Unsettled

"Hey Joanna!" she yells at me from the distance and as she approaches it's evident she looks gaunt and sleep deprived. I know Nathalie since the early days of the pandemic when I began to frequent the same cafe every morning while working from home.

Only in her early 50's, she has serious health issues and cannot eat normally due to intestinal problems nor does she sleep very much. Life is not easy for anyone and when your health is compromised it can be all the more difficult. We ended up exchanging numbers and we are going to have coffee over the holiday break as I think she needs a friendly ear these days.

To make things more difficult, it's not an easy era we live in. People are stressed and overworked and there is a great feeling of uncertainty in the air. Society is so much more fractured than when I began my professional career in the late 1980's and my daily venturing through the city only confirms it. It's like a heavy pall which hangs over everything.

The world is unsettled and will be for quite a while until we figure out how to remake it.