I don’t want to jinx it, but life is starting to feel a bit more like what I once called normal. My wife is probably the least superstitious person you’ll ever meet, but even she spits on the ground and makes the sign of the cross when she hears me say this…or even look as though I’m about to.

You can’t blame us for being nervous. 2020 made us that way. By nature, I’m a “glass half full” kind of guy. But 2020 was the sort of year where instead of viewing the glass as half full or half empty, you couldn’t help but wonder if somebody peed in it. It was, with no further rhetorical flourish required, a once-in-a-century bummer of a year.

But I do believe we are beginning to see the back of it. If I didn’t believe that, I’d be forced to accept that we’re living through the 400 and someteenth day of 2020. And I just can’t go there. Besides, there are plenty of tangible reasons for optimism about the Year of Our Lord 2021.

For starters, I got my 2nd vaccine this morning — just a couple of weeks shy of my 70th birthday (notice how I snuck that in there, for those of you who still need a little time to pick out a gift). I’m cancelling Saturday in the expectation that since my first dose had me feeling pretty punky on day two, the second vaccine might get my newly primed immune system even more spun up. It could be the perfect day to curl up with a good book, or watch Master and Commander: The Far Side of the World for the 35th time. As a precaution, we’ve got a big batch of chicken soup in the fridge.

But there are other reasons to be hopeful that are less personal but every bit as poignant. Thanks to now being officially in Phase III of The Great Pandemic, my wife and I were able to take our grandsons out to breakfast the other day. True, the interior of IHOP only lacked sandbags around its plexiglas-shielded booths to communicate a sense of impending menace, but we actually ate a meal in-situ rather than take out. We can also start gathering in limited groups, albeit with masks and distancing. I noticed at Hillcrest Park that the playground equipment that for months had been festooned with crime scene tape is now being used by real live children (again, mostly masked).

Mother Nature is yet another cause for optimism. The daffodils are blooming, and the tulips are not far behind. And while we won’t be celebrating this year’s Tulip Festival with a full-throated return to what I like to call “tulip mania,” we’re in for some splendid afternoon drives with the added likelihood of trumpeter swan, bald eagle, and snow goose sightings. And speaking of snow geese, Snow Goose Produce is open for business, with the allure of fresh fruits and veggies, locally sourced seafood, and an “immodest scoop” of ice cream. Make mine rocky road on a freshly minted waffle cone, if you please.

With these and other signs of renewal, it’s no wonder that I’m starting to feel the weight of the covid-19 blues lifting from my shoulders, to the sounds of George Harrison’s “Here Comes the Sun.” On a more somber note, April 1 will mark the first anniversary of the death of our Uncle Bud in Colorado — an early victim of the “novel virus.” Compared to what so many other American families have endured, we’ve gotten off light. But there are no dispensable lives, and everyone’s death diminishes us, just as every birth rekindles our sense of promise.

But I think more than anything else this past week, what lifted my spirits the most was a belated Christmas letter from a friend of ours back east. Along with the usual updates on kids, grandkids, jobs, and life milestones, the letter expressed some sentiments that I would like to share with you, our Meyer Sign friends and followers. I hope you will be as touched as I was. As the Good Book says, “there is a balm in Gilead” — and my friend’s letter was a loving dose as powerful for the soul as a vaccine is for the body, with far more pleasant after effects — chicken soup and Russell Crowe notwithstanding.

So much reason for joy. There is a vaccine! Children play and learn and grow. Parents struggle to keep all the balls in the air, meet everyone’s needs, get the bills paid and still find the energy to hold hands and gaze into each others’ eyes before falling asleep. Hard working folk keep shelves stocked and our cars running, the trash collected, the mail and the pizza delivered. Our medical folks and scientists do extraordinary work. We each find some way to contribute. We say thank you more often and with greater sincerity. We take time to chat with a lonely neighbor or a frustrated clerk at the bank.

We have the great opportunity during this hard time to pay attention to what matters most to us. Everyone has had to make choices and deal with the consequences of those choices. We have to find our way through all the information that comes at us, and to be respectful of other peoples’ rights and responsibility to do the same. I grieve for all the suffering, and I grieve for people of power who fall short.

I think this is a time when we all need to set an example of courtesy and patience, courage and steadfastness. We need to do it for ourselves and we need to do it for the children.

All around me I regularly see acts of kindness and generosity. What I hope for all of us this year of 2021 is that we find comfort in each other, commit to greater understanding of our shared history, and that we cultivate genuine tolerance for differing points of view and a willingness to forgive each other for missteps past and future.

To all of that, I say “amen.” And in re-reading those excerpts from our friend’s letter, to stay with a biblical analogy, I find myself imagining how Noah felt when, after so long riding out the flood, a shaft of sunlight revealed a dove clutching an olive branch. In my reverie, however, this feathered harbinger clutches a YMCA pass. Right about now I’ll take a weight room over the promised land. Heaven can wait.

Enjoy my photos of past Magic Skagit blooms as you read this, and take good care of yourselves. We’ve got this, Good Lord willing and the creek don’t rise. We love you, Skagit Valley!