These Years of Resilience

The Covid-19 pandemic has been a main story in our lives for more than a year now. We are all holding on, doing the best we can.

Everyone has felt it to one extent or another.  Some of us or our loved ones have gotten sick.  Too many people have died.  Far too many jobs were lost, and businesses were hurt even if they were able to transition to pandemic limitations.  If we were among the lucky ones who never got sick we still had to transition to virtual work, and cope with quarantine and shutdowns and limited revenues. 

Tomas Pueyo named it right in his March 2020 essay, “The Hammer and the Dance.”  The first task was to hit hard with shutdowns to limit the spread of the coronavirus.  That was the hammer. 

Next came the dance, in which local, state, and national governments needed to reopen tentatively, cautiously, and be ready to dance back into restrictions if a move outward became too risky.  We’ve been dancing for a long time now, and we are all very tired.

Meanwhile, the ordinary course of life has carried on. Droughts, fires, cancers, break ups, broken arms, robberies: it’s been a hard year all around. 

Over the weekend, our happiest place in the East Bay, Avenue Yarns, was broken into and the store’s cash reserve was stolen.  Leti was there first, ready to open the shop for Sunday.  She called Rebekah and the police.  The morning was taken up with assessing the damage and reporting on loss.  Fortunately, though the back door was kicked in and the cash was gone, the tangible loss was focused, and Avenue’s people and miles of yarn are all okay. The store remains bright, colorful, and friendly.

Still, there is the emotional one-two punch that needs to be dealt with. If you’ve ever had a purse stolen or a car break in or other such, you know that feeling of vulnerability is hard to get past. 

But along with the now proverbial hammer and dance, the pandemic years have been a crash course in resilience.  This is where we are now. 

Community is essential.  We lean into it.  We need you, all of our precious Avenuvian friends, in our lives and in our circles.  We are here for you too.  There are few better ways to regain a sense of personal agency than to be creative.  Community and creativity is what we are about.

Come by and check in with us.  We want to know how you are, what’s on your mind, and what’s on your needles.

Photo credits, top tp bottom:

Seyi Ariyo, from Unsplash

Lucas van Oort, from Unsplash

Charlie Solorzano, from Unsplash

Leti Iversen

Carolyn West