A lot of bloggers and essayists are taking the opportunity to tell the story of their year in isolation since the beginning of the pandemic. I won’t try to tell the whole story of The Great Isolation, but here are a few things I learned.

• I’m pretty good at just sitting around reading and writing. For days and days. And days.
• No matter how I load the dishwasher, it’s wrong.
• There aren’t enough really good movies.
• Writing a good novel is hard work. Writing is rewriting.
• Air travel is a modern miracle, no matter how uncomfortable airlines and the TSA try to make it. I’ll never take it for granted again.
• Internet access is a top-tier-important utility service, right up there with electricity and water. It made isolation less…isolated.
• Biology and medical science is just as miraculous to me as digital systems are to non-engineers. I don’t have the education to understand how it actually works (e.g. mRNA), but I’m sure glad it does.
• I have a helluva lot more things I want to learn and do. There’s not going to be enough time.
• I miss the grandkids more than I could have imagined.