Claire:
The anniversary of the pandemic is diffuse; everyone’s regular life ended at a slightly different moment, on a different day or hour depending on their geographic location, personal circumstances, and level of anxiety. In the U.S., it mostly happened this week, after the NBA abruptly suspended the season and cities began to implement lockdowns.
But for most individuals, the moment was a moment -- calamitously abrupt. All week, people have been posting photos from their camera rolls of the last dinner out, the last live show, the last trip, the moment before the moment it all stopped.
I have one of these photos too, but I can’t post it. It’s a snapshot of my son’s health insurance card, and I took it because we were heading to the emergency room with a baby who could barely breathe. When I scroll back through the last year of photos, that’s the one that snags my eye. All week we’d barely paid attention to the news, in between obsessing…