It’s a big, beautiful world out there. I’d like to see more of it before we completely screw it up.

It’s been one year and five months since COVID-related shutdowns started to happen. Since I last taught at the gym. Since I last started planning a vacation with any real vigor. Most of my family and I did what we were supposed to—we vaxxed, we masked, we didn’t engage in unnecessary travel, and I’m grateful that my line-of-sight loved ones have stayed healthy. But OH MY GOD I miss traveling. I want to go to a place where nobody knows me, where the streets are new to me and the sights aren’t all the same. It doesn’t have to be overly exotic—I mean, Bali would be nice, but I’ll take Seattle. I just want it to be not-familiar.

That said, here’s a photo of the Tower Bridge in London, taken from one of those tour boats that run along the Thames and give tourists like me scenic shots of the city.

Even though my town was built along the Susquehanna River and we can boast of MANY local bridges, there are none near me that so decoratively deposit you near a famous prison, despite the proximity of state and federal penitentiaries.

Anyway. Here’s a little sigh, along with a bit of hope that we will reign in COVID sooner rather than later. And some hope that as we, eventually, move past this, we take the time to do some potentially painful self-reflection and learn from our collective mistakes, and start to embrace the world again. For now, I’ll enjoy the time with my loved ones and mourn the losses, and look at sunny pictures as a way to keep some perspective on this glorious, big, wide, enormously beautiful world.