City & County 13: Coronavirus Cities Dispatch #5 Three seasons down
Mid-morning on Harvard Yard in early May, 2020, without a student or tourist in sight.
As the last of the leaves are blown off the deciduous trees, fall in New England comes to a close. Mid-November marks eight months since the Covid-19 restrictions were put in place. When March feels more like eight years ago, how do we mark the passing of time, other than the passing seasons? Days pass slowly, weeks fly by. Work, for those of us fortunate to still have it, offers a focus and a paycheck, but novel and engaging distractions remain hard to come by. 2020 has been—and indeed will continue to be—a year of walking in eastern and central Massachusetts. Taking the same paths, on trail or sidewalk, forces an intentionality: to seek out nuance or difference that typically goes unnoticed becomes a means of marking a moment that otherwise blends into every other one.
This newsletter is written by Alan Wiig and comes to you from Somerville, Massachusetts. You can subscribe or unsubscribe at the bottom of the page.
A selection of photos from late spring through summer and then fall is offered below, a way to document the year’s ongoing progression, even if it often feels impossible to measure the active passing of time.
Harvard Square, nearly empty. Early May, 2020.
Looking out towards Beacon Street, north of Inman Square. Cambrige, May 2020.
Alongside Fresh Pond Parkway, Cambridge. May 2020.
Coldbrook Road, Rutland State Forest. Late May 2020.
Rutland State Forest. June, 2020.
Rutland State Forest. Halloween 2020.
Coldbrook Road, Rutland State Forest. Halloween 2020.
Near Davis Square, Cambridge. November 2020.
If you've scrolled this far, thanks for reading. This edition of the newsletter is primarily a visual diary of the last few months, collecting in one place a few images. Looking at my Sony RX100's memory card, I took photos in May and June, then not again until October. The summer and early was spent teaching and preparing my tenure dossier for submission, and what spare time I could find devoted to cycling or lake-swimming. Neither activity merited carrying a proper camera. As the (online) fall term nears its end, I have more time to look back at images and, through that, process the emotional ups and downs of this pandemic, as well as the walks taken to pass the time.
Be well and stay healthy, everyone.