Pandemic and the unturned calendar pages

World changed: the calendar still showed the month of March

When I returned to my apartment, just over five months had passed since I was last there. The air was stale and musty, the unmistakable odour of long-vacated places.

On the wall I found the calendar as I had left it, freshly turned to the month of March 2020. 

But now it was August.

If things had gone to plan, I'd have been back from my vacation in time to turn the page to April. If things had gone to plan.

But plans are something the world has had to forgo this year. The Covid-19 pandemic brought us all to a shuddering halt; stranded in place, wherever that might have been at the time, and adjusting our lives to the changed circumstances.

So it was for me for five months, until I was able to return to Bermuda and the temporarily unoccupied apartment. It took many days to bring it back to life - to clear away the mould and dust that had taken over, and to circulate fresh air into every corner.

The mandatory four days of quarantine allowed plenty of time to scrub away at things. There were no distractions, no other places I could go, for I could merely look out from the doorway at the world outside, the places I  had long grown familiar with, but where for a few more days I'd be unable to venture.

Then I got my 'day four' Covid test. I was clear and out of quarantine. A welcome release. I took out the trash, which included the empty pages of the calendar, those months away that had passed when I was elsewhere and living through these surreal times.

Now I look at the calendar and wonder if normality is returning. Is the world soon to be back on an even keel? Can things return to going as planned?

Plans - they no longer seem so solid as they once did. A lesson to carry into the new normal.