The New Normal

Published by Bev Taylor at June 30, 2020

In January of this year, 2020, the City began the Downtown Revitalization Complete Streets Project in Historic Downtown Farmington. The project is expected to take the better part of 2020 with the reopening of Downtown scheduled for November 2020.  

With the closure of our Main Street we have seen a significant decline in our business. Things got worse when the pandemic hit and everything shut down and people were quarantined for months.

The COVID-19 virus is still ravaging populations around the world.  The Four Corners area of the Southwest where I live has been hit heavily.  The Navajo Nation is our neighbor to the west and, sadly, the numbers of COVID cases and deaths have been some of the highest in the US after the states of New York and New Jersey. The President of the Navajo Nation ordered a complete lockdown of the Reservation for about 9 weekends in a row. Currently the “hot spots” are in Texas, California and Arizona.

Home seamstresses began making masks and caps by the thousands to help fill the shortages in hospitals and medical facilities for healthcare workers. Debate continues, however, among the general population about the medical recommendations to wear a mask in public. In the minds of many people it is difficult to fight an enemy that is unseen and silent until it is too late. Sadly, wearing a mask or not wearing one has become a political issue. With ALL medical personnel wearing masks when treating COVID patients it seems like a good idea for the rest of us to be wearing one so we do not become a COVID patient. 

Everyone continues to talk about “when things get back to normal”. I’m pretty sure “normal” life as we knew it is gone forever. When I leave my house I check, “keys, glasses, phone”, and now “mask”, the new normal.