I met up with an old friend in the parking lot of the Guerneville Safeway on Saturday. Under the steel gray sky, we headed west, meandering on the back roads out to Bodega Bay for fish and chips. As we were taking our helmets off in the parking lot of the Boat House restaurant, volunteers across the street in front of the Bodega Bay Grange Hall called “Free vaccines! Do you guys need to get vaccinated?”

My friend had his second shot a few weeks back. I had my second Covid vaccine shot last Wednesday – it was in the building that serves as the ticketing office for the Napa Wine Train – it’s been closed through this whole pandemic. Standing in a serpentine line with dozens of others waiting to get needles jabbed in our arms surrounded by brochures for various wineries was fairly surreal during this whole surreal moment.

No mentionable side effects, by the way. I’m quite grateful for that. Though I was kind of excited for that third arm the nanobots in the vaccine would build. Or the killer 5G reception I was supposed to get…

Seriously, though, one of my coworkers is just now recovering from Covid and told me about how he really feels lucky to have made it through — it’s still out there. It’s still laying people low. It’s still killing people. We’re not done yet.

When the company I work for bought the land for the building they also bought the lot next door so they would be prepared if/when they decided to expand. Twenty-plus years on, they haven’t expanded, but about five years ago they set aside a portion of that empty lot for community garden plots for interested employees. It’s a really generous benefit that I’ve tried to take full advantage of (another time I’ll tell you about the Scorpion Pepper I grew that I was all ready to film Akilah eating. Oh, she ate it. But let’s just say it was anticlimactic…)

Last year most of the building was working remotely and what with social distancing and the still evolving nature of the virus we didn’t do the garden. I’d swing by the building every week or so and I watched the volunteer plants and weeds grow and grow over the course of the summer and fall… About a month ago I saw that they’d mowed the five-foot tall green mass that occupied the entire garden area. A week later they tilled the plots. And then the email came: we’re doing the garden again this year!

I got the same plot I’ve had and the soil was a little tired the last harvest, so I added some soil and manure, tilling it in until you sink with every step into the soft soil. Akilah and I planted five tomato plants, six hot and sweet peppers, a row of beets, some beans, and a single zucchini plant that – if history is any guide – will produce way more zucchini than we can eat. I mean, seriously, we might have gone overboard… but despite the ever-present virus, we’re ready to let things grow.

I thought about that this evening as I let the water rain down on the little tomato starts: Sasha’s Altai, then Early Girl, and Gobstopper, next to Lucid Gem, and finally Isis Candy. Daring to start something normal. I write this even though we don’t have a date for when we’ll return to the office – not that I’m anxious to return to in-person work; I’ve got a puppy that’s going to have some serious separation anxiety. But at least visiting to water is a baby step.

It’s the duality of life right now – the bright shine of hope and optimism held against ever present darkness of ongoing dangers.

Overall, I feel really good about the direction things are going, but I’m still daily managing the knot in my stomach watching my bank accounts get tighter and tighter – the darkness…

…And the light: The weekend before last I was ecstatic to have the first bartending gig since October. A cool sunny afternoon at a ranch between Petaluma and Valley Ford hosted a full hundred-plus person wedding. It would have been just like the Before Times™ if I wasn’t wearing a mask the whole time. I’m not complaining, though. I was genuinely excited to be there watching the smiles around me. I have another gig this coming Saturday up in Hopland. These are two of my favorite venues, too. Reason to hope for a better summer than last year.

If you haven’t gotten vaccinated yet, please do. As my coworker reminded me, it’s still out there. And, no, a vaccine isn’t a guarantee you won’t get Covid. But if you’re vaccinated and you get the virus it almost certainly won’t land you in the hospital or worse.

Let’s do this so we can meet old friends for motorcycle rides and fish and chips. Let’s do this so we can grow gardens. Plant the seeds now and we’ll have a great harvest soon enough.

PS. Akilah has banned me from writing about Covid at all for the next three weeks. Minimum. That’s fair…