The Last Normal Year

Recently I spent some time transferring cell phone photos — thousands of photos — from my Apple iCloud account to an external hard drive. In the process I combed through my snapshots from 2019. It was difficult not to notice just how active we were throughout the year. We did so much and, judging by the photographs, had a hell of a good time. There were countless smiles and so much joy as we went to a Twins game, the Children’s Museum, the state fair, parks, the pool and actual indoor parties at friends’ homes. I attended a Ben Folds concert, a Wilco concert, and my Facebook moms group met at different bars most Wednesday nights and held an amazing mom prom in May. Trick or treating, Thanksgiving and Christmas with family soon followed. Finally, to ring in the new year, we attended our friends Matt and Molly’s annual New Year’s Eve party, complete with 2020 party favors. Looking at the photographs of my friends and I celebrating with our 2020 party hats and glasses, perhaps a wee-bit on the tipsy side, I couldn’t help but feel an impending sense of doom. 2020. Doe-eyed and innocent, we had no idea what was coming. What, in fact, was only a few months away.



Examining these 2019 photographs, I find myself thinking of it as the last normal year. It is becoming more and more clear that Covid is going to be with us for the unforeseeable future, if not forever. I keep hearing how we need to learn to live with this virus and figure out our “new normal,” yet I can’t help but long for those carefree pre-Covid days. I’m tired of everything being unprecedented and could really go for some of those good old precedented times. Covid fatigue is real and only exacerbated as we deal with a polarized America steeped with misinformation spreading, anti-mask and anti-vaxxer fuckheads who are too busy doing their own “research” to bother listening to reason. Instead, they apparently wish for this thing to go on forever. To what end, I can’t say. So they can call the rest of us sheep? Well, baaah on them. This sheep is grateful to be vaccinated, as the current Covid surge in Minnesota is largely hospitalizing and killing all those unvaccinated scholars who chose to do their own research instead of following the advice of renowned experts. You know, because conspiracy. Along with Covid fatigue comes compassion fatigue. At this point, I feel zero compassion for the anti-vaxxer and anti-mask crowd who now find themselves on ventilators in the hospital. You had your chance. You blew it. I’m only sad that you’re taking up much needed space in the ICU that could be used for a more deserving person instead of your reckless, selfish ass. Does this make me a resentful bitch? Fuck yeah it does, and I’m okay with that.



I mourn for what we have lost. The images of 2019 fill my heart with sadness as I miss feeling so carefree. I miss the before times. I realize cell phone photos generally represent our best moments, although I did stumble upon some photos documenting the trials of potty training, which was anything but a good time. However, even those photos are pretty funny and still make me smile.



Recently I posted a pro-vaccination article on Facebook and an old high school friend responded by pointing out that vaccination does not prevent infection and how the only thing she trusts are well run scientific studies, which are lacking with Covid. Of course they are lacking, as the virus is fairly new and these types of studies take a while to conduct. BUT more than enough data has been gathered to show that Covid vaccines greatly decrease serious disease, hospitalization and death. You may still get infected, but chances are it won’t kill you if you’ve been vaccinated. I hear reports everyday on the local news regarding the number of ICU beds occupied by the vaccinated vs. the unvaccinated, and those numbers make it pretty evident that being vaccinated is more than worthwhile. Simply put, vaccines work in preventing deaths. Vaccines are effective. Just ask smallpox about the effectiveness of vaccines. Oh wait, smallpox no longer exists. Nevermind.

My sons received their first Covid vaccination shots last week and I was filled with gratitude for having made it this far and gratitude for the scientists who worked so hard to get us here. I am hoping it’s one more step that will strip away some of the anxiety and stress that has become part of daily life since March 2020. Unfortunately, I am afraid that along with learning to live with this virus we will also have to learn to live with those people who choose to cling to the idea of their rugged individualism at the expense of the common collective good of the human race. It is this concept of individualism that is poisoning our country and contributing to America’s death culture. Whether it’s the latest mass shooting or the 762,000 and counting Covid deaths, mass death in America has become normalized. It doesn’t have to be this way. It really doesn’t.

Yes, I'm judging you!

A stay-at-home parent without anyone to parent

I’m sending my youngest off to kindergarten tomorrow and find myself surprised by how emotional this prospect is making me feel. William will turn six the very next day. He just missed the cut-off date to start school last year, which, considering Covid, did not seem like a bad thing at the time, as virtual kindergarten sounded like a nightmare. Now, here we are, kindergarten eve in the midst of yet another Covid surge. Thankfully our school district has a mask mandate, yet, like most parents of unvaccinated children, I’m nervous as hell about sending him and his brother to in-person school. I’m also nervous as tomorrow I become a stay-at-home parent who no longer has anyone at home to parent.

Nearly nine years ago I quit a job I loved to become a stay-at-home mom. I didn’t really want to quit, but I had been commuting from south Minneapolis to Rochester for more than three years. The commute was 80 miles one way and took me an hour and a half to complete. Three hours a day in my Toyota Corolla. Three hours a day. On top of that, my job as a staff photojournalist for a mid-sized newspaper required a hell of a lot of driving for daily assignments. Needless to say, it all took a toll on me and once my oldest son Oskar was born, it just became too much. Between the price of gas and daycare, and my meager salary at the paper, working didn’t make a whole lot of sense. During my commuting years, I was constantly looking for work closer to home, but if you know anything about the newspaper industry, you know it's been in decline for quite awhile, and any kind of photojournalism job is pretty tough to find. When I finally quit, I continued to look for work, expanding my search to any job that might require a journalism background. Communications, PR and even office administration jobs — I applied to some 70 positions and got nowhere. Finally, I resigned myself to focus on building my freelance photography business SisuPhoto, while taking care of Oskar. I named the business after the Finnish word “sisu” which loosely translates to strength of will, determination, perseverance and acting rationally in the face of adversity. Frankly, I thought it was easier to remember than my Finnish surname and Jokinen Photography really doesn’t have much of a ring to it.

I had some weddings to photograph from time to time, started photographing families, occasionally got some freelance work from my old newspaper and slowly built up a bit of a client base, but never felt very focused, as being a stay at home parent of a young child is a job in and of itself. Fast forward a few years, just as things with Oskar were getting a bit easier, William was born. And now, nearly six years later, I’m facing a brand new phase in life — being a stay at home parent without any kids at home. At 46, I’m trying to figure out what this all means and what I should be doing.

Before the pandemic, I was very excited about reaching this point in my life and facing so many possibilities. I was excited at the prospect of reevaluating my career aspects. But now, like everything else in life, it’s rife with uncertainty. Reaching this point was always going to have some uncertainty involved, but not the kind of life-or-death uncertainty we now seem to face everyday without end in the midst of Covid.

So what am I going to do with myself? Recently my former boss sent me a text with a link to a website for city government communication jobs, encouraging me to look into applying. I was flattered by her encouragement and vote of confidence after all these years. I checked out a number of the job postings and found a few that I thought I'd be fairly well qualified for. However, after being out of the workforce for so long, and not having more formal writing experience, I feel like I’d be facing the same uphill battle I experienced when I first quit my job and applied to these kinds of positions. The positions are located in suburbs that I don’t live in. If I could find a similar position in my own community, I’d apply for it in a second. The first two years of my time working for the paper in Rochester, I lived in Rochester and felt a connection with the community I covered. Once I moved and started the long commute, I lost much of that connection and eventually just resented my overall situation so ultimately, by the time I quit, I was not doing my best work. I need that connection and need to care about the work I’m doing.

When I began writing this, I thought it was going to be about the emotions involved with sending my baby off to kindergarten, and now I find it’s morphed into a finding myself kind of essay. I suppose that’s not a bad thing, as I obviously really need to figure this all out. Ideally, what do I want to do? I love being a photographer, both the creative process of making photographs, but more so the human interaction involved. Photojournalism will always be my first love, as the act of visual storytelling is simply amazing and I think I’m fairly good at it. Ideally someone would pay me to do documentary photography. Where do I find this magical person?? Now that’s the million dollar question right there. In the meantime, I can make money photographing weddings, families and seniors, while trying to do it in a documentary style. It’s not quite the same as straight up documentary photography, and I’ve always been better at the photography side of the photography business as compared to the business side. I struggle with the business side to the point that it scares me, and through the years I’ve told myself that I suck at it. Maybe it’s time I buck up and say fuck that noise. Maybe it’s time I quit being a chicken and really try to make the business side work. I’ve always used my role as a stay-at-home parent as an excuse for not excelling with the business. Well, that excuse is going off to kindergarten tomorrow with my son William. I think maybe it’s time I put some sisu into SisuPhoto. Or I suppose I could just take William’s career advice and look into becoming a construction worker, sewer worker or movie star. Tough choices . . . tough choices.

What is this strange feeling?

Me and my boys post Lake Superior swim.

A couple weeks ago I was driving and found myself feeling something I hadn’t felt in quite awhile. Happy.

I didn’t recognize the feeling right away, as it's been so fleeting and elusive since the pandemic began more than 15-months ago. I certainly wasn’t doing anything special when the feeling crept up on me  — just driving around running errands. But I felt happy to just be out doing something so mundane and normal while listening to music on the radio. The sun was shining and I was thinking about the future and upcoming plans. It’s amazing how having plans again and things to look forward to can make everything so much better.

My Sausage Camp family together again for 2021. All adults vaccinated and kids tested.

Of course, I am wary of letting my guard down too much when it comes to getting back to normal life and activities. As much as we all want the pandemic to be over, I realize it is not. While so much of the world is desperate to get vaccinated as fast spreading variants wreak havoc, we’re at a point in America where so many anti-vaxx idiots jeopardize the progress we’ve made in fighting the pandemic. The fact that our government has to offer incentives to vaccine hesitant people while others in the world are literally dying to get their hands on these life saving vaccines is embarrassing and shameful. I’m just not sure at this point what we can do to fix this problem. Focusing on getting the vaccines out to the world makes the most sense, while giving up on the stubborn and ignorant Americans who chose to not get vaccinated.

As the mother of two boys who are not yet old enough to be vaccinated, I am very aware of the dangers that remain regarding Covid. My husband and I have weighed the risk factors, and with the knowledge that our community transmission has decreased significantly with high rates of vaccination, we have put the kids back out there for the most part. My youngest is participating in a summer school pre-K program and my oldest is attending summer camps. They are required to wear masks indoors, but for the most part, we are going unmasked outside this summer and enjoying time with friends and family again. It’s such a joy to see them happy and experiencing normal childhood activities. I have hope that they’ll be fully vaccinated this fall and attend school in-person.

As for myself, I have again eaten indoors at restaurants, though I still prefer to sit outside if I can. I have experienced unmasked shopping at Target. I have hugged friends and family. I bought a plane ticket to visit a friend in Denver and see my two favorite bands play a show at Red Rocks. As I think about these simple things we used to take for granted, I feel the sides of my mouth creasing upward. What is this strange phenomenon? What is this weird feeling welling up inside of me? Oh yeah, it’s mother fucking happiness mixed in with a bit of joy. It’s a goddamn smile! It may be too late to counteract the frown lines that have deepened over the last 15-months, but it feels pretty incredible and I’d like to take this moment to revel in it a bit. We may not be out of this pandemic. This might only be a temporary reprieve. But if you’re feeling like I am today, do yourself a favor and enjoy it. Take a moment to sit back and smile. You’ve earned it. 

Long overdue visit with grandma and grandpa!

Tomorrow we can go back to worrying about ALL the shit. 

 

QuaranTreat Fairies Be Fluttering About

Since November, I’ve embarked on a Covid winter project to bake a little something new each week and distribute these treats among my friends and neighbors. The idea was born upon contemplation of a new year’s resolution following a 2020 that pretty much sucked all the joy out of life. The prospect of giving something up as a resolution for 2021 seemed ridiculous to me, since we had all lost so much already. Instead, I liked the idea of doing some small act of kindness for the people I care about. I know very few people who do not like baked goods, and what’s better than surprise baked goods delivered to your home mid-week during a shitty ass pandemic?

My first week of treats consisted of pumpkin cream cheese muffins, a recipe I hadn’t whipped up in years. It was a great excuse to make these calorie bombs again, knowing I wouldn’t sit at home and eat them all, yet I’d be able to have one with my coffee. Okay, maybe I had two . . . Still, I was able to give them away and not have them sitting at my house tempting me all day. At the time I didn’t know what to call this little project. My 5-year-old William and I drove around south Minneapolis and delivered muffins with a note calling ourselves something like the “Covid Treat fairies,” realizing later that Covid treats sounded less than appealing. I reached out to a creative friend for ideas and she suggested QuaranTreats instead. And thus, the QuaranTreat Fairies were born. Thanks Cori!

Cream cheese filled pumpkin muffins, a.k.a. calorie bombs

Facing a long, cold Minnesota winter trying to do distance learning with a 10-year-old while entertaining a bored 5-year-old during a pandemic is less than ideal. But this project has been nothing but positive and fun and it is helping us get through the Covid winter of our discontent. William likes to help me out in the kitchen, so it’s a good way to occupy him and get him involved in a hands-on way. I really enjoy baking and have taken this as an opportunity to challenge myself a bit in the kitchen. I’ve tried baking macarons and baklava for the first time ever, along with decorating sugar cookies with royal icing. The baklava was one of the tastiest things I’ve ever made and will definitely be revisited. The royal icing was a big learning experience and pain in the ass, but the results were very pretty. I’d like to do it again, but when I have a whole day to set aside to work on it. I do hope to revisit macarons again, too, and see if I can get my colors to pop this time.

 

Incredibly delicious baklava

At the moment, delivery mode is pretty basic and not elegant. I am hoping to develop something slightly more sophisticated than the plastic ziplock bags with twine handles we’re using now, mostly because adding the twine handles is a pain in the ass. I recently ordered some white gift bags with handles that I’d like to have William decorate with his best 5-year-old artistry. It’d certainly save me some time to not have to add the twine to the bags.

QuaranTreat Fairy William in action.

Overall, there’s really nothing not to love about this project. William and I get to bake together, I get to experiment a bit, and ultimately we get to spend an afternoon together driving around, listening to music and dropping off surprise treats to people who need a little pick-me-up. I usually grab a coffee from Caribou while we deliver and William gets a little lesson on basic kindness. Meanwhile, I get to satisfy my sweet tooth without devouring way too many calories and it just feels really good to do something nice for people and put out some positive energy.

 

Raspberry white chocolate Motherlode scones

This past week I went a bit nuts with basic chocolate chip cookies. I made a lot of cookies and we ended up doing 15 deliveries. It took awhile, but we made it. The experience of doing this many deliveries and looking at the list of friends we didn’t get to this week, really makes me realize how lucky I am to have this many friends. Each week I try to figure out who hasn’t been hit in a while and is due up for a visit from the QuaranTreat Fairies. I also make an effort to pay attention to what’s going on in people’s lives. Who recently had a baby? Who recently posted about losing a loved one, having a sick kid or just a shitty ass day? I try to pay attention and remember and then make sure they’re on the week’s delivery list or on deck for the following week. So, I guess in a way, the project has made me more empathetic and aware. I’m also a sucker for teachers and nurses. I really like to throw treats their way, as it is not an easy time to be either.

It may not change the world, but I’m very happy to have the opportunity to spread a little joy right now with butter and sugar, under the QuaranTreat Fairy moniker. It’s all very simple, but sweet. Literally.