From Far Away

At the very beginning, during the early days of confusion and uncertainty, we moved through international airports with an anxious vigilance. My spouse and I had carefully loaded our daughters’ small backpacks with extra masks and disinfecting wipes. In the lounge, we sanitized nearby surfaces and listened to workers gossip about the virus and worry about their jobs. In the Boeing 787, we swabbed the armrests and folding tables before taking off for a nine-hour trip. The normally packed flight had empty rows between passengers. The fear of close quarters, not yet government mandates, made for apprehensive “social distances.” Then, just before we touched down halfway around the world, Ottawa clamped down on international travel.

The pandemic had not been part of our plan to spend two years on a remote island in the Tsushima Strait, midway between Japan and Korea, so that we could give our kids the cultural and educational experience of a lifetime. Serendipitously...