Looking back through my photos, almost all the pictures I have of me are mid- or post-run. So while there is a look of strength in them, there is also sweat and a bandana covering my superbad hair.

So it took a while of scrolling before I found a selfie that had me without the running-ness.

Looking at this picture, it feels like a lifetime ago, when in fact, it is less than two months. Less than two months ago I was on a beach in San Diego, toes in the sand, friends close-by, and hundreds of strangers along the shoreline. Why does it seem so much longer than just to months?

Even though I can’t go to that beach, visit those friends, or walk among those strangers right now, that does not mean I won’t again some day. That beach is still there. Those friends still love me. And those strangers are safer by all of us avoiding each other for a while.

As much as I want a time machine to either go back to before or skip ahead to next time, we are all right here, right now. And as I have written before: We are not okay, and we will be okay.

My selfie and I are smiling together waiting for that okay.

“We are the spark, that will light the fire that’ll burn the First Order down” (Poe Dameron, Star Wars: The Last Jedi). – #52sparks is my year-long writing series for 2020, based on an art prompt challenge. The spark that lights a fire to toast a marshmallow or to ravage a forest begins in the space of an inch. This series is to explore what hundreds of inches and words can do.