Dear Wigleaf,

I'm writing you this note from the space we call "the office," which is a former patio, now enclosed. Through the windows of our first-floor apartment I can look out onto our usually busy street, the traffic notably reduced in this pandemic winter. It's January 2021 and I've made no resolutions.

My spouse, who works at a hospital, received his first dose of the coronavirus vaccine last week. My daughter knows not to touch any of the elevator buttons if she doesn't want to have to wash her hands. When this all started, I bought colorful facemasks for the whole family. I was worried she would be frightened by everyone's covered faces, but by now she finds masks completely natural, and I wonder if it wasn't myself I was trying to comfort.

I just finished Jenny Offill's Weather, a lovely book whose narrator is haunted by climate change. Because of the pandemic, my frazzled brain latched onto a section about frightening new viruses emerging from the melting permafrost. This is really too much. So many things I used to think eternal have proved ephemeral—permafrost, the weather, human companionship.

This morning as I drove my daughter to her grandmother's house, she raised her Curious George stuffie up in front of her face. "Look, Mommy. Look behind you. Where did I go?"

Take care,
Kat