Hello, world. This is me, poking my head up for what now seems to be a monthly dispatch. It’s hard to believe I was writing weekly pandemic postcards until a few months ago. It’s difficult to fathom I’ve just begun volume #5 of my “pandemic journal,” the notebook I write in almost daily (though that, too, has become a less-regular practice this summer).

So here we are. I want to talk a little about tradeoffs.

Tradeoff number 1: My new upstairs neighbor threw in a load of laundry at 11:30 last night. I’d been sleeping a while, but the thumping woke me up. The neighbor seems to be up all night, so I guess they work a swing shift and probably get to bed around the time I wake up–but I still hear the floors creaking at 6:30 a.m. as I write this, so who knows? Then there’s my improbably loud refrigerator, which runs about 30 minutes every hour. I hoped I’d be used to it after four months, but it’s still annoying, especially in 499 square feet.

Ah, but I like this apartment, especially its east-facing windows and sliding glass door out onto the tiny fire-escape-sized balcony, where I sit and read or listen to music, and where the hummingbirds have been gathering all summer. I’ve enjoyed its evening cool during our heatwaves, and the low-angled light will warm my apartment this winter. I value the fact I’m a quick stroll to the bus stop and the grocery store, yet within a few blocks, I can access miles of more ambitious walking terrain where the city blends into the suburbs and fat blackberries are now ripe for the picking. It’s a tradeoff: the realities of urban living.

Tradeoff number 2: The pandemic is still very much with us, and like most people who chose to be vaccinated, I’ve lost patience with the arguments of those who’ve opted to keep the virus spreading. At the same time, I know that no good comes of castigating people for their doubts and fears, so I’m opting, as usual, to give them grace. I do know that I will live my life as the delta variant runs rampant. I’m masking up again indoors, but I never saw the need for outdoor masking a year ago and I don’t now, unless you’ve chosen not to get the jabs. I’ve been traveling and will continue to do so, and for sure I’ll take that booster shot just as soon as I can get it, thank you.

It sounds like we may all be destined to get the delta variant, vaccinated or not, though it is much worse if you’re not. I’ve finally heard of the first breakthrough case among two people I know personally; they’ve had flu-like symptoms for a week, but as vaccinated people, they’re pulling through. I mostly fight despair over my relatives whose faith-based fear causes them to doubt science, and over the plight of children who have little protection as they go back to school. It didn’t have to be this way, but it is what it is. I’m grateful we had a few months of relative freedom from COVID earlier this summer. It’s been nice to go maskless at the ballpark, where I love to give fans a welcoming smile. It’s been delightful to get to know my new companion, to hold hands and hug and kiss without worrying too much about making each other sick. Yet it seems likely we’ll all need to be vigilant over this thing for a lot longer than any of us had hoped.

Tradeoff number 3: I don’t know what I want to write about Afghanistan and the resurgence of the Taliban. My country has been involved in Afghanistan for decades, but never with a clear, cogent mission. People — in this case, the Afghani people, working toward a shared destiny and the quest for human rights — need to hold each other to account. Just as we can’t beat a virus if people don’t accept shared moral responsibility, there are limits to what one country can do for another.

Thanks for reading Surely Joy. By the way, if you get these dispatches via email, my previous post from about three weeks ago seemingly never went out that way, so you can read it here. And if you’d like to get future dispatches via email (since I post so rarely these days), you’ll find a link to sign up elsewhere on this page.

Be well and don’t despair. There is much good to celebrate, even amid this unsettled, uncertain season.