Best 24 Hours of the Pandemic

We used to do A Lot. It's been sad when I've gone over pandemic posts to look back at my last weekend blog post before lockdown, or the social media posts from that week before, when Beatrix was in Tech Week and we went out to dinner every night. I've missed that, even as I understand completely why things have changed.

This weekend had a glimpse of that.

FilmNorth is one of the handful of physical sites across the country for the re-imagined Sundance Film Festival this year. Last night we got to help set-up a little, in a very distanced way (more on my thoughts about that another time.) And today I spent most of the morning on a (zoom) panel, which was incredibly rewarding (more on that later too).

It kicked into high gear this afternoon, though, when we attended "Cold World," which is my friend Theresa's brilliant idea benefitting Forecast Public Arts. At 2:00 today, a collection of very Minnesotan-looking cars pulled into an empty parking lot in the industrial area near University and 280. Well-bundled and masked people all got out, and gathered in a big semi-circle, and for the next two hours we went on a distanced, outdoor walking tour to experience the various murals scattered all over the Creative Enterprise Zone. Now many of my clients are in the CEZ; I'm there a lot and know some of the murals well. But I had no idea there was this much richness and diversity. That may be something we talk more about later as well.

Seeing the art was amazing. But honestly, the thing that had me in tears was, as we set out walking, I turned to realize I was next to (well, about 5.5 feet from) my friend Betsy. Betsy is not a close friend; even before the pandemic started it had honestly been quite some time since I had seen her. But to see her, standing there, in 3D instead of on social media, actually talking to me, was an incredible thing that had a huge impact on me. I needed to see art; my life has been much less rich without it. But when she created Cold World, Theresa was saying that she really wanted to bring back some sense of community — and she succeeded in that in spades.

We continued our amazing day by ordering out pizza for dinner (and drinking a great Modist beer that was part of our Cold World membership), and then by heading over to see the Marlena Myles projections as part of the Great Northern Festival. Again, it felt amazing to be out on a crisp winter's night, seeing this art.

And finally, we came home to see In and Of Itself on Hulu (and eat ice cream sandwiches)

So just in the last 24 hours have I had a reminder of what my life used to be like before, and maybe a glimpse of what it could be like in the future — different in many ways, even fundamentally changed,  but still valuable. (and now I'm also exhausted by it all and feeling kind of on edge, I suppose that's part of it too, and I'm feeling a kind of energy that I don't think I've felt in a year).