I donned a nearly forgotten jacket from the back of the closet the other day and was surprised by what I found in the pocket.
No, it wasn’t a delightfully welcome $20 bill. That would’ve required me to have had an “extra” $20 in my pocket at some point and I’m the poster child who proves that the devil dances in empty pockets.
No, my hand instead closed on some combination of lightweight fabric and elastic. It was a COVID mask. And it brought back memories of the pandemic that forever changed our world — and our little island chain — five years ago this week.
The mask was actually one of my favorites — yes, I had favorites. Some were softer, more concave and had prettier fabric patterns. This one was a yellow-and-green floral print. It had been hand sewn by a local volunteer who donated it and dozens of others to Sister Season Fund, which had immediately swung into action to raise money for out-of-work residents who had been insultingly declared “non-essential workers.” Remember that term?
In exchange for a $20 or $30 donation, I got two or three masks that would define an era.
The long-forgotten mask was a perfect metaphor for the medical crisis that ended more than a million American lives and upended the rest of them. The COVID mask came to define an approximate two-year period of shutdowns and soft reopenings, rapid tests and emerging variants, travel restrictions and herd immunity, case counts and event cancellations, grocery deliveries, hand sanitizer, Zoom meetings, remote work and elbow bumps.
But in discovering that mask last week, I was also struck by how quickly and thoroughly I had pushed so much of that era out of my mind. It wasn’t until I was scrolling through our newspapers from March 2020 through March 2021 that so many of those memories came rushing back.
I was going through those archives in preparation for a panel discussion I’m moderating at the Tropic Cinema on Thursday, March 27 at 6 p.m.
In recognition of the fifth anniversary of the Florida Keys COVID-19 lockdown, a group of photographers, journalists and filmmakers will discuss and reflect on the spring of 2020 and its effect on Key West and the Florida Keys.
Sponsored by the Monroe County Public Library, and titled “Five Years Later: Looking Back at Key West’s COVID Lockdown,” the event was conceived by Michael Nelson, assistant director of libraries. It will focus on the period from March 1, 2020, when Florida’s first COVID-19 cases were announced, to June 1, 2020, the day after the Upper Keys quarantine checkpoint was dismantled.
Panelists includes Chris Sloan, producer of the short-film documentary, “Key West: 66 Days of Paradise Interrupted”; and Roberta DePiero, Corey Malcom, Rob O’Neal, Andy Newman and Carol Tedesco, all of whom were involved in creating the photo book “Isolated Island – The Key West COVID-19 Spring of 2020.” The collaboration of more than two dozen photographers not only documented an unprecedented moment in time, but also raised $60,000 for Sister Season Fund, a nonprofit organization that provides an emergency safety net for Key West hospitality and tourism workers.
Admission is free; seating is limited and on a first come, first serve basis.
Oh, and let’s be clear. This panel discussion is a community event, not a political rally. We’re not going to be relitigating policy decisions or castigating our fellow community members. Leave the anger where it belongs — on social media. This is a time to reflect on all that was lost and later reclaimed by a resilient Keys community.
