I stare blankly out the window from my concrete prison. It doesn’t matter what I stare at, so long as it’s not Zoom for: One. More. Freaking. Minute. The distinctive odor of dryer sheets wafts through the air on a Tuesday afternoon. My neighbor, laid off from her bartending job, clearly has moved laundry duty from Sunday afternoon to Tuesday morning because, well, why not? She has nothing else to do. A pair of small boys, oblivious, escape their own concrete Zoom prisons and speed on scooters down the street. Uproariously, they laugh at the freedom and pure luxury of being home in the middle of a beautiful fall afternoon. I spot another neighbor across the way furtively scanning for observers as he blows the debris from the sidewalk. He had assured me proudly a few months back that he never had time to do his own yard work. Last night around midnight, awoken by a car alarm splitting the silence, I spied what could only be a repo man speeding away with my neighbor’s new sports car on the back of a tow truck. I hear the random “plink!” as acorns pelt the shiny metal SUV rooftops from one sunny driveway to the next. I’m not accustomed to seeing so many cars parked in driveways all day. Come to think of it, these cars are also extraordinarily clean. It’s almost as though my fellow Covid-captees have vast quantities of excess time to devote to the socially distanced, somewhat manic, and stress-relieving activity of car washing. Yes, actually, they do…and so do I.

This time last year, I was looking forward to our semi-annual sojourn to the Netherlands to visit my grandparents. This year, Europe won’t let me in. My father, a flight attendant from Holland eschews the “odd” American holiday celebrating “weird” food. Instead, he opts to work over Thanksgiving, heading to Amsterdam with those of like mind, relishing the holiday pay. There are always plenty of open seats to Europe at Thanksgiving because most Americans are visiting family within the country so I, (and often my mother who hates to cook), join him, making it what we call a ‘Delta-cation’. My father says, “The Dutch don’t eat turkey. Or stuffing. Or pies made of vegetables.” But after observing his delight in polishing off a third piece of Christmas pumpkin pie with copious piles of whipped cream on top at my American grandparents house a few years back, I can only surmise he feigns disdain so my mother doesn’t feel obligated to cook.

This year I broke a chair. Stupid, really. I thought it was all the excess hours sitting at my desk, but lo and behold when I stepped on the scale for the first time in six months, I had gained thirty pounds. Being six foot six tends to hide excess weight, although in hindsight, the tag smartly declaring, “250 lbs. maximum weight limit” pasted to the bottom of the broken chair leg should have been a give-away at the time. I had been leaning back during a team meeting for the tech company where I work as a programming intern, my supervisor and entire team, stuck in one dimensional reality on screen, observing my humiliation as I toppled backwards. Almost worse, I startled my cat in the process, who yowled and bolted directly in view of all, upending a full cup of coffee onto my desk. I’ll never live that one down, and the sour milk smell of my desk is a constant reminder. I suppose not being able to go to the gym has its effects and so, apparently, does working at Starbucks at night where I bring home the expired pumpkin spice muffins, (last count twenty-four in one score since someone mistakenly put them on auto-order).

This time last year I thought “socially distanced” meant my sister. She generally goes to college in New Jersey, but this year is thrilled to be working remotely from my grandparents’ empty condo in Sarasota. She’s the type to hole up in a cabin in Montana with a couple of cats and write a manifesto. As an introvert, she hates the enforced socialization that comes with having to share tiny spaces with strangers, so the very idea of being able to attend class from anywhere there are no people is a delight. The last we spoke, she was lamenting the smell in the condo caused by her foray into cooking videos and pad thai in particular. Something about an unfortunate accident with fish sauce. I generally tune out when she starts to complain because, well, it’s too frequent and always self-inflicted. I was, however, interested in and jealous of her new ability to knit and the idea that she had an assignment to create a traditional Norwegian cap for a Viking lore class. Wait, you can actually get credit for that?

This time last year I thought only Asian tourists wore masks and it must have something to do with compromised immune systems. Then, last November, I took the Thanksgiving flight to Amsterdam and sat next to Asian college students heading home after their campuses had closed. They were wearing full-on hazmat suits, a few with swimming goggles, all covered from head to toe: for the first time I felt vulnerable and exposed. They knew something I didn’t know. The sense of unease I felt, sitting on a half empty plane for seven hours, no one moving, no one talking, no one eating, no one going to the bathroom, (because how the heck is THAT going to work?), was surreal. My dad was working the flight and just shrugged. He’s seen it all.

This year, my father is elated he still has a job and my mother, a cancer survivor, just as elated that she doesn’t have to go find one. I’ve learned the importance of having a pandemic-proof occupation, a cushion of savings, and a solid quality desk chair. I have come to appreciate solitude far more than I ever expected now that I cannot go out with friends. Filling time has become more of a challenge than a chore. The gratitude I feel for everything I still have compared to what others have lost is huge. Nobody I know has died. Nobody I know has been evicted. Nobody I know is starving. Maybe, just maybe, this year my family will sit down to a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. And find we like turkey and stuffing after all.