Learning is the greatest pleasure. Ask any kid. Little kids want to learn how to do everything. A passing toddler who sees you slopping mortar onto a brick step in front of your house instantly wants to push his finger into the ooze, to see what you’re doing, and learn how, and why…. Kids instinctively want to learn. They know that’s where the fun is.

The best vacations are the ones where you learned to…. Ski. Paddle-board. Dig for anthropological ruins. Rock climb. Dance a hula. Speak a new language. Navigate on your own in a foreign country. From the learning experiences come the most visceral memories.

It’s not all roses; learning can be positive or negative. You can learn what to do, or what not to do. How to do it, or how not to do it.

What have we learned from Covid? 

Everyone’s journey through this pandemic has been different. Being forced apart, we learned how much we long for the human touch. To hug our kids! To smooth a beloved brow as they take their last breath. 

Many of us have learned that we’re stronger than we thought. That we can teach our class from a computer. Buy our food without setting foot in a store. Work from our kitchen instead of our cubicle or office. That we can do all that while keeping our families safe and sane and trying not to think about what might come next.

Some of us have learned how much we can tolerate without breaking. Without giving up. Or without letting on that we’re close to giving up. My friend, a nurse, cried tears of relief when she learned she’d no longer be working in the Covid ward of the hospital. We embrace relief, kindness, help wherever we can, in a pandemic.

For over 500,000 of us, the learning curve has come to a cruelly sudden halt. For their families and friends it goes on, but different. For those who survive, learning never really stops; the content changes, but the process goes on. If we’re lucky. 

And if we remain among the lucky ones, someday soon we’ll get to learn what the aftermath of a pandemic is like. 

Can’t be soon enough.