Spring Break, a year ago, was the start of the pandemic for me and proved to be the end of my limited time as a substitute teacher. We went into lockdown and my bedroom became my bunker for the duration of the Covid War.
My family went on a jaunt to Colorado for part of that week, as Texas was not yet a seriously infected land. But knowing how much my health issues made me a risk of contracting death by the disease, I stayed home with the dog and number two son. In 2021, my family went for three days to visit relatives in San Antonio. I was alone at home with the dog once again. There are odd parallels between that Spring Break and this one.
I hadn’t used the gingerbread house kit that I had bought for Christmas 2019. So, we broke that out, put it together (my daughter and I after she got back from Colorado) and ate it.
It so happens I now have a gingerbread castle that wasn’t used during Christmas 2020, so I have vowed it will get made, photographed, and eaten this coming weekend.
I had finished a manuscript for a new novel in February, and I edited it during the Spring Break 2020.
It was my novel about a nudist family called A Field Guide to Fauns. It was published in March of 2020.
I don’t have another novel ready to be published this Spring Break, but I will do a free promotion of the Field Guide this coming weekend.
The pandemic brought an end to my teaching career as I will never again have the physical strength or freedom from arthritis pain that it takes to stand in front of a classroom all day. Being confined to the bunker all day every day has worsened all my health conditions.
All my plans for visiting nudist parks went pretty much the same way. My psoriasis has worsened and made me more susceptible to the ravages of hot sunlight. Even though I know more nudists now than I ever had before, most of the ones I know live in England, France, and California. So, no one will be able to go with me to a nudist camp as my family won’t even contemplate the idea. I have relatives who are quite happy that the pandemic probably ended that part of my life as well. No more Mickey the Nudist.
But the big difference between last Spring Break and this one is the fact that I am now on the waiting list for a vaccination. It is just possible that the whole horrible ordeal will both begin and end with Spring Break.
Catch a Falling Star 