Have you heard the one about the runway model working to find her way back to Bainbridge Island in the middle of a worldwide viral pandemic? While the rest of her family worked feverishly to get there as well, to meet her? On a bunch of different timelines? Juggling different agendae? Wrestling different alligators? Just so they could lock down together and share some quality quarantine time?
After an epic winter in Santa Barbara, and just as the contours of the US pandemic were taking shape, Peter left California to shore up the Bainbridge base camp, while Dea held tight in California. Waiting for the right moment to shoot north and rejoin her boys for the duration of the quarantine. As we know now, while the pandemic swirled, it got increasingly complicated to find any kind of ‘right moment’ for air travel, and so it took her more than a month to find an opening, and make her break for the north. Recall that she’s been juggling chemotherapies and radiation treatment, and she recently relinquished a part of her right lung to the universe — so we really don’t want her to bump into that damned virus in any dark alley. Or on a commuter flight to Seattle.
As her travel strategies formed, and specific plans took shape, Peter and Dea catalogued every risk, and prepared a thousand mitigations. The concept of suiting up with full hazmat garb seemed sensible enough, but as the travel day approached, some important practical details started coming into sharper focus. How should one really accessorize the globally coveted, 2020 edition 3M Hazmat Gown – to do it justice and evoke all those nuanced messages that the designer embodied so masterfully? How to assert those aesthetic statements that a lesser runway model could only dream of conveying? How to express this year’s spirit of fortitude, distance, and just a smidge of ‘stand back, here I come’? Especially when one hasn’t stepped onto an international runway in eons. Well, you just know our girl rocked all of that.
On a sunny April morning Dea got up, donned the gown, loaded the accessories, and she attacked that runway. Reporters at the scene claimed that she seemed to be in solid control, but she made the fatal mistake of texting me the hazmat photo that you see above. Rookie mistake, runway queen. By sending me that photo you only doomed yourself to the eventuality that I would leak it here sooner or later. And by revealing specifics of your travel plans, you gave the paparazzi just enough information to track you down for an ambush as you were coming off that runway.
As she has been settling back onto the island, and into the quarantine company of Peter and Ricky, Dea has been caught recounting many stories about the love and support she received during her Santa Barbara adventure. My memory isn’t great, but I know I’ve heard heartfelt Santa Barbara stories about Auntie Tita, Leanne and Doug, Hugh & Carol, Laurel, Don & Barbara, Michael & Fred, Terry & Sam, Joanne, John, and Don — and every story seems to end with a smile and a sigh of appreciation. It sounds like you guys had a pretty cool winter down there.
And in that context Dea was just remarking upon a comment that Ricky made in passing… “Mom, If it weren’t for this pandemic, I’d be working in Seattle this summer, and we really wouldn’t be seeing much of each other in these last weeks before I move to Texas.”
We can elaborate on all of that and other news later. For now, welcome home Dea, Peter, and Ricky.