Here at Lighthouse, we’ve noticed that “How are you?” feels like a cruel question these days. It’s one that we usually answer with a quick “I’m fine” or “I’m okay,” but how are we, really, underneath our masks? Many, if not most—if not all!—of us are grieving, worried, anxious, bored, lonely, stir crazy, and flat-out depressed.
This time—mid March 2021—is a particularly odd historical moment. Poised between a full year of surviving a global pandemic and looking forward to the wide availability of a vaccine, we’re still stuck at home while we yearn and hope for a spring and summer of increasing freedoms. At the same time, some of us have found some strange comforts and silver linings in this year of social distancing. It’s possible, now, to look back at March 2020 with an odd sense of nostalgia, at those early weeks of the pandemic, before we really knew what was coming.
In honor of this time, we invite you to reflect. In partnership with History Colorado, we’re launching the Pandemic Writing Project. Here’s the gist:
Set aside an hour or so to reflect on the last year. Consider the prompts below to get you started. Write a response, and submit it to Lighthouse and History Colorado by emailing it to pandemicwritingproject@lighthousewriters.org and HC_COVID19@state.co.us. Your writing will become part of Colorado History’s archives, and Lighthouse might contact you later this year about ways we might share and celebrate our stories. (Or if you prefer, you can fill out History Colorado’s form with specific questions here.)
Here are some ideas for getting started:
Who and what have you lost to the pandemic? How are you handling these losses?
What do you remember about March 2020? What would you like to forget?
How did you survive this year of social distancing?
What will you miss (if anything) about social distancing?
What have been your silver linings throughout the pandemic?
What has the pandemic allowed you to avoid that you will have to soon face?
What are you most looking forward to in 2021 and beyond?
How have you changed over the past year?
