Shelter in Place, San Francisco, California, August 16, 2020

Yesterday’s heat still trapped in my small convalescent bedroom drove me outside this morning to enjoy the sunrise and the breath of a cooler breeze. It looks like we’re in for an unusually hot weekend here in San Francisco.

As I nursed a cup of coffee and read the morning's news, I looked up every few minutes to follow a plane across the little patch of sky framed by our neighbors’ palms, the sound preceding the glint of morning light on shiny wings. Five months ago, I would have noticed neither the familiar sound nor sight of air traffic overhead, so steady was its presence. But today, even as the heat begins to remount and the sun has already driven me inside, I hear every jarring engine in the sky like it is a stranger come to call.

Something has changed. Either we are getting closer to regular, pre-pandemic airport volume, or the weather pattern has forced the lesser traffic on a path over the city for the first time in months. Either way, I don’t know whether to be happy at a possible harbinger of a noisier normal, or sad to lose the tranquility we’ve enjoyed (and either way, it's really, really hot).