It was a day in May like any other—like every other. A day to make an ordinary, everyday pledge. I hadn’t uttered a vow for over 35 years.
The breeze on this glorious spring morning whipped around my naked neck. I should have collected that wool scarf hanging on a hook at my door entry and wrapped it around my now vulnerable neck. My mistake. Now I tugged at the zipper of my thin jacket, pulling it closer to my chin, urging it to work harder at its job. I had been fooled by the May date and glamorous light streaming in through clean windows. Warm in imagination but chilly in reality.
All of us, in some way or another, are tugging at thin jackets to ward off a brisk season of unusual winds. We are striving to make sense or at least find peace during a pandemic. As I walked along the sea wall in this strange new world, I was reminded of a pledge I made to my husband 33 years ago.
