From the Anthology
Pandemic Reflections: Five Years Later
Both jerk cats are dead. The dog wasn’t mentioned, but he’s gone too. All three in one season: January, March, May? Time was strange then. The boy didn’t say goodbye to the last one, simply told my parents’ poodle—both my canine brother and my inheritance—not to worry, we’d replace him.
We did. That dog now sleeps in our bed, close-but-not-too-close, comforting without suffocating.
Five years later and the boy, now nine, still comes to us at dark o’clock. Snuggles close. We’ve dodged the Skibidi Toilet phenomenon, thankfully, but will go to the movie theatre to see Minecraft again on Saturday. He is the child whose early years were spent crossing the street to avoid other people. I try to focus on my gratitude for the privilege of sitting in recliners eating popcorn in community. I’m unable to distract myself from the fact that I signed up for the paid rewards program from two different theatres to avoid the bevy of online fees. That each 90-minute interlude into fantasy is a $50 outing if we skip the Sprite, even for the matinee.
How so much is in reach and out of grasp.
I remember the slog of climbing the stairs to my office, and the relief of entering a room of my own, even one that required me to cocoon myself in blankets to combat the uninsulated attic’s frigid temperatures. How I’d steal those sweet, precious pre-sun hours to listen to my thoughts, attempt to translate them to the page. It was my respite and my work, a liminal space in a time of liminal space. The writing that felt hard is now in the world, and we hear how people bring that book to their therapists, a bigger compliment than the starred reviews. I finished the novel I promised my grandmother and I started another one, but I’m not sure about it now. I’m not sure about most everything these days. I still climb the stairs, now comfortable instead of crisp because past-me took the care to upgrade the heat, add the antique chairs my great grandfather embroidered that the cats used as scratching posts, and the mini fireplace whose only function is to look pretty. The dog follows me, and I joke she’s my assistant as she rests her head on the cozy couch I created for her.
I face the page, trying to remember how words work, if I have something to say.
I remember the waiting then: interminable, obscene, terrifying.
Then there was an end. Not a finite one, with a finish line or at least streamers, nothing announced nor celebrated, simply a decision made to show up, unmask. For us, it started after surviving the sick that killed so many. I remember breathing deep into this new Before, that brief respite of Barbie, baseball, and brat summer, Black Lives Matter painted onto the streets. I created community in those moments, found family and myself, believed we were in this together.
Before they excluded inclusion, taxed our friends while suckling our enemies, stole the data we were supposed to keep secret, froze the funding and fired the essential workers suddenly deemed unessential, rescinded our rights, held us hostage while disappearing and deporting our own.
It’s a different-same waiting now: accelerated, terrifying, obscene. So many questions without answers, liminal space in a time of liminal space. The Great Pause hangs close again, and I fear how much time we will rewind.
I remember before the Before. I have lived the unimaginable, I am from a people who has done this in every generation. I try to check my fear with my gratitude, try to focus on what, if anything, I can control. See the sweet joys of a cuddly child who plays with blocky pixels, a doodle who dances her joy. I remember how I wrote the words that became deeds, how I am capable of showing up for people in moments like these.
I put my belief in what we will reach for, what we can grasp.
Brandi Larsen is a writer, speaker, and strategist. Her work at Penguin Random House helped create NYT bestsellers and her journalism pieces earned Emmy nominations. Her talks about publishing, leadership, and purpose inspire audiences from Zoom to Harvard. She served as President Emeritus for Literary Cleveland and writes books, reviews, and essays. Brandi was the 2024 Writer in Residence at the William N. Skirball Writers’ Center, CCPL, and the co-writer of New York Times-recommended UNCULTURED: A Memoir, from St. Martin's Press. BrandiLarsen.com
