If I ran the zoo

While so much of our economy is suffering from COVID-19 these days, there is the beginning of what I believe to be a sea change that is actually stimulating the real estate market in places like La Conner.

First of all, La Conner is awesome. For most of us, that’s the only reason we are here. In a small town like this, there aren’t large employers attracting people from all over the country. Yes, there are small businesses like our mayor’s wonderful jewelry shop and there is our local newspaper which you are reading now that has won so many prizes over the years.

Houses for sale are getting multiple offers and in most cases selling for well above the listing price. People want to get out of crowded neighborhoods in Seattle, for instance, and the fact that so many employees are now working from home allows you to live wherever the heck you want.

Apparently, that is not going to change even when COVID-19 is, please God, dormant. Large law firms in Seattle, for instance, have decided that they don’t need to pay exorbitant rates for office space when their employees can work from home and do meetings on Zoom.

People are wary of living in crowded spaces, thinking that COVID-19 or some other deadly pandemic will strike again. Every time I turn on the news, I hear someone saying COVID-19 ain’t going away as soon as we had hoped and there are new variants heading our way that will complicate the vaccination process.

As I write this, our nation passes the 500,000 number, causing more American deaths than World War I, World War II and the Vietnam wars combined. As horrifying that is, we have to look to the future and look for any positives we can find.

For many of us, we have much more time on our hands than ever before in our adult lives. Us older folks have been separated from family for way too long. My kids have been forced to work from home or have no work at all.

This has given them time to realize how precious our time on this planet is and that there are no guarantees on how long we will be around. The lesson is that we have to live in the NOW and follow our dreams and spend time with people we really care about. Many young people I’ve spoken to have said they have to live where they really want to live and do everything they can to do what they really want to do for work.

For us older folks, we have to confront the stark reality that we ain’t gonna be here forever and it’s now or never in terms of going places we want to go to spend time with people we care about. Let’s join hands across age and gender and racial and political and geographic and financial gaps that have separated us for so long.

Ok, ready? All together now … thank you God for every minute we have on this planet!