We’ve been sheltering-in-place for one month. California is a nice state. It is sunny here. The air is clear. My friends, family, and co-workers back in Illinois have been experiencing what I now understand to be a typically confused spring for the midwest. Snowstorms one day, sunny and warm the next. Always wet.

A few days ago also marked the the longest I’ve been away from Illinois. Through the fog of the pandemic, this distance has started to reveal new perspective on my life, my past, my trajectory. A new struggle for meaning has emerged.