Maria’s Trip (Postmortem)

1 dumb decision to travel during a plague surge

2 weeks away from home

3 potential covid exposures / close calls in ten days

4 Cuban coffees daily

5 torrential downpours in 3,387 miles

6 Cuban sandwiches consumed

7 sightings of anti-Castro agitprop (come on folks, it’s 2022—one is dead, the other one is a dying afterthought)

8 servings of arroz con pollo consumed in ten days

9 days above 80 degrees between December 19-December 31

10 fold increase in plague infections nationwide during the two week trip to her hometown

11 states traversed to visit Swamplandia!

12 times a day Maria wished she’d stayed home

13 times a day, now, Maria clicked her heels and incanted “there’s no place like home”—and one must imagine Maria happy

“The red, dark year is dead, the year just born
Leads on from anguish wrought by priest and mob,
To what undreamed-of morn?”

— Emma Lazarus / “The New Year”