Fading Billboards and Memories
I spotted this billboard on the side of the road, the colours have bled out and the words barely legible, no one gave it a second glance, like a poster for a long past concert. I paused to take a quick snap of its sun-bleached and wind-bruised instruction that once upon a time was a litany for survival, and now the faded print spells out “Easy Steps To Reduce The spread of COVID-19.“
We masked up, practised social distancing like it was a new religion worshipped through sanitising and washing hands, the wages for non-compliance were death, and purgatory was quarantine. Lockdown shrunk the world to the size of one’s living room as we Zoomed our way through life, the new normal.
The oldest of the babies conceived during the pandemic-induced lockdown turn 6 this year, in a couple of years, they will be teens I wonder if someone will remember to call them the QuaranTEENs because they are teens in the aftermath of the new normal. The pandemic ended, life unpaused and started moving again and just like the faded billboard, that time has become a distant memory despite the 1001 ways its subtly changed our lives.
For some, the scars are still fresh. Lost jobs, shattered relationships, grief that never got a proper goodbye, struggling with post-COVID symptoms, personal stories remind us that recovery isn’t uniform. It’s messy, uneven, and for many, ongoing.
One positive change from that era is how (particularly in the global South) people got an appreciation for working from home, remote work and courier delivery services. I have evolved into a digital nomad capable of functioning anywhere in the world where, as long as I can get a reliable internet connection and power for my devices…
I am still yet to put this to a practical real-world test, but maybe this year, this year is when I finally dust the cobwebs from my passport that hasn’t seen any action since a long time before COVID.
Meanwhile, the billboard will be replaced with something else, and the world will keep spinning, and this fades into memory, and a hard-to-believe tale about when the world stood still, and streets forgot footsteps, all dissolving into the mist of “back then.”
Do you ever experience any reminders from the COVID era?
~B
PS I just remembered, I never did get vaccinated… do they still ask for vaccination cards when you travel?
Becoming The Muse 
Your thoughts.. if you will?