My sister is -- even as I write -- airborne. Flying by Alaska Airlines from Idaho's Sun Valley airport to Seattle. She's paying me a week's visit, attempting to overcome my gloom as I mark yet another birthday. It will be the first time I've talked face to face with any member of my family, however extended, since a trip to Oxnard in January 2020.
Fourteen months ago. So long ago, we didn't even have a pandemic. Back when people walked around with bare faces.
Kathy and I are both well past our second Covid-19 vaccinations, and, according to the latest diktat from the CDC, are entitled to socialize in the same enclosed space together without masks. We have a mutual friend, living in Seattle, who also is completely immunized, who will join us.
We really have no plans for the week, other than a dinner celebration -- by hotel room service -- of my March birthday. (She's staying with me for four nights, and then the last two nights in a downtown hotel.) It will be sufficiently novel and satisfying just to chat, and to wander about the city (the latter, fully masked, of course!)
I've read that some recently immunized persons who have shared my sense of isolation are nervous about their first face to face conversations, even with people they know well. They're afraid they've lost their instinct, or talent, or whatever, for idle conversation. Conversation beyond a polite "hello" and "stay healthy."
I understand their concern, but I'm not worried. My sister and I are both babblers who, at least within the family, hardly notice whether our babbling is being listened to, with or without approval.
She lands at Sea-Tac in just over an hour.
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