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How is the coronavirus pandemic affecting your life right now? Tell us about your experiences, feelings, and thoughts.

I am about to begin teaching another course on Zoom, and the prospect of teaching in the near future, as well as mentoring and other aspects of my professional life, all occurring via Zoom, is daunting. Although I am very lucky, so grateful to have the networks and support, personal and professional, that I have, I am quite lonely and miss having the interstitial interactions that make up so much of social life, as well as the planned and more structured in-person social interactions associated with activities like teaching. I find my self missing the qualities of social interactions, the glimpses of other people and their worlds that can be difficult to perceive online. And just a sense of physical closeness. And I'm an introvert by nature! I've also been saddened by the recent death of yet another elderly person in my social world. So far this year I have had 2 friends and my sister-in-law lose a parent, and yesterday my father's aunt passed away as well. My sister-in-law's mother died of COVID-related complications. My neighbor's husband also died of COVID. That is a total of 5 elderly people in my social/familial circles who have died since July 2020. Two of these died of COVID-related complications. They were all impacted by COVID isolation and the challenges of not being able to see family during the pandemic prior to and during their illnesses. These are some of the aspects of COVID that are pressing on me this week, and I am surprised by how much I appreciate being able to write down some of these thoughts and share them!