I have been recording my comings and goings for COVID-19 tracing purposes for two years, but continuing to do so seems pretty pointless now that mask and physical distancing restrictions have been mostly eliminated. With so many cases and wide community spread, it would be difficult for most people to figure out where they got COVID-19.

Unlike the beginning of the pandemic, where everything stopped so public health office press conferences could be watched, no one but the most vigilant are still keeping track of case numbers and infection rates. It feels like the pandemic is over, as the media revert to covering other disasters. People are still getting sick from COVID-19, though, and the health care system is still groaning under the pressure.

When I visited the Summerside public library last week, the librarians were pulling large yellow physical distancing stickers from the floor, not with jubilant whoops and hollers, but by rather solemn, determined effort, pulling and scraping. I remarked that it was an historical moment, and they agreed. We were all still wearing masks.

When will I stop wearing a mask? I suppose when case numbers are closer to zero than they are now, but I have no idea. Everyone in my household has been vaccinated and boosted, but we still wear masks when we go out, and keep our contacts small, all because of my mother’s advanced age.

Masks took on a symbolic role beyond their practical use during the pandemic, and their meaning seemed to morph. Before they became mandatory, they were viewed as a way to not only protect yourself but also showed that you cared enough to protect others and keep the health care system from collapsing. When they became mandatory, they became symbols of oppression and an erosion of freedoms by overreaching governments.

Now that wearing masks is a matter of choice in most public places, it will be interesting to see how people view them. I know a woman in her 50s who has lived with complex allergies and a compromised immune system for decades, and she says she has never felt safer out in public in her entire life now that wearing a mask has been normalized.

Perhaps the mask will become a symbol of acceptance, that we need to think of the needs of others, even (and perhaps especially) if they are hidden. Someone wearing a mask who looks hearty and hale might in fact be vulnerable, and they need to be treated with tenderness. I hope the tolerance and acceptance I see now of choosing to be masked or unmasked will spill over into other aspects of society, in accepting and embracing people of other racial, gender or religious identities.

Maybe the mask, most often used to hide and protect, will become a way in which we better see each other and our needs, a reminder to not rush to judgement.

So, my COVID-19 tracing logging, which admittedly got a little lax in the past couple of months, is over, and the notebook will be repurposed to remind me of the things I need to do rather than the places I’ve been and the people I’ve seen.

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.

This has been a challenging Monday morning, plans abandoned as priorities changed quickly.

I decided to take a few minutes to recalibrate and finsh reading a library book so I could return it tomorrow. I found this little note on the back of a library slip which, by the March 31 due date, means it was likely written just as PEI started to lock down and we searched for ways to express our concern for each other in this new COVID-19 time. I went from feeling resentful and harried to feeling present and calm in the space of a few seconds, the powerful combination of surprise and words bringing me back into my body and helping me to feel peaceful. The twists and turns of life never cease to amaze me.