I’ve traveled to see family three times between getting the vaccine and now, but this will be my first trip for research. Both the travel itself and the spontaneity with which I planned the trip feel so strange after two years of effectively not doing any profession-related travel. I used to go somewhere at least once a month to give a talk or visit an archive before the pandemic, but now I’m mostly planning how I will get digital surrogates for the archival and manuscript materials I will need to read for my book-in-progress because going to the UK right now seems foolish. And yet, here I am, having freaked out last night about a dramatic turn in my research and writing, and having dealt with it by booking myself a last-minute trip to a domestic archive a flying distance away to see if I can salvage the project there.
Part of what feels frenetic is that this trip as well as my last trip to see family were booked at the last minute as the potential end of the domestic-flight mask mandate is set to expire. Last time, when I went home, it was extended; this time, I don’t expect it will be. And so even though my travel schedule is nothing like what it was before the pandemic, it doesn’t feel so different: the suddenness of needing to change gears and be in a different place after not being able to think about it too much or for too long.
The world seemed like it was closing down and getting very small at the start of the pandemic, and I have that sensation again: that just as we were beginning to be able to emerge and do some things we used to more safely, protections like the mask mandate on flights are being rolled back that are going to make those of us who believe in the germ theory of disease transmission begin to retreat again. Back to the old normal seems so unwise.