Putting to bed my second little note book where I recorded my comings and goings in case I needed to do COVID-19 contact tracing. Our chief public health officer suggested we do this in the early weeks of the pandemic and I stuck to it, for the most part. I have long kept a brief daily journal as well, recording weather conditions and highlights of the day, but this little pandemic record is all about practical movement and contact, not how I felt and experienced life.

While I would tell anyone who asked that I live in a remote place and don’t see that many people, I have filled 48 pages since May 2021 with my interactions and gadding about, both the well-worn paths to the grocery store, Samuel’s Coffee House and the homes of friends and family, and the unique experiences of harvesting birch bark with new friends and sitting with my mother in the hospital.

In a couple of weeks, once my chance of being a superspreader has hopefully passed, I will set this little record down under a pile of branches in the woods to melt back into the earth, as if it all had never really happened.