeling a bit like Leonard Lowe in Awakenings after his first successful (albeit temporary) dose of L-dopa. Everything looked strange and new, brightly colored and overwhelming with reassuring reminders of the familiar mixed in to keep me from dashing back to the car. It was a last-minute decision to even go in, prompted by the empty space in our freezer where the Klondike bars reside (looks like we answered that product’s jingle-y question).

It’s natural, then, to begin the internal comparative dialogue, weighing the pros and cons of a somewhat locked-down existence with being (somewhat) released back into the wild. Here’s what I’ve got so far:

I’ve been an introvert for much longer than I would have admitted, despite all evidence to the contrary prior to the pandemic.

“Resilience” is now a firmly anchored and easily accessible word in my vocabulary. I’m still figuring out how much I can handle. Quite a lot, it seems.

In the course of a workday’s workload at the home office, I appreciated being able to rise and log on early, quickly hang laundry between meetings, and have my own sweet and fully-functioning kitchen one floor below where lunch came directly from the fridge or the oven, not an insulated lunch bag with an ice block underneath last night’s leftovers packed in Tupperware.

On average, working from home, I gave my employer an additional ninety minutes of my time each week, watching my salaried hourly rate drop like a stone. The once-blurry line between work life and uniquely sacred home rhythms is coming into sharper relief again, and the word “relief” is the most appropriate one I can find to describe that. Much as I love what I do, the lessons of boundaries and self-care have since been recalibrated with humility and great joy.

I’m a well-hydrated person no matter where I work. At home, though, I got more exercise making multiple trips downstairs to use the facilities (restrooms at headquarters are right around the corner from my office). I shall recommit to a few more laps around the building on my way back from the copier and the mail room to make up the difference.

I will deeply, deeply miss the Work From Home Extremely Casual dress code.

My workday companions used to be sycamores, snowfall, laughing crows and wolf spiders, all getting about the daily business of their respective agendas while I tickety-tapped my way through rough drafts, virtual meetings and phone interviews. Not once did I take their presence for granted. With a quick glance over my shoulder, there they were, standing tall, drifting aimlessly before landing on the porch, flying over the grassy slope to the barn and crawling across the corner of my laptop’s keyboard. Back in my windowless office eighteen miles from paradise, I ache in their absence and try to drive home at a reasonable speed to see them again. At the same time, it’s lovely to hear Pam’s laughter through the wall that divides our offices, and see Christin’s smiling eyes above the top of her mask as she greets me and other visitors at the front desk.

Walking through a couple of aisles in the grocery store last Friday, I reaffirmed my preference for curbside pickup and general indifference for the entire shopping experience. I’ve dabbled in retail therapy now and then, but have come to land in a more spartan place when it comes to Things. All that carefully planned product placement at eye level has been wasted on me. I shall not grace the cover of Impulsive Reckless Consumption anytime soon. But I will still smile and chat happily with the young clerk moving my purchases from the conveyor belt into the bagging area. We must remember the communal value of pleasantries exchanged with strangers.

It’s all still unfolding, dear readers, this adjustment to the next layer of the pandemic that continues to trudge through our lives. I satisfied my curiosity about what the grocery store checkout would look like with its plexiglass barrier and faded floor sticker indicating the 6’ mark between customers. I have made peace with the placement of my facemask and can go for hours without touching it at all. I’ve filled my memory bank with indelible and intimate images of the land evolving through four seasons, noticing the small and subtle changes to her face, a privilege most often reserved for the fully retired, and I’ll unpack those memories sitting at the round table in my office eating lunch from an insulated cooler bag. I’m now a slightly less hesitant apple tree in spring, battered a bit and missing some branches after the rough winter, but still putting forth blossoms in hopes of a fruitful summer. No complaints either about Patrick being the only other human being I’ve hugged for the past thirteen months. Up until yesterday, that is.

We visited with Patrick’s sister, Molly and their mother, Joanne, yesterday, one of our many bi-weekly trips to town with food for their freezer. There we were, all fully vaccinated and masked, standing outside in their driveway, enjoying the hostas and purple creeping phlox emerging from the mulch. Patrick and Molly were deep in conversation near the garage doors and Joanne was telling me about her recent visit to the salon when she suddenly raised her arm and offered an elbow tap, saying “we can do this now!”. “Would you like a hug?”, I asked, and she closed the space between us without hesitation. As my arms encircled her, I registered the smallness of her shoulders and committed to memory the significance of this moment. She would always and forever be the first person I hugged in thirteen months other than Patrick during the pandemic. After a few moments, Molly would become the second.

Whoever is third, I intend to keep track of ‘em all.