Sore arm, fatigue, fever, nausea. There is a lot of chatter and universal contemplation of body parts from head to toe while assessing reactions to, you know, everyone’s favorite V-word. Never have Pfizer and Moderna received so much free advertising.
All this talk of side effects seems exhaustive except for mention of the overwhelming reaction I feel precisely 36 hours after a 2nd shot: Hope. Physically, emotionally, mentally, spiritually, I am experiencing a truly visceral response to the vaccine and all it represents. Over this past crazy year, I frequently uttered four-letter words under my breath and occasionally aloud, but hope was rarely one of them. Until now.
It was Ash Wednesday last year when the first indications of COVID-19 were (literally) in the air. The fact that a powerful sense of hope is arriving on Good Friday is not lost on me. The symbols of my lapsed Roman Catholic faith appear out of what seems like nowhere as I feel overwhelming gratitude for some light at the end of this particular tunnel. The Glorious Mysteries. A Psalm of Thanksgiving. An Act of Contrition.
So, first a bow of my head and some deep breaths on the walking trail. Then I’m heading directly to the garage to mix up dye paints and work out this emotion. I know how this feels; I can’t wait to see what it looks like.
