At first, like many of you I’m sure, I thought to myself “this can’t be that bad,” and so continued life as normal feeling as if it were a vacation of sorts. I compared it to a snow day, hurricane closing or, on the days we had muffins for breakfast, a holiday. We settled into the idea of being home for a few extra days quickly and began staying up a little later only to sleep in until 10:00 a.m., lit bonfires in the backyard, baked cookies. It felt as if we were preparing for Thanksgiving or Christmas, doing all the things we might. We bought more food than usual, cooked together, stayed at the table after dinner to play board games. We joked about the scatter for toilet paper and hand sanitizer. Day after day, during that first week, we watched the news from across the ocean, not yet feeling personal. Our Reality world tv, analyzing chaos, debating conspiracy theories, thinking surely this will not come ashore here. We worked from home but continued as usual and it felt far away and over reactive. We followed basic protocol thinking it could not hurt anyone to clean our hands more right? At the gym we wiped everything down and used hand sanitizer coming and going. Life had not changed in a way that was uncomfortable. One week turned into two, then three. The week CrossFit Merit closed its doors temporarily struck me hard. This place is and had been my sanctuary to leave angst and stressors in an outline of body sweat on the floor. As first-world problem as it sounds and as it is, it took that to become personal. My life glitched. So I decided to peek my head from the safe bubble of photography and nature I live in most days to take a second look at what was truly happening around me in the world and that is when I began to see things thru a different lens…