The Corona Lectures Did Their Job

In May 2020, I began working in this new format because my familiar ways of writing were and had been exhausted. I did not expect either sheltering in place or the lectures to last a whole year. But they did. And now (whatever the calendar might claim) spring’s coming in fits and starts, I just received my second vaccine, and I’m trying to imagine what comes next … and having a difficult time of it.

I suspect that whatever follows will be just as unexpected as the last year has been. I probably won’t emerge the same artist, the same person, as I was a year ago. I hope that’s for the better, but can’t know that yet. It might be quite a while before I do.

Changes will be coming to The Corona Lectures. The lectures were conceived in the irreconcilable excitement that accompanied the beginning of quarantine and the end of a long winter. The cycle ends a year later as the first flowers bloom and the vaccine works through my immune system. The lectures have accompanied me through a spring, a summer, a fall, a winter, and now a new spring. They’ve sustained me when little else did. When I was alone, they forced me to reach out. When it was dark, they buoyed me through the darkness. When I was in doubt, they gave a voice to my uncertainty. To whatever unique combination of influences I owe their inspiration, I offer my sincere gratitude.