So in 2019, I posted my first SkillShare class, and, as part of that, I got a free year subscription, which I mostly used to take drawing and painting classes. One of the classes I took was called something like Sketch Journaling, which, as the name implied, talked about sketching your day versus straight journaling (though there were words included in the sketches).
I enjoyed the class, and bought a mixed media book and some sketching supplies, with the idea that I would sketch our vacations, as I didn’t think I could commit to journaling every day, sketching or writing or otherwise.
And so I did. In January 2020, we did a ski weekend, which I used as a test of the vacation sketch book concept. It went well, and I foresaw really getting into it when we took our Caribbean cruise in March of 2020.
Except, of course, we did not take our cruise in March of 2020. Instead, it got cancelled two days before we were supposed to board, and we ended up driving to Moab instead, where, as the week went on, hotels began to shut down, restaurants closed, and COVID numbers climbed worryingly.
And, because it directly affected our vacation, it’s all in the journal. And because we’ve done a trip every three months or so since that time period, each entry has ended up being a small time capsule of what was happening, pandemic-wise. Whether we were wearing masks or not, how safe an area felt COVID-wise, things that different locations were doing that we weren’t doing at home, and vice versa. Weird quirks that changed plans. Worries that things would be more or less dangerous than they ended up being.
As we, in theory, begin to come out of the pandemic part of COVID and move into the endemic part, it’s interesting to look back at where we were when, at the fears that ended up justified or overblown, at our mental states in different situations.
I guess it’ll keep going. The book’s only about 2/3rds of the way full. I dunno if I told you guys that we did get to go on our cruise finally, two years after we were supposed to go. Time to add that into the book, so it can continue the story.
Have you guys been tracking the pandemic somehow? Thoughts, or things you’ve noticed?
