On Foggy Shores, COVID and Kindredness
I searched in my wallet to find a five dollar bill and three singles so that we could pay the young girl who operated the boom barrier. She handed us a white ticket, stamped with the date and time of our arrival to the parking lot that we had, up until recently, only shared with a few other visitors who didn't mind the lingering breath of winter across the sand. It was surreal to me how last year I was driven to this beach by my boyfriend, to help ameliorate the anxiety I experienced as the pandemic spread across the nation. I couldn't breathe freely, my legs would buckle if I attempted to get out of bed and I had an insane feeling of impending doom. What was really happening (unbeknownst to me) was that I was having caffeine withdrawals; I went from having about 5-7 cups of coffee a day to none at all in a flash. I remember reading an article that explained that the pandemic would cause people to forget to eat or hydrate; in this case my brew groove came to a halt, and when I
