Try to pass through a time of change unchanged, you can’t, the seconds, minutes, hours stick to you like hot rubber, vaguely trying to pull you back as you fall forward through days into the weeks ahead. You try to keep some part of you the same, to save it for an uncertain future when normalcy returns, but there never was normalcy, only habits, and some habits no longer work, your brain now more aware of what remains to be done, those things you know you know, those things you don’t know you know, but it’s those things you don’t know you don’t know that can take you from behind, so you learn to walk around like a high school teacher with eyes in the back of their head, keeping alert for a sudden tingle, a feeling that something needs you to quickly turn around and take stock of your options, when a deep breath helps you maintain calm alertness, solve the problem, move on to the next.
From my last writing workshop prior to the lockdown