I am flooded with memories lately. Two years ago on May 3, I was dressing up for a job interview. I bought a bright pink blazer to match the spring season. I was so nervous. I must have done something right because they hired me. This was to be a whole new beginning for us. A new future in a big city with lots of places to go, people to meet and things to do. I can still feel the excitement. I wonder if I had known then about the lockdown, that we were heading straight for a life in a big city where numbers were high, where even taking walks in our neighborhood put us on edge, a life in a big city with no real place to go, would I have still wanted to move?

Twelve years ago on May 3 my son and I were experiencing our first Spring in Upstate New York. We had just had the coldest, heaviest, snowiest winter I had ever experienced in my life. It was a complete shock to my system, this feeling of confinement, this feeling of being stuck in the middle of nowhere, the fear of driving in lake effect snowfall. Soon that feeling would manifest into a depression and some of the darkest days of my life. But not on this day. On this day, May 3, 2009 my son could finally dance around our yard in a onesie, picking flowers, climbing our apple trees. I can remember the day so well, I can see his little face, the delight of realizing all this space was for him. There would be many more years of him playing in that yard, hide-and-go-seek chase with his neighbors, building huts, sword fighting with Urukai or some other fantasy.