The day they called the election for Biden—we knew he’d won, but felt grateful to every municipality that took the opportunity to prove how careful and true those results were, long and nail-biting as it felt at the time—it was unseasonably warm on the mountain. It was a Saturday in November. It should have been in the 30s, maybe foggy and drizzly, or clear with biting-cold winds. Instead, it was in the 60s with bright sun. Balmy, as if the universe rejoiced. We dined outside barefoot in t-shirts. We opened a fresh bottle of wine at lunch (and we finished it). I had already drained the outdoor shower for the year, not wishing to let a hard freeze ruin my newly completed hard work. I filled the pipes again. It rained down warmth on us that day, the beginning of the end of a long nightmare. Trump, the Cheeto-colored, baby dictator, was finally on his way out. From rural southwest Virginia, we watched footage of people dancing in the streets in New York, people parading and honking horns where our friends lived in Philadelphia (especially Philadelphia), in Durham and Chapel Hill and Carrboro, even in Britain. Everyone seemed to have Champagne. You simply couldn’t believe it might be over—that we really might be governed by a compassionate adult again—until you saw the numbers finalized on television.

And finalized in spite of all the Republican lies and phony lawsuits and attempts to cheat, disenfranchise, and gerrymander every inch of this country. Credit and respect, though, to Republican officials who supervised the counts and recounts, who certified the legality, who stood up to repeated attempts to intimidate by the Trump camp. The my have saved the country by taking their jobs seriously. Unlike the Trump camp…

We wondered, though, what the monster would do before he was officially out of office. How much more damage to institutions, laws, and lives could he manage in two months’ time? How many disgusting pardons? How many repeals? How many more days lost in the battle to corral COVID-19? The Trump Administration was, on the whole, monstrously bad at governing. Sociopathic, even, and just spewing at all times bald-faced lies.

We quarantined to enable a very small family Christmas. We celebrated New Year at home. We continued wearing our masks and didn’t set foot inside a store for some time, knowing the holiday spikes would be bad. They were.

In January, I went on to a job in Shelby, North Carolina, to play with huge granite foundation stones, reclaimed from defunct textile mill slightly farther north in Lawndale. These were the first stones I’d ever built with that I literally could not move myself. Huge. I was offered a full-time machine driver, Doug, who made anything possible, and always cheerfully no matter how many times I had him move a 1000-lb stone one more inch that way.

Out in the cold sunshine, puzzling with Doug over my next move in this massive field of stones, word reached us that insurrectionists were storming the Capitol in the name of the Cheeto. We could not believe our eyes. I wondered why not more of them had been shot, having interacted a couple of times by accident with the Very Serious Capitol Police force myself. Reading the play-by-play later, it was obvious that the police had to show restrain because they were so drastically outnumbered, and they knew these crazies had allllll kinds of weapons. The whole episode is disgusting and ignorant—of principles, of history, of truth—but true heroism showed itself that day in the form of officers like Eugene Robinson and so many others.

We just kept saying, “I hope they all go to prison.” Trump, Miller, Stone, every one of those toxic-masculinity-toting, treasonous ding-dongs who showed up that day.

Democracy held.

I pushed hard to finish that job on time and scoot back to Chapel Hill to be with friends to watch the Inauguration. Again, we couldn’t quite believe it was true—that Cheeto was gone—until we saw it with our very eyes. I was running late that day on my three hour drive, so I had to start with NPR. In the coverage leading up to the ceremony, they talk about soon-to-be VP Kamala Harris using two Bibles for her swearing in: the family Bible of a close friend from her childhood and Thurgood Marshall’s. That tidbit broke me. I don’t remember how many more times I cried on the drive, but it was all smiles by the time we sat down together in masks in a cold garage in Chapel Hill to watch the events on a laptop. We only took our masks off to sip Champagne in alternate rounds. We watched our friends celebrate around the world on Instagram. We observed aloud that we really couldn’t understand how angry and sad we’d felt for four years until now… only now was it safe to acknowledge how bad it really was…

To watch lie after lie, insult after insult… To see every possible environmental regulation shredded, risking life and land for the sake of quick corporate profit. To see every possible financial regulation shredded, risking the little guy for the bank and the billionaire every time. To see so many attacks on science and medicine when so many lives were at stake. To see military lives brandished about on Twitter as if his fragile ego, hasty bravado and constant threatening have no real-life consequences. To see the utter and repeated failure of diplomacy, and not for lack of skilled diplomats. To know that widespread access to healthcare was constantly under threat. To know that women’s lives, immigrants’ lives, black and brown lives, children’s lives did not matter, that voting rights were under active attack, that race-baiting was the norm... The list goes on and on. Nothing and no one was safe.

We felt lighter by a proportion I could not possibly estimate.

I felt the same yesterday when I got my first COVID-19 vaccination.

I have had a pretty lucky pandemic as these things go. I have a good partner in all things and was not lonely. I am extremely fortunate that I can mostly work alone or at a distance and outdoors. I have a home in the countryside where I don't have to feel stuck inside and I can safely go on long walks without a mask. I have plenty to do just to keep up with my house and property, so have not once felt bored. I had a garden for the first time in many years. I had enough of work. I had enough food. I have health insurance (basic though it is). I did not get COVID-19. No one in my immediate family or close friend group got COVID-19. I only know one person who died from this awful thing.

But truly, THE CONSTANT WORRY OF THIS THING IS JUST HORRIBLE. Who will die? Who will I kill or disable if I am an asymptomatic carrier and my mask and hand-washing don’t do their job? No matter how lucky I may be, anything was possible despite my best efforts. It could have gone so much differently, and it isn’t over yet.

But yesterday, another layer of that worry abated. Once my parents were vaccinated in January, that helped. My brother followed soon after. My partner this week. I registered dutifully with the state health department ages ago, but assumed I would have a while to wait since I am young and healthy and not in any way a frontline worker. On Wednesday, though, I received an email late in the day that I felt sure was spam. After a little investigation, it became apparent that this was in fact a very real invitation to schedule a Pfizer COVID-19 vaccination in two days’ time. The regional hospital in Martinsville (a few counties over from me) was hosting a mass drive-thru event. I don’t know if I was invited because interest in my region is low or because I am construction worker and cannot work from home, but one doesn’t look a gift horse in the mouth. One goes and offers up one’s arm.

And though I feel this morning as if someone turned a very motivated Muhammed Ali loose on my left deltoid, it sure beats the shit out of having COVID-19. As I wrote to a friend on Instagram (we’re all posting our shots, you know!), my arm feels heavy, but my heart feels light.

So light.

What a joyous thing it is. I had a literal shot in the arm. Of hope.

The pace of vaccines seems to be accelerating with an adult in charge in Washington and states and counties figuring out how they need to do things. I know many people still don't want to take the vaccine, but I can’t understand that. Unless you are a QAnon/weird Bill Gates microchip conspiracy-crazy or a pandemic-denier, what is your deal? There will be people who have more complicated health scenarios than I do, and they may have reasonable hesitations, but I would encourage anyone with questions to contact your doctor or local health department. This is SO IMPORTANT. Every vaccine helps everybody. The more of us who get this over with, the safer we all will be. Even the assholes who have refused masks all along and continued on just like they always do, crowding the restaurants and bars that didn’t have the sense to close or distance, gathering merrily with their friends inside all winter, refusing now to take vaccines.

I don’t want to hear, “If it’s my time, it’s my time.” Bullshit. Do you know how many more people you could sicken and even kill because you claim you don’t care if YOU die? It doesn’t work like that. It affects more people than just you.

Anyway, I am likely preaching to the choir here, as I imagine most of you think a little closer to the way I do, or you wouldn’t be here in the first place.

So I am feeling sore but joyful this morning. It still seems so surreal. I spent about three minutes with a wonderful, cheerful nurse yesterday, sitting comfortably in the driver’s seat in a parking lot in the shadow of the Martinsville Speedway grandstands. I waited out my 15 again in my car, just slightly farther uphill and nearer to an ambulance and EMS team in case I or any of the dozens of other folks in cars around had an adverse reaction. Everything was calm and happy. The vibe at these vaccination sites is so palpably grateful and warm and—I repeat—hopeful. You will be so glad when it is your time. It’s hard to explain the emotion of it.

And after a year of waiting out this pandemic (I believe it was about March 20, 2020 when I finally got freaked out enough to leave my DC job early last year and hightail it to the mountain), it seems unreal that I could ever be on a plane again, be in my parents’ home again without fear of hurting them, be in Britain again, be at an indoor dinner party or an art museum again… But I might. You might, too.

Stay strong. Look out for each other. Register with you local health authority to get on the notification list if you haven’t already. It’s happening!

Layers fall away