Are Your Distractions Actually Inspirations?

On finding inspirations from your distractions during Covid

(Originally written for the introduction to the 11.28.2020 Weekly Atticus newsletter sent each Saturday from Atticus Review.)

The Covid-Era set up of the restaurant I live above.

I’m writing this the day before Thanksgiving and the day after my birthday, 2020. The three days will be remarkably similar to one-another in that I will have done mostly the same thing — the same routines at the same times and with the same two creatures, my dogs. And while these three days will be remarkably similar to one-another, they will be remarkably dissimilar to past days I’ve experienced around this week of the Gregorian calendar from 1973 to today, mostly because they will not have been spent in close physical proximity to other humans I love.

But in this lack of proximity to humans, these three days will also be remarkably similar to the last 240 or so. And I have reached a point where it does not actually feel all that abnormal or “sad” to spend my birthday and Thanksgiving by myself. In many ways, I’m even more “grateful” than I have been in past years at this time. For my health. For my apartment. For the family and friends I still can connect with over various electronic means.